Abuse is a community problem that needs a community solution. Predatory and bullying people often carefully assess communities for the cues that tell them whether their abuse will be tolerated or not, before joining and before abusing. Are other abusers enjoying impunity? Are women and youth devalued by misogynist jokes, rigid gender roles, lower status or exclusion from leadership? Are community members afraid to communicate with each other about difficult or embarrassing issues? Are children unsupervised or unvalued? Are other vulnerable people unsupported or marginalized? These are some of the bases on which abusers make their choices.
If as a community we are inhospitable to the patterns of abusers, they will either change or move on.
Often, abusers choose people that they expect to be disbelieved and abandoned by the crowd: people who may have disabilities or lower status than they. They often spend a long time grooming and disempowering their target before the abuse or bullying begins. If this takes place in a weak community, the experience of abuse is more that of being caught in a vortex, rather than of an individual’s choice to resist or accept abuse. I never characterize abusers and their targets as mutually responsible for the pattern of abuse.
As a society we have just begun accepting the message that sexual abuse and other forms of abuse and violence are the choice of the abuser, and that targets are not to blame for what they wore, what they had to drink, for loving and reuniting with an abuser, or for any of their feelings – none of that means that someone ever deserves, wants or is responsible for the chosen abusive actions of another. Communities must consciously reinforce and amplify this message. Rather, abuse is the predictable outcome of a weak and confused community being a host for bad intentions.
Communities create safety by promoting natural and healthy boundaries that clearly say NO! to abuse and misogyny. This can happen in so many ways: when we refuse to laugh at those jokes, when we supervise or limit the access of unsafe people to our group activities, when we require abusers to take steps to increase their ability to participate safely in a community, when we speak up for survivors, when we believe people the first time they disclose abuse, when we do everything possible to support them.
Please take a moment to imagine how good that would feel, if you are a survivor. And how different and new from most of our experiences in community. And then imagine how it would feel as that safety and support rippled out to the entire community. And then imagine that as a beacon for everyone everywhere.
– Pamela Rubin
Photo copyright Joshua Hilgart-Roy