Domestic abuse and victim blaming on MN?

[BeBlueSeal]

After I feel like hijacking many vulnerable women’s threads, thought it’d be interesting to start a conversation about this in its own right.

I love Mumsnet. I’ve used it and read it since I became a Mum 20 years ago. I love how it’s a female focused environment with smart clever women. Three babies in it’s still very much my go-to, googling any baby related issue. I’ll put “Mumsnet” on the end of my search because I value the input of “mumsnetters”!

I am genuinely disturbed by how many domestic violence related threads I see on here with victim blaming language constantly thrown around.

Why don’t you tell him to fuck Off?
i wouldn’t stand for this
i I would have done X, I would have done Y.
staying for the children ha ha ha ha are you serious?
you need to be stronger.
Are you a doormat?
Why did you have children with this man? Why did you have another child with this man?
How can you put your kids through this? I wouldn’t stand for this.
You’re not five years old.

Is there a fundamental misunderstanding here as to what domestic abuse actually is among swathes of women who have never experienced it?

why are so many people on this site unable to grasp that they do not understand or know what it’s like to be in this position ?

when I was in refuge with my babies, I met so many wonderful women. Intelligent, vibrant, wonderful women. Why does the cliche still exist on this site that DV victims need to “wake up”, tell their abusers to “fuck off” and “stop having kids”?

You have to wade through a lot of victim blaming crap from posters who know fuck all but you will find genuine posters who offer useful advice. It would be nice if there were a safe space. But the traffic is chat or AIBU.

MN is a public open forum where people can post anonymously.
What more did you expect?

Kindness.

Sadly I think this is just one example of the nastiness, lack of empathy and lack of real world common sense you see on here. A lot of replies are just so divorced from reality. I think people forget that there is a 3D world on the other side of the screen where things are not black and white but instead where there is a real human going through real stuff which will always be much more nuanced, messy, and complicated.

I hate it when you can see that the OP is really going through some stuff and obviously just needs a virtual handhold and get snark back. Hardly anyone would treat a human like that in real life.

I agree. There are a fair number of just plain nasty posters

I don’t think it is ok for a child to be alone with an abusive person they are scared of with no one to get any protection or comfort from.

Knowing that could happen to a child if they split is what keeps some from doing so.

There was a thread not long ago where a woman decided not to leave for this reason. After legal advice she knew there were no guarantees at all that her child would not have to be alone with the father the child dreaded.

As someone that was abused by a step parent I would never leave these comments but the unhealed, unhealthy part of my brain really wants to sometimes.

I have a lot of experience of DA, unfortunately, and I understand how hard it is to leave but as a parent I can’t comprehend allowing your children to live with abuse/be abused.

Many women come from abusive backgrounds and are completely brainwashed by their partners. They do not have the resources mentally or physically to just up and leave . They live in fear to the point that they are scared to get help because of the potential consequences from the partner.
It really is not an easy situation to be in .
When they do reach out to mumsnet or any forum they need sensible,compassionate advice.

My parents had an abusive relationship and my father was physically abusive (not sexually) to my sister and I. My mother always claimed she wanted to stay ‘for the children’. Really she just didn’t want to be on her own do she was facilitating his abuse. Had she been told by multiple people she might have listened. On these posts I think the children are more important than their mother. Women who have abusive partners need to be told over and over again that putting up with it and having more children is not the right thing to do.

Listen here OP….

I am the adult child of a woman who was in an abusive relationship from 19 and got pregnant 🙄 lo and behold he was vile so she went back to my grandparents who helped her then guess what? She done the same again and got with another absolute waste of space (my ‘dad) who battered her but instead of leaving, she has a baby stayed with him - despite knowing he was abusive to her first child! She then had me and I witnessed him cracking her ribs, bartering her, beating my brother up and of course she then turned to drink to block it out - well lucky her!! I of my siblings had no way of blocking out the abusivd twat. She could have left and moved in with her parents but she made poor choices constantly and as had to get on with her shif choices.

She died at 56 because she made another shit choice in smoking. I chose a different path and if she was here bus I’d go to town on her with my anger so don’t come in here completely ignorant to the facts pretending you know everything and you’ve lived everything because you haven’t!!!! My mother was her own worse enemy and made shit choices again and agian I we suffered due to her shit choices! My poor brother got battered on Christmas Day for eating the turkey leg!! You zero idea. She was an alcoholic and pissed ever day then he would get more angry and do the cycle continued. I’m fucking raging with her for putting us through that and of course him but no one likes him anyway and I don’t have contact with him, but ignorant people feel sad for my mam and I feel anger toward her as i lived it m,

I made better choices than mg mam and my kids have had a much better Lund than the one I had and I’m proud of that. I gad ti drag myself up with zero supprt yet she had support and didn’t take it so no one will tell me that she didn’t have options so NIf all situations are the same and some people don’t help themselves

I think your should keep the blame for the abuse firmly where it lies - with the abuser!

