What does it mean, how do we view it, and why does it matter?
Hey friend,
I once went on a date with a man who told me, with complete sincerity, that I needed to stop “thinking of myself as the victim” of sexual assault. (Insert major eye roll.)
This was many years ago in NYC, and the date up to this point had been going pretty well. He was funny, he made me feel comfortable, he went to therapy, and he seemed really into personal development in a way I connected with, so we were talking about some deeper stuff that wouldn’t normally come up on a first date.
I was in a phase of intentional sexual healing at the time, and shared part of my history to give context for what I was working on and exploring, when he cut me off to tell me that it sounded like I was stuck in a “victim mentality” about being sexually assaulted– and to inform me that I was never going to be able to heal or move past it if I “kept thinking of myself that way.”
Now, this man probably had good intentions. I figure he had probably benefited at some point in his own life from realizing that he had a habit of blaming others, and learning to take accountability for himself and his choices. This is, after all, what we’re typically talking about when we talk about someone needing to get out of the “victim mindset.”
This is actually a huge theme in a lot of personal growth and development circles, and honestly it can be a powerful and healing shift for people who struggle to take responsibility for their actions, or who feel chronically helpless and disempowered, so I do get it on some level. For the right person, and under the right circumstance, it can be incredibly empowering to realize you actually have more agency and power than you realized, and that your story of “victimhood” was just keeping you stuck!
That said, I knew at that moment that I would not be going on a second date with this man– not only because he felt so comfortable talking down to me and telling me what I should do with my own life, but also because he was demonstrating an alarming misunderstanding of both what it means to be a victim, and what it means to heal. He was perpetuating the very harmful idea that “victim” is a shameful label we must reject and overcome (rather than a neutral and accurate way of describing or communicating certain situations) and suggesting that the only “correct” response to trauma is to stop thinking of it as traumatic.
Ugh.
Unfortunately, this was neither the first nor the last time I would hear someone spout this kind of misguided and dangerous rhetoric about victimhood, which is why I decided to tackle the topic of victimhood on this month’s live Patreon community Zoom call!
(In case you’re not familiar, these are live calls that I host for everyone in my Patreon community to come together and unpack interesting and relevant topics through an empowering, intersectional feminist, and body neutral lens. And last week we talked about victimhood: what it means, why people get so mad about it, and the difference between being a victim and playing the victim.)
Normally these are closed calls that I only make available to my Patreon subscribers, but the topic is so misunderstood, juicy, and important that I wanted to share a little excerpt from the call with you!
This excerpt is just from the little presentation I gave at the beginning of the call to get us started, so there’s a whole lot more I can’t share here– we went on to explore the topic in a lot more depth, including:
Why so many people seem to struggle to hold space for nuance and complexity in general these days (and how that makes them see everything through the lens of a very black-and-white binary of “good vs bad,” or “saintly victim vs manipulative monster”).
How obsessing over who does and doesn’t qualify as a “victim” actually just keeps us from focusing on the REAL topic at hand, which is the harm that has been caused.
What this all has to do with empathy, accountability, and systems of power and oppression.
By the way, if you enjoy this video, you’ll probably LOVE the live community calls, so I invite you to subscribe and join us next time! You can watch the whole call recording on victimhood, and get access to all future community calls by joining my Patreon at the $5/month level or higher here.
Plus if you want to mark your calendar for future calls now, here are the dates, times, and topics for the next two months!
→ Monday September 16th at 3pm ET: The “Anti-Aging” Industry
→ Tuesday October 15th at 6:30pm ET: Dealing with a Narcissist
I’m dying to hear what you think of the video, so feel free to leave a comment or hit reply and share your thoughts, and I hope to see you on a future call!Big hug,
Jessi
PS: If you’re looking for guidance and support on your own personal development and healing journey, you can apply for coaching with me here! It is possible to change your “mindset” and feel more empowered and confident without gaslighting yourself, I promise. ;-)
Comments