Good morning little sister,
I hope you are having a relaxing morning, after your exciting week. Have you had time to process everything yet? Have you discerned direction forward?
Saturday is the day when I clean my house, and usually I listen to TED talks while I am working. Yesterday I listened to Leslie Morgan Steiner talk about domestic violence. I felt like I could understand my youngest after digesting the information. But of course, the info was chilling. One of her strongest messages, though, was that abuse/violence thrives in silence. Her way out of the violence was to tell everyone - friends, family, perfect strangers. It takes absolute vulnerability to tell, to expose the horrible things that happen in our private relationships.
(http://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html)
It hit me, suddenly, that our silence is the swamp. Nothing is said, and so nothing changes, and the situations are stagnate, they get deeper and murkier. Me too, talking about what happened is what agitates the swamp and gets the crap moving. It overcomes stagnation.
I saw a film recently where a man was beating his wife. They didn't show the beating, we just heard it. Other characters could hear it. One had tried to intervene and the violator was physically aggressive to her. It was frightening. In this scene, the woman who had tried to help was in her bed, listening, and finally just had to do something. So she got a pot and a spoon, started drumming and walked to the house, stood outside alone, drumming. The violator heard it and came out, threatening, she is afraid, but suddenly five or six other women are beside her with their pots. All of them looked him in the eye. He realized everyone knew what he was, and he brusquely pushed through the small crowd of women. He left.
It is almost impossible to go first. We don't have role models. We often don't know if we have the strength. For so many years I was complimented over and over for my strength. People were recognizing and commenting on my endurance and patience. We need to recognize the strength it takes to speak out, to stand up first, to say no, to tell our brothers we will scream if they don't get the hell out of our bedroom and hands off of our bodies! It is fractionally easier to be second or third - although that still takes an immense amount of strength. It is easy to join a movement.
So, let's sing. Let's tell our stories.
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. -Albert Einstein
Love from Clare
Rereading and furious with B#1 again. How dare he brush off his molesting you with saying he was drunk or using drugs. He was keeping the surface of the swamp calm and lifeless...we are so lifeless...why didn't apology occur to him? taking responsibility for the pain he caused? That would agitate the surface, though, wouldn't it. And we are so much more comfortable when it looks okay.
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