I am shocked by how recklessly women will almost bully other women into taking radical and immediate action, in a situation where they and their children's lives might be absolutely imprerolled by so doing. One of the times an abuser is most deadly, is when his victim is taking steps to leave him. This is just one of the reasons why people on here should be much more carefully about the directional, over simplistic advice they dole out to vulnerable women.

When I worked for Rape Crisis we never told women to leave. We spoke to them about their options, went through the likely risks of different course of action etc. And I promise you that wasn't because we didn't care about abuse!

Thank you for starting this thread. I could hardly agree more with everything you say here.

And in some situations attempting to leave will endanger her and her kids much more.

And no, already abused women do not need either a literal nor metaphorical "kick up the arse".

I am really sorry for what you went through, but it is dangerous to assume that everyone else's situation is exactly the same, and that the solution for one woman will be identical to the solution for another.

The survivor knows her own situation infinitely better than someone hearing a couple of paragraphs about it on the internet.

In many abusive households, the woman is just as disempowered as a child would be. And it is not always possible or safe for her to reach for the help you speak of.

Why do you assume that it is safe and possible for all women to leave? Again, I am so sorry you lived through this experience as a child - it must have been horrendous, and I assume from what you say that you are absolutely confident your mother could have safely and easily left, if she had chosen to.

But (forgive me) you are wrong to extrapolate from your mother's situation that is is safe and possible for all women living with abusers to leave whenever they decide to.

Even when it's dangerous?

I’ve never seen this with dv threads, only threads where the dp/dh isn’t helping at home etc. Maybe people are trying to shock the op into action but yes I think people should think carefully

The most important thing you say here, in my opinion, is that every situation is unique. I think this is one of the key reasons that the responses to DV threads are often so problematic. On very little evidence, just two or three paragraphs, many posters will assume they understand the OP's situation well enough to advise radical and potentially life-ending action. They don't, they can't.

I think the direct approach should be done within the correct context

Someone saying 'leave' when it might result in murder is wrong, whether they put kisses at the end of their comment or not

I took direct to mean blunt, non mollycoddling, not careless

Respectfully, there are lots of assumptions in here that I completely disagree with. That there is "no excuse" for being dependant on another person, for example. I can imagine countless "excuses" myself. You might be disabled. You might be mentally ill. You might fear he will kill your pets. You might fear he will kill your children. He might have forced you to move to a country where you don't know the language. He might take all your money. He might have destroyed your career. He might have porbgraohuc pictures of you he threatens to send your family. I could go on, and on, and on.

There are SO MANY ways a woman can be made entirely dependant on a man, entirely against her will.

I agree with you, OP.

It amazes me how women seem to have no insight or curiosity about the dynamics of abuse, and no understanding of just how violent and dangerous men can be.

How lovely for them to live their whole lives feeling safe in their own homes.

I think the issue is ultimately that asking random women for advice will generally result in responses that, even when well-intended and empathetic, will draw strongly from their own experiences, so their usefulness amd applicability will be widely variable.

It seems as though the best advice would simply be 'call Women's Aid or another professional organisation' and for no other comments to be made on the thread giving suggestions or advice – but if a woman is capable of posting on here, she's capable of finding and contacting that professional help already, and she wants people's opinions. Which of course, will vary.

So I think it’s a case of getting what you ask for, which won't always be what you need.

I think you are saying that women stay in abusive situations because they are not empowered enough to leave, and harsh comments on Mumsnet can sometimes provide that empowerment.

Is that what you mean?

If so, I strongly disagree. Or at least, I think it's rarely the case that people stay due to a lack of empowerment. I think they usually stay due to absolute and often justifiable terror.

This.

Unless a man is witnessed by police breaking his child's bones there is absolutely no way he will be denied visitation rights. Even if police witness him breaking his child's bones, excuses will be made for him and he will get visitation. As for emotional or psychological abuse - forget it.

The rights of men are all the family courts care about. They have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the idea that children need a father in their lives, that nothing good can come of a single mother raising children on her own, and any useless waste of space whose name appears on a birth cert will do.

So many women have been conditioned by their upbringing or by their abusive partner to lose sight of what is normal and what is completely unacceptable in a relationship. This is especially true when the abuse is emotional, psychological, or financial. The result is that they don't think Women's Aid is what they need. He has never hit them after all.