Breaking the isolation and the silence to come together in solidarity is how we overcome not only individual abusers, but abuse itself.
Exactly. I mentioned that making my peace with my abuser ' other victims really helped me come to terms with what we did to each other under her auspices. Another thing it did was it meant I learned from her brother that she was telling bald faced lies about my health and actions to her family about me, and her brother learned that she had done the same to me about him. It made us both realize that she was not telling us the truth as she saw it, something she had convinced us of for years. Comparing stories and trusting each other allowed us to see through her and better protect ourselves from her. Keeping us fighting each other kept us under her control for much longer than possible otherwise. More than that of course is the social effect of the speech of many victims.
I like your distiction between a troubled non-abusive person who hurts others and learns better, and an abuser. The abuser though is very good at looking like the troubled person though, because look at how many vow to change during the honeymoon phase. This is of course why Zuko needed his redemption arc.
The Jewish community is not really any more supportive of abuse victims than American mainstream culture, no. For example, lots of Jewish boys and men are involved in Gamergate. There is a lot in geek culture misogyny that is extremely like the Jewish flavor of misogyny, including the vision of the ideal male, (quiet, scholarly, clever, a little frail) and the sense of competition with a gentile or mainstream image of masculinity (the jock). However, within the Jewish community itself, the rhetoric used to support abusers and silence victims us different. A lot of victims get silenced in the name of "not spreading malicious slander" (a major no-no in Judaism) or in the name of not airing dirty laundry in front of Goyim, and many abusers are welcomed in the name of Jewish solidarity in the face of Gentile oppression. There are pockets there are very supportive indeed, but there are pockets that are hotbed of abuse and abuse denialism.
In spite of the number of needy Jewish men who engaged in Gamergate on the side of the trolls or were trolls themselves, the rhetoric of the professional victim just isn't common in Jewish circles. Jewish gamergaters are more likely to talk about how these women are really outsiders who want to make geeks look bad in front of non-geeks. Different tactics, same shit.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2015-04-15 02:00 pm (UTC)Exactly. I mentioned that making my peace with my abuser ' other victims really helped me come to terms with what we did to each other under her auspices. Another thing it did was it meant I learned from her brother that she was telling bald faced lies about my health and actions to her family about me, and her brother learned that she had done the same to me about him. It made us both realize that she was not telling us the truth as she saw it, something she had convinced us of for years. Comparing stories and trusting each other allowed us to see through her and better protect ourselves from her. Keeping us fighting each other kept us under her control for much longer than possible otherwise. More than that of course is the social effect of the speech of many victims.
I like your distiction between a troubled non-abusive person who hurts others and learns better, and an abuser. The abuser though is very good at looking like the troubled person though, because look at how many vow to change during the honeymoon phase. This is of course why Zuko needed his redemption arc.
The Jewish community is not really any more supportive of abuse victims than American mainstream culture, no. For example, lots of Jewish boys and men are involved in Gamergate. There is a lot in geek culture misogyny that is extremely like the Jewish flavor of misogyny, including the vision of the ideal male, (quiet, scholarly, clever, a little frail) and the sense of competition with a gentile or mainstream image of masculinity (the jock). However, within the Jewish community itself, the rhetoric used to support abusers and silence victims us different. A lot of victims get silenced in the name of "not spreading malicious slander" (a major no-no in Judaism) or in the name of not airing dirty laundry in front of Goyim, and many abusers are welcomed in the name of Jewish solidarity in the face of Gentile oppression. There are pockets there are very supportive indeed, but there are pockets that are hotbed of abuse and abuse denialism.
In spite of the number of needy Jewish men who engaged in Gamergate on the side of the trolls or were trolls themselves, the rhetoric of the professional victim just isn't common in Jewish circles. Jewish gamergaters are more likely to talk about how these women are really outsiders who want to make geeks look bad in front of non-geeks. Different tactics, same shit.