Excellent article from Victoria Smith in The Critic

[Awiltu]

“Nothing” is still something

Brilliantly articulated article. This crystallised a thought I hadn't quite managed to formulate properly before - the extent to which coercive control perfectly encapsulates the means and the purpose for TRA behaviour.

She is superb. Such a clear thinker and brilliant writer.

Brilliant insights. I felt that sense of threat too when I watched Russel-Moyle. He wasn’t hitting but he looked like he wanted to. And then the excuse about his passion getting the better of him. Oh yes. Heard it before.

Excellent piece. I couldn't bring myself to watch the video of Russel-Moyle, the still images were enough to know what was going on and, yes, he looked like he wanted to hit.

That is amazing. A superb piece of writing.

This resonated. Excellent article. I nearly cried.

I have re-read some of my diaries from the time I was in an abusive relationship. And everything she says is true.

That is an amazing article. I grew up in an abusive home and I recognise everything she describes.

You would know before the shouting started. There’d be physical tells: changes in the eyes or the hands or the curve of the lips. Nothing would have happened yet and already it would be too late.

Too many women have experienced this. Too many men shrug it off as nothing.

she captured the feeling of when the atmosphere changes rather well.

Of course, it is difficult for a woman to point this out. Should she complain about a particular man, she will be told, yet again, that “nothing happened”. Even when she sees something which replicates the patterns she knows so well — the unreasonableness, the rage, the unstoppable, self-pitying resentment of a man who feels a woman has diminished him — the perpetrator will claim plausible deniability. He will be affronted that anyone could ever compare him to an abuser. Indeed, that is just more evidence of how right he was to get angry in the first place.

so tempted to send this article to Lloyd Russell - moyles

Absolutely spot on.

I really want Keir Starmer to read this.

I did, too, and I learned to be hyper-alert all the time.

An example of this would be the recent behaviour of Labour MPs Ben Bradshaw and Lloyd Russell-Moyle towards female MPs speaking about Scotland’s gender recognition reform bill. To many women, myself included, the shouting and bullying felt disturbingly familiar. The sense of moral superiority expressed by Russell-Moyle in the aftermath, claiming that his “passion” led him to adopt the wrong “tone”, was utterly predictable. She, Miriam Cates, made him do it. Anyone with principles would have done the same. Who could call that abusive?

Yes, and I can't be the only person who was struck by so many women claiming the same after they witnessed his behaviour.

It was familiar to an overwhelming number of women.

i'm glad she's written this. Men need to read it. They need to bloody well understand.

And I'm not talking about Moyle. Presumably he understands only too well

@Boiledbeetle @nepeta - and if you've lived it, you absolutely recognise it.

I cannot imagine how Miriam Cates felt when LR-M deliberately intimidated her. And I cannot imagine he did not intend for her to feel like that. I mean probably not exactly like that. If he's never been a DV victim, he won't know. But he definitely meant to frighten her.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think most men - even the abusive ones - have any idea that so many women live with that residual hum of fear.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think most men - even the abusive ones - have any idea that so many women live with that residual hum of fear.

The abusive ones rarely think they are abusive, and very rarely think they themselves are to blame.
See:

1. she made me do it.
2. it wasn’t that bad
3. i didn’t actually do it/ it did not happen like that
4. i did not do it
5. she has just made everything up and is a crazy vindictive bitch.

much like a witch, stirring her cauldron

Yep, because nothing happened. Most of the time, nothing happened.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think most men - even the abusive ones - have any idea that so many women live with that residual hum of fear.

I think they 'know' it only as a piece of superficial information-about-women, which is why nice guys think its ok to use it for their own benefit.
Its like whack a mole. It looks like a serious of random, unconnected events until you realise there's an underlying mechanism. Ignore that, and you can be dismissive and call women irrational and say we are living in fear for no reason.

Every politician who has said that trans-identified males in female prisons isn't a big deal because "Nothing bad has actually happened" should read that article and try to understand the psychological effects of being forced to live in a situation where "Something bad might happen", with no means of escape. Actual assaults (though of course terrible) are the tip of a very large iceberg of psychological trauma.

psychological trauma?

"Stop with your whinging woman, there's nothing to worry about, it's all in your head!"

seems to be the norm these days

"Stop with your whinging woman, there's nothing to worry about, it's all in your head!"

Says every controlling, abusive male who wants his own way and will dummy-spit until he gets it.

It's what they are thinking every time we try to talk about not knowing the good men from the bad. It's their nice quick way to shut us down. In their head they pass it off as letting us know it's ok, No harm will happen to us! They'll even think they've been nice!

Yeah right!

Likewise. He was hardly ever physical, but he was a controlling bully.

She captures that sense of constant tension, that any second anything can go badly wrong.

She's bang on the money.

It is an excellent article. What struck me about Lloyd Russell-Moyle's reaction is that it is standard behaviour for him. He has already attacked J K Rowling and there was also the Daily Politics programme in which he grew angrier and angrier with the historian Selina Scott.

A few years earlier he grabbed the Mace during one of the Brexit debates, which is very unparliamentary. As Marina Hyde wrote at the time:

'I wonder if a female MP will ever grab the mace, as Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle did on Monday night? Guys, I’m kidding. Of course I don’t wonder that. Grabbing the mace is the parliamentary equivalent of buying a used Boxster and getting a Route 66 tattoo. In my lifetime, the only three persons who have grabbed the mace are cordite-sniffer John McDonnell, this new starlet Russell-Moyle and Michael Heseltine. Draw your own conclusions.'

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/11/brexit-grabbing-mace-theresa-may-cancelled-vote

I'm fairly sure Bernadette McAliskey slapped the Home Secretary during a debate on Northern Ireland but I think she left the Mace alone.

I did expect better of Ben Bradshaw though. Interestingly there were so many male SNP MPs shouting at Miriam Cates that they don't seem to have been mentioned by name (or at least I haven't seen it).

I just read the article. She really is going from strength to strength with her recent output. Such a beautifully paced and persuasive piece.

Wow Victoria. I really hope you check here sometimes. I always love your work but this is exceptional.

You've expressed something I knew but couldn't formulate coherently.

But as you say, it's an awful thing to know, especially as those of us that know are often the ones who have already experienced the extremes.

Does anyone have an example of Lloyd Russell Misogynist being similarly "passionate" around a man?