I think there's lots of important nuance in this writing. I think there is a distinction that maybe should have stressed importance that continuing relationships with abusers can also be opting out and enabling abuse? Like I think it's important to lay out that under abuse culture it is often survivors who have low support or high consequence and abusers who have low consequence or high support (framework from accountabilitymapping) and (whilst people don't exist soley in a binary of abuser or survivor) that imbalance of low consequence or high support is a creation of abuse culture. Perpetuating that imbalance can perpetuate abuse culture. Apart of balancing that out can be to prioritise supporting survivors and adopting a model of higher consequence for abusers. Sometimes priotising high support for abusers can look like enabling - especially if we buy into the white supremacy narratives of "cancel culture" and we begin to equate consequences as punishment. Sometimes transformative justice can look like outing an abuser who's denied invitations for acocuntability - it can look like lessening an abusers access to those they may harm. I think in scenarios where survivors have already have extended invitations for accountability when we make the decision to continue a friendship with their abuser that we are prioritising the humanity and healing of the abuser at the detriment of the survivor. We are adopting a high support role, which is necessary but are we adopting a high consequence role too? When abuse happens amongst mutual friends, prioritising higher support for the person harmed and higher consequence for the person who abused - that can be transformative, especially considering the context of abuse culture that we live under. You can sit an abuser or someone who has done harm down, lay out the harm they have caused, offer them resources or redirect them to support and choose to end the friendship as a consequence to their actions, a boundary for yourself or a form of support to the person they harmed.
Really appreciated these reflections, and it got me thinking a lot about the second season of the show The Wilds (which Amazon unfortunately cancelled, leaving a huge cliffhanger...sigh). I think a lot about how we need to find ways to hold both things: the fact that the person/people who are harmed deserve to be kept safe from the person who hurt them (especially in cases of abuse) and the first and foremost focus should be on making sure they are safe/have what they need AND ALSO that other people who have a relationship with the person that caused harm can and should work through accountability processes with the person that caused the harm. Neither has to negate the other, but that's how people come to see it.
(Major spoiler territory here for anyone interested in watching the Wilds! Also mentions of SA.) In the second season of the Wilds, the show introduces a new group of people stranded on an island, but this time it's a group of young men. A major point in the season is that the shady corporation that set this all up is trying to determine why the young men survived a shorter amount of time before having to be pulled from the island than the young women did, and we find out partway through the season that the key incident that caused them to stop working together as well as they did in the beginning was that one of the guys (a very charismatic plant/spy from the corporation, actually) sexually assaults one of the others. When this comes to light, the group ejects him and rallies around the young man who was assaulted. But what starts as supporting him turns into believing that the one who did the assault deserves to die for this, and anyone who tries to bring him water/food/etc is ostracized as well. Of course, there are many other elements to how this plays out that were really interesting to see explored, like the way the charismatic guy tries to charm his way back in (without actually taking any accountability for what he did) or the way the one who was assaulted becomes set on revenge and humiliating anyone who questions his actions, both of which lead to boiling points and deep factures within the group. But that beginning choice they make -- not just to eject the guy (which would make sense, removing him from the "base" location they are at so that they can minimize further harm as they work through this all), but to take away any support for him, in a survival situation that raises the stakes to literal life and death -- shapes what happens to everyone in that group going forward. This doesn't end well for any of them. While it's not a perfect show by any means, I think this exploration of what happens to a group when that level of harm occurs is important, because it happens in real life all the time, and we often lack the tools or understanding to work through the messiness in a way that respects and prioritizes the needs of someone who is hurt while also addressing the root cause of the harm so that it won't happen again.
I think there's lots of important nuance in this writing. I think there is a distinction that maybe should have stressed importance that continuing relationships with abusers can also be opting out and enabling abuse? Like I think it's important to lay out that under abuse culture it is often survivors who have low support or high consequence and abusers who have low consequence or high support (framework from accountabilitymapping) and (whilst people don't exist soley in a binary of abuser or survivor) that imbalance of low consequence or high support is a creation of abuse culture. Perpetuating that imbalance can perpetuate abuse culture. Apart of balancing that out can be to prioritise supporting survivors and adopting a model of higher consequence for abusers. Sometimes priotising high support for abusers can look like enabling - especially if we buy into the white supremacy narratives of "cancel culture" and we begin to equate consequences as punishment. Sometimes transformative justice can look like outing an abuser who's denied invitations for acocuntability - it can look like lessening an abusers access to those they may harm. I think in scenarios where survivors have already have extended invitations for accountability when we make the decision to continue a friendship with their abuser that we are prioritising the humanity and healing of the abuser at the detriment of the survivor. We are adopting a high support role, which is necessary but are we adopting a high consequence role too? When abuse happens amongst mutual friends, prioritising higher support for the person harmed and higher consequence for the person who abused - that can be transformative, especially considering the context of abuse culture that we live under. You can sit an abuser or someone who has done harm down, lay out the harm they have caused, offer them resources or redirect them to support and choose to end the friendship as a consequence to their actions, a boundary for yourself or a form of support to the person they harmed.
Really appreciated these reflections, and it got me thinking a lot about the second season of the show The Wilds (which Amazon unfortunately cancelled, leaving a huge cliffhanger...sigh). I think a lot about how we need to find ways to hold both things: the fact that the person/people who are harmed deserve to be kept safe from the person who hurt them (especially in cases of abuse) and the first and foremost focus should be on making sure they are safe/have what they need AND ALSO that other people who have a relationship with the person that caused harm can and should work through accountability processes with the person that caused the harm. Neither has to negate the other, but that's how people come to see it.
(Major spoiler territory here for anyone interested in watching the Wilds! Also mentions of SA.) In the second season of the Wilds, the show introduces a new group of people stranded on an island, but this time it's a group of young men. A major point in the season is that the shady corporation that set this all up is trying to determine why the young men survived a shorter amount of time before having to be pulled from the island than the young women did, and we find out partway through the season that the key incident that caused them to stop working together as well as they did in the beginning was that one of the guys (a very charismatic plant/spy from the corporation, actually) sexually assaults one of the others. When this comes to light, the group ejects him and rallies around the young man who was assaulted. But what starts as supporting him turns into believing that the one who did the assault deserves to die for this, and anyone who tries to bring him water/food/etc is ostracized as well. Of course, there are many other elements to how this plays out that were really interesting to see explored, like the way the charismatic guy tries to charm his way back in (without actually taking any accountability for what he did) or the way the one who was assaulted becomes set on revenge and humiliating anyone who questions his actions, both of which lead to boiling points and deep factures within the group. But that beginning choice they make -- not just to eject the guy (which would make sense, removing him from the "base" location they are at so that they can minimize further harm as they work through this all), but to take away any support for him, in a survival situation that raises the stakes to literal life and death -- shapes what happens to everyone in that group going forward. This doesn't end well for any of them. While it's not a perfect show by any means, I think this exploration of what happens to a group when that level of harm occurs is important, because it happens in real life all the time, and we often lack the tools or understanding to work through the messiness in a way that respects and prioritizes the needs of someone who is hurt while also addressing the root cause of the harm so that it won't happen again.
Thank you for sharing this!