Sunflower Voices

What is a “victim mentality” and why are we so afraid of it?

 

Just like saying , “I believe in equal rights and all that, but I’m no feminist!” some women are adamant in distancing themselves from the word “victim” or the even worse “victim mentality.” To be fair, we have been lashed with the word as soon as we start speaking up about violence or unfairness, so of course we become trained to avoid it.

 

The replacement of the word “victim” by “survivor” is a conscious choice for some, an option initiated by the feminist movement. To say survivor is to recognize women’s strength and resilience. It also correctly identifies the current pandemic of misogynist violence as something akin to the Holocaust or other genocides, for which English-speakers assign “survivor” status to those who do live afterwards.

 

But that is not what I am talking about. What concerns me is how often I have to read about a woman’s recent discovery of the joys of female solidarity, quickly followed by a caveat about not “indulging in victimhood.”

 

What exactly is this dangerous indulgence? Is it like having too many (or any) orgasms, or a job, or the vote, or ideas of one’s own?

 

I think the fear comes down to actually feeling what it feels like to be living through the tsunami of woman-hate roiling around this planet. And that is one thread we cannot pull if we like the status quo.

 

It was Ronald Reagan who spoke of “sob sisters”, who so effectively acted to demonize women living in poverty and who began to create an esprit and a voting bloc around repudiating caring. The pre-Christmas Scrooge became the role model. “Are there no prisons, no workhouses, no Treadmill, no Poor Laws?” it became fashionable again to ask.

 

So first we must see the American phobia of “victimhood” as springing from this rightist derailing of compassion – if we care, or if we have feelings or needs ourselves based in loss or trauma, then we can’t laugh along with the greed-is-gooders so we better not go near that if we want our chance at the gravy train. Forty years later, as the drop-outs from the middle class are finding, a safety net can be a handy thing. Hitting the ground hard, and noticing the pain – is that the victim mentality we need to avoid?

 

And then there is just good old patriarchy: its victims are not to be allowed their feelings, or their victimhood. Wipe that look off your face. In fact, sometimes the most harrowing aspect of victimization, in the words of survivors, is to be made by the abusers to pretend to enjoy one’s place as a rape-doll, an indentured servant, or a baby-factory. Because “indulging in victimhood” would spoil all the fun, wouldn’t it?

 

When we are safe to do so, instead of policing or disowning our feelings, then, in the face of such patriarchal demands, how about just feeling them? Such direct feeling short-circuits oppression – does not compute with racist patriarchy because the objects are being subjects.

 

That can be a little tricky – because we ourselves are afraid that through these feelings associated with our severe trauma we will be driven to madness, to the fringes of society, to hell. I once had an abusive professor who told me after class that looking at me “was like looking at an abyss.” This, after an exchange about “victimization” because, although my words were civil, there was tremendous feeling behind them, which shone out through my eyes. That abyss was extremely scary to him because you can’t argue with it. And it has no limit.

 

So we are all pretty scared of that free fall.

 

But how about “indulging” in our real feelings, just a little bit. Just to the extent we can and still feel grounded. If we allow ourselves to do this, with kindness toward ourselves, with gentleness, we may find out that there wasn’t so much to be afraid of. We may find out that we are a person worthy of caring about, of having our own feelings, and of being on this earth, regardless of what we have been through and what our feelings are.

 

 Photo by Chris