Is telling a woman that she's a victim of abuse disempowering?

[tortoiseonthehalfshell]

This is bad form, because it's a thread about something that happened on another forum. It's a small community, and we're a lot less blunt than Mumsnet, and it is very rare that people come out and say - hey, things are awful, help.

Anyway, so someone posted about her husband. Who, to me, seems like a classically abusive man. He controls all of the finances and tells her that she could be capable of dealing with money if she tried harder. When she gets dolled up he says "I'm not sure you want to go out looking like that". He works and she's at home, and she does an insane amount of housework, but if she slips up (with two small children), he yells or gives her the silent treatment. The thing that inspired the post was, he decided that Facebook was evil (they've recently moved overseas and it's her main conduit to her friends and family), in her words "caught her typing on it" and by the time she posted it was three days into a total silent freeze.

So, ticks the boxes, right? So I said exactly that, along with the usual practical stuff - squirrel away some money, reach out to a real life friend, blah blah blah.

The next post was someone saying that fine, important to tell people that treatment is bad, but how can we judge without all the facts, and this is usual stuff. But this is why I'm posting, this quote here:

But to tell someone over and over that they are being abused - when you don't actually know - can actually disempower them. It makes them feel stupid for being in the relationship and for wanting to work it out. It can make them feel even more of a victim when the first step in fixing a relationship, or in leaving it, is to take back power.

All my self justifying guff aside - can someone help me with a reply to the above? It seems to me that calling something abuse is only disempowering if you buy into an idea that a woman is at fault for being there. But the idea that to encourage her to take back power one should not call it abuse, is...well, I don't know what it is, which is why I turn to you.

I would say it is not disempowering.

Hell of a lot worse to sit back and watch her get treated like crap. At least by telling her she might start getting her head around it.

The facts that you've been given make it clear the relationship is abusive and therefore providing advice is perfectly appropriate.

Knowledge is power. Giving someone the knowledge that a relationship isn't 'normal' but that their partner is being abusive is giving them the ability to decide what they can do about it.

Well, if they are a victim of ongoing abuse then they are being disempowered already. Coming to the realisation that you are a victim of abuse is the first step to becoming free of abuse. It can free you from the thought that you must have done something wrong for the abuser to treat you in this way.

I can see that defining oneself forever as a victim is problematic- people are victims of situations, it is not a personality trait. Everyone will be a victim of something at some point, be it bullying, rape or something less traumatic, like, I don't know, the burocracy of your gas supplier. Does that even make sense?

I think that rather than saying that she is a victim it would be better to say that he (the spouse) is a perpetrator of abuse. Take the spotlight off the wife and put it where it belongs on the person doing the wrong imo.

But sometimes people do need to know that what is happening to them is not right and they are in fact a victim. Some people try to rationalise what their partner is doing by saying it is their fault he does this to me because 'i' am doing something wrong. Telling her that she is a victim let's her know that there is nothing wrong with her but the abuser.

Actually I agree a little but that is my view of victim language rather than articulating to the woman how you see her situation IYSWIM

I hate being described as a victim of child abuse. I am not a victim. And I ceased to see myslef as a victim as I worked through my guilt about what had happened to me.
So the less guilty I felt and the more I saw the issue as the result of the abusers vileness rather than my weakness or passivity, the more I recoiled from being called a victim.

So I think calling someone a victim. Allowing victim to be a strong part oftheir assessment of their situation, makes them weaker and not stronger. Or did in my case.

Does that make any sense?

Well I think the risk of reiterating that a woman is being abused can run the risk of making her into a victim - one of the most weakening, disempowering words in the language IMO. If you are a victim your life become someone else's property to do with as they will. A victim is like a child and as with a child other people make the decisions.

If a woman is already unhappy in their relationship, if she is beginning to question her 'norms' then it is perfectly reasonable to point out that in the usual run of things her partner is being abusive. But that although she is not responsible for the position she is in, she is responsible for getting out of it - with help if it is needed. Telling her what to do, what direction to take, fixing things for her, is to make her a victim in another way.

