AMG victim-blaming
This is something that cannot even be SAID in wow_ladies without getting a mod ban, so happily I will say it here: I am getting so godsdamn sick of how it is utterly forbidden to even SUGGEST to a person in an abusive, manipulative situation that they might have done something differently.
Victim-blaming is bad. I'm aware of that. People are not responsible for the abusive actions of others and suggesting that they are at fault for the situation they are in is not helpful. But you know what else is not helpful? The continual insistance that there was NOTHING, AT ANY POINT IN TIME, EVER, that the girl in question could have or should have done differently. Nothing. Ever!
Why do I hate this? Because it's infantilizing! It provides a constant narrative of helpless victimization, where the bad situation was imposed on the girl entirely from the outside, as if by God, and that there was NOTHING SHE COULD HAVE DONE to avoid or mitigate getting in this situation. She was helpless at the whims of a cruel world, and she always will be.
It's not true, and worse, it's logically inconsistant -- because if there was nothing she could have done to avoid that situation, then how could there be anything she CAN do to mitigate or get out of the situation in the future? Every resource that is available to her now was available to her then. If she can walk away now, she could walk away then. If she can dump him now, she could have not gotten involved with a toxic boyfriend then.
Most importantly, it precludes the notion of learning from your experiences and moving on. If the girls decisions have NOTHING to do with what happened to her, if there was NO way she could have avoided the situation she got into, then what does that say for her future? If there's nothing about this situation that she can look at and say, "Doing X and Y contributed to me being in this situation in the future, so for the future, I can protect myself by doing things differently." By casting her in the role of a doomed, powerless waif at the mercy of a malicious and unavoidable universe, you have also removed her ability to learn and grow and protect herself in the future.
Victim-blaming is bad. I'm aware of that. People are not responsible for the abusive actions of others and suggesting that they are at fault for the situation they are in is not helpful. But you know what else is not helpful? The continual insistance that there was NOTHING, AT ANY POINT IN TIME, EVER, that the girl in question could have or should have done differently. Nothing. Ever!
Why do I hate this? Because it's infantilizing! It provides a constant narrative of helpless victimization, where the bad situation was imposed on the girl entirely from the outside, as if by God, and that there was NOTHING SHE COULD HAVE DONE to avoid or mitigate getting in this situation. She was helpless at the whims of a cruel world, and she always will be.
It's not true, and worse, it's logically inconsistant -- because if there was nothing she could have done to avoid that situation, then how could there be anything she CAN do to mitigate or get out of the situation in the future? Every resource that is available to her now was available to her then. If she can walk away now, she could walk away then. If she can dump him now, she could have not gotten involved with a toxic boyfriend then.
Most importantly, it precludes the notion of learning from your experiences and moving on. If the girls decisions have NOTHING to do with what happened to her, if there was NO way she could have avoided the situation she got into, then what does that say for her future? If there's nothing about this situation that she can look at and say, "Doing X and Y contributed to me being in this situation in the future, so for the future, I can protect myself by doing things differently." By casting her in the role of a doomed, powerless waif at the mercy of a malicious and unavoidable universe, you have also removed her ability to learn and grow and protect herself in the future.