This is a reasonable point of view, and I can see how the fact that I care so much about how this forum presents itself may come off as a demonstration of white male privilege. I believe it has more to do with wanting this to be a community that can effect change in the world on many issues (including a number of women’s issues), and thus wanting it to present itself in a way that allows it to do so… But I can see how it could be interpreted very differently.
I also allow for the possibility that it goes beyond an interpretation of white male privilege and is exactly that. I do my best to try to recognize my privilege, but I’m not perfect and I have blind spots.
I agree, but I also don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Domestic violence is generally invisible to men who are the “good guys” to the extent that it’s not like the people who do these terrible things talk to their buddies about it and confess. I recognize that, statistically, there’s a pretty high chance that some friend of mine has committed a violent act against a woman at some point… But nobody has ever said anything to me, I’ve never seen anything, etc, so I don’t know what I can do. I feel bad for that, it upsets me, but I also don’t have a solution. All I can say is that if you have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions on what you want the average guy to do in this regard, I’m all ears.
My first thought here is that it would be weird if a single man showed up to a domestic violence support group alone just to offer his support. I feel like it would come off as creepy, at best. I’d be very worried about making women feel uncomfortable in that situation. Do you disagree? On the other hand, if a woman I knew was a victim of it, knew someone who was, etc, and asked me to attend with her for moral support, I’d make it a priority to do so.
I’m assuming AGM stands for annual general meeting, and thus this was less of a support group and more of an organizing meeting. But, I still wonder what role I could play in helping such an organization given the above. Perhaps behind the scenes there are things that could be done?
I understand why you feel that way, and I think it’s fair to criticize this community for that and to feel like it’s a failure on our part. In some ways it is. I could also be wrong here, but I feel like if I made a thread about that, we’d all pretty much agree. I suppose we could discuss like what politically could be done to address the problem better, but in this regard I’m pretty sure there’s very little separation between the various Democratic candidates. So in my opinion that’s why it hasn’t happened, but maybe to make that assumption is bad and it’s a discussion that should be had.
Also, it makes me feel bad when I think/know people are hurting over a perceived lack of support when what’s really happening is a lack of public expression of support that exists. I recognize this and think about it a lot more on race issues and on women’s rights issues, but I hadn’t thought about it much with regard to domestic violence until now.
Usually threads start on here after high profile incidents, or after someone makes a comment that someone else is ticked off by. The second is very rare, usually results in widespread condemnation, and that’s that. The first is also very rare on domestic violence, because the vast majority of it is not publicized. I think there was a lot of discussion about it after the Ray Rice incident. So I hope I can speak for most people here in saying we definitely care about this, and would like to do what we can/should, and the absence of threads about it doesn’t mean that we don’t care. So while I think your criticism is warranted, I hope you don’t feel like we don’t care.
And FWIW, not that it matters a ton since I may not be around anymore, but this is one reason why I’d like to see this forum have a lot more female posters. We definitely lack that perspective and it creates blindspots. Sometimes, despite the best intentions, you just need things pointed out to you.
So thanks for bringing this up.
