‘Is This Coercive Control?’ on BBC iPlayer

[waterlego]

Thought this might be of interest to some.

A group of young people watch a drama about a couple and discuss whether they are seeing evidence of coercive control in the relationship.

I seem to remember a discussion here previously about a programme with the same format in which young people discussed whether or not a (dramatised) sexual incident was consensual. I remember being surprised and a bit shocked at some of the attitudes the young people had in that programme and felt the same this time. Definitely an interesting watch and probably worth watching with teens/young people too.

Watching it now...

What did you think Fishfingers?

I was sadly not all that surprised that a proportion of the men couldn’t recognise the dominating/controlling behaviour but really disappointed that some of the women excused it too. There were some there who were so keen to victim blame right up until the last minute when they really couldn’t justify doing so any longer.

I was thinking ‘he’s a nasty bastard’ by about 5 minutes into watching the drama!

Without sounding patronising, the group were quite young (well younger than me!), and at that age, l am not sure l would have recognised it either. But my gut feeling about him was bad straight away. Almost wanted to scream at the tv - made me think how l would feel if that was my daughter because from the outside you can see it clear as day. Excellent programme though.

I watched it and felt hugely frustrated at the attitudes of many of the participants towards both people - very generally excusing toxic male behaviour and victim blaming the woman.
Even the women saying it was ok to break plates in anger and to call her a slut, saying she hadn't been a very good girlfriend...
We've got a long way to go.

Not actually seen it but having been in a similar relationship at a young age, don't particularly want to. However I'm sure the reason men get away with it so often is because very young women are immature like the teens and therefore accept unacceptable behaviour.

Yes, I think the age of the participants is relevant. I imagine an audience of Mumsnetters would have condemned him pretty sharpish!

I am definitely going to get my daughter to watch it. She is 15 and has pretty good self esteem, I think. I am fairly confident she has a good idea of what a healthy relationship looks like but it’ll be interesting to see what she makes of it. I certainly hope she would be able to spot someone who is clearly a manipulative shit!

Even the women saying it was ok to break plates in anger and to call her a slut, saying she hadn't been a very good girlfriend...

Yes, that really upset me too and made me wonder whether those women hadn’t had very good role models in terms of loving adult relationships. 😕

You might like to watch "Unbelievable" on Netflix - (male) police investigate a rape and deal with it one way. There's another rape which is investigated by female detectives. I watched it with my son and was shocked he didn't pick up on how the male detectives were operating - it was a huge realisation for him when he saw how the women dealt with it.

This really depressed me. I spotted the red flags at the start, having been in such a relationship years ago, and the dismissive nature of the comments from both the men and women was disappointing.

I have just watched this, and like the rest of you, was shocked at how the majority of the young men and women did not see red flags from the very beginning. Nothing that Rachel did was wrong in any sense. From the get go he was so manipulative and clever in how he 'managed' her and altered her thinking and I have no idea how the majority of them just couldn't see it or wouldn't accept it. I was truly shocked.

I was going to watch this, but recorded it as didn't feel I had the strength to sit through it.

I am sad about the comments up thread as I think this was originally a BBC3 programme aimed at young people, so it is a shame if it doesn't confront and challenge ingrained attitudes towards women, and how men are somehow not held to account.

It was very good and shone a light how hard it is to take someone to court about this behavior. It was sad that so many didn't see his actions as unacceptable , but they were very young people and probably not aware of ' red flags' and other controlling attitudes.
I was educated by this and I hope many young people will watch it.

Watched this last night. It should be compulsory in schools.
@Ihaventgottimeforthis summed it up perfectly re excusing toxic male behaviour and victim blaming the female. I was literally shouting at the telly a few times. Very good programme I thought.

I watched it last night. I found it acutely depressing that so many of those younger people couldn't see what I could see so quickly - especially the women. Yes, I'd like to see it shown in all high schools.

To be fair to the young people involved in this, they did show a few things that could muddy the waters and was done deliberately I'm sure to show it's not always black or white. I got it straight away , but when I was 18 I was incredibly naive and would have been also been a bit puzzled by some of her behavior I'm sure.
He was controlling her of course, but a lot of it was very subtlety done.
It was easy for the prosecution to twist things too as well.