Still Widespread Ignorance and Judgement

[Serenity]

I was following a motivational speaker on Facebook.

He always seemed so wise.

Today, his subject was relationships- he was getting people to ask why they were in one.

I agreed with his ultimate premise: that we should never accept lesser, and must put our wellbeing first, and exit situations which cause us pain. But ( and maybe he was being tough to try to motivate people) he was questioning why people stay in difficult relationships.

His recording gave rise to a whole plethora of people commenting that they could understand why people stayed in bad relationships, and someone even said that such people must enjoy misery to stay!

I was so infuriated! I sent a reply explaining that abuse is clever and disempowers and brainwashes people- and how abusers are very good at giving victims false hope and getting them to blame themselves. Not only this, many fear for their and their children’s lives if they leave.

It seems we have a long way to go before there is proper awareness of domestic abuse- its motivations and its effects.

Grrrrr- I need a cold shower!

[KIP.]

Well done. It’s only when people hear the other side of the story that they begin to think about it. We should all speak up where we can x

[SunshineRainflower]

Yes, there is still such a long way to go in terms if reducing ignorance, prejudice and judgement with regards to domestic abuse, misogyny, sexism and gender stereotypes too.

I didn’t understand domestic abuse myself until I experienced it, and then I was totally shocked about how in the dark I’d been. It’s because nobody ever talks about it, it’s still taboo. I was thankful that the Archers and some other soaps had run recent domestic abuse storylines as when I told people they all nodded their heads sagely and said ‘it’s just like in (insert soap name).’ It felt so good to be understood, particularly with the psychological aspect which is just so hard to explain to people. The more we speak up about it, speak openly, campaign, the more we can reduce the taboo.

I complained recently to the ASA about a horribly sexist advert which portrayed women as immature foolish bimbos and men as wise responsible humans (rolls eyes). They said they still didn’t have a protocol for judging sexism and gender stereotypes etc in ads so wouldn’t be looking into it, but that they are developing one and will keep my complaint and use it to inform the protocol, so it was both disappointing and vaguely positive at the same time. It’s eyebrow-raising that in 2017 they still haven’t got a protocol for this sort of thing in place. What about all those awful cleaning adverts showing women getting excited about bathroom cleaner? Ugh, like we are still living in 1952. If they get 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 of these complaints it will make them sit up so let’s keep speaking up and making it known what is and what is not acceptable.

[Author]

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