Actually,what pag said

It does. A lot of women now call themselves, eg, rape survivors, for that reason.

i never called her a victim, incidentally. But I didn't start the thread as justification for my posts, which I stand behind.

What she was reacting to was me saying, not in so many words, you are in denial about the big picture, you're focusing in on X action, but everything you've said paints a picture of systematic abuse, a systematic attempt to wear you down.

But I do wonder. I, and many of the Relationships stalwarts, take quite a blunt tone with women posting about their abuse. And I think, do we do so because on some level we know those women will accept that sort of talk without kicking back? Is my "despite your denial, you are being abused and you are unable to see that because you are in the situation" just another person exerting their will on someone?

"It does" was in reference to pag's post, but I'm taking it yours too, Orm. Thanks, both of you.

Oh phew.

I think that's what I think as well.

I can't really argue with her on that thread without upsetting the OP, who's asked for the conversation to lapse. But I feel that I want to address it, because it's hitting a lot of buttons.

The other thing was "we can't tell from the info given to us, it's irresponsible to diagnose through the internet" but, look at my OP. I went into detail for a reason!

to get validation from you lot

I don't know, Ormrenewed, people are victimised and are victims of crimes and other things. It can be helpful to understand this and come to terms with it- when I was sexually assualted I denied that I was a victim or that it even happened for a long time, having come to terms with it now as best possible I have to integrate it into my back story iyswim- yes, I was a victim of this once, but it was just something that happened and it doesn't define me. To deny that I was a victim at all is to deny that it happened. I am not a victim now, and although there are no guarantees I hope I will not be again. To refuse to define myself as a victim means I am not defined by my experience, I am not frightened, I am not disempowered but I can acknowledge that I was a victim of something once.

Of course I am only speaking from my own experience and to be honest if a survivor of any kind of abuse wants to use whatever words they like to describe themselves and their experience then that's really not for anyone else to prescribe. personal choice.

But isn't there a difference between being subjected to a specific act that has a beginning and an end. If you are raped you are clearly a victim of rape - what you choose to do after that and how you choose to define yourself is down to you. But when you are being abused in a long-term relationship and the decision to stop that is in your hands, thinking of yourself as a victim is going to make it harder to do so.

However the 'victim' argument isn't really the issue here. Sorry.

Having been in an abusive relationship I would say that the identifying of abuse is NOT disempowering, the relief I felt when told here on MN how abusive my situation was was indescribable. However judging someone for not being able to remove themselves from the situation IS disempowering. In the end I stopped posting because felt too scared and weak to get out of my situation and I felt I was being judged for that. I did get a few posts saying "well its no good keep posting on here, what are you going to DO about it?" and my Mum told me I was "weak" for allowing it to continue.

What is the next step though dittany? Is it more important to encourage the woman to see herself as a passive victim or to encourage her to do something about it?

But that's the thing, you don't have to be passive to be a victim- it's not the victim's fault! You can be the most bolshy, self defensive assertive person in the world and still become a victim of abuse. It happens to all kinds of people and I wish there wasn't a stigma around the word victim as I think it encourages abuse survivors to feel ashamed of what has happened to them.

To survive abuse takes immense, indescribable strength.

What Shimmery said.

I am sorry I muddied the issue with my interpretation of the word.
i hear what you say Dittany but I still don't really agree. I think I dislike the way 'victim of abuse' is used because it seems to become definitive.
I am not a victim of abuse. I was abused but that is part of my history, part of what happened to me . It hasn't made me x or y.

My reaction to the phrase victim of abuse is not because i regard it as shameful but because it seems to overwhelm every other aspect of me. I guess it is like 'autistic child'. I don't like the phrase because my son is a child who has many facets including autism. i prefer child who has autism - 'autistic child seems to suggest thatthat is the only thing about him that matters.

I was abused. I am not ashamed of that. But i am considerably more than a victim of abuse.

but I suspect that is just my view, the way I see that language.
So again - sorry for the meandering point

Pagwatch, I agree entirely. I do not identify as a victim of abuse, even though I have been one. I much prefer survivor, or better yet, just 'me.'

It's super important not to pressure women who are experiencing DV. I wish I could explain how abusive that feels.