Tag Archives: rape culture

Emotionally Abusive Relationships and Healing: In My Own Words

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The following post comes to us via Ava Budavari-Glenn, a political communications major and a nonprofit communications minor who is entering her sophomore year at Emerson College. She is a writer whose work focuses mainly on advocacy, and a community organizer who has worked for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns. She is a media and communications intern at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

Part I: Signs of an Abusive Relationship

I’m not ready to tell my story yet. I don’t know when or if I ever will be. But I am writing for my younger self, who was in the middle of a toxic situation and didn’t have the language to understand what was happening to her. I have not studied this academically — I am just talking about my own experience. And sometimes that’s what people need to listen to. I know I did and still do.

Emotional abuse is an attempt to control another person through behavior that causes psychological trauma or distress. Continue reading to identify the warning signs of an emotionally abusive relationship.

They body shame you. It may be in a sarcastic tone or disguised as a joke, just ways for them to tease you because they “like you.” It may also be covert; they might not directly call you fat or ugly, but find other ways to degrade your body. Tell you you’re too slow. You don’t run fast enough. You’re not strong enough. They may make fun of your athletic ability, call you names even if you’re just playing a game for fun.

Their mood is unreliable. Everyone has good days and bad days, but the kind of day anyone is having should not determine how they treat people. They’re happy to see you one minute and completely ignoring you the next. They are flirting with you one minute and glaring at you 15 minutes later. You haven’t changed your behavior or what you have said. Whether you can have a nice conversation is totally dependent on their behavior, giving them complete control of the situation. They make you feel like everything is your fault. You find yourself asking questions like, “What am I doing wrong to make this person so upset?” That is a power imbalance, which is one way they trap you: It makes you think that “they have good moments too, they are not always bad” — because if they were always horrible it would make it easier for you to leave. This back-and-forth unpredictability is a way to control you. Continue reading →

Book Club: Missoula – Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

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MissoulaGuided by his own experience as a mountaineer, Jon Krakauer first made a name for himself with a handful of books about risk-taking athletes and adventurers: Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air. A blurb inside the last edition of Where Men Win Glory, his book about Arizona’s own Pat Tillman, aptly described him as “at home when it comes to writing about elusive alpha males.”

Krakauer’s latest book is a dramatic departure from that vein of writing, a study not of a lone wolf facing the elements but of a whole community facing its own controversies. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (Doubleday, 2015) is Krakauer’s investigation of a spate of rape allegations that shook the University of Montana and the town of Missoula from 2010 to 2012.

Missoula resulted from the author’s quest to become more informed about a crime that is both common and swept under the carpet.

Many of the assaults during that time involved members of UM’s Grizzly football team. As a consequence, the victims who came forward faced not only the normal challenges of pressing charges, such as revisiting their traumas in front of police and courts, but also the anger of local football fans who were convinced of their star players’ innocence. The fierce loyalty of the Grizzlies’ supporters, it seemed, fueled a greater sense of entitlement than accountability among team members.

As the story developed, Krakauer explains, Missoula entered the national spotlight in the pages of major newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, but it was a viral article on the website Jezebel, “My Weekend in America’s So-Called ‘Rape Capital,'” that captured the town’s newfound notoriety in an epithet that Missoula couldn’t shake. Continue reading →

When It Happens to a Friend

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April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

You probably know someone who’s been a victim of sexual assault.

It’s an unsettling thought, yes, but the statistics bear it out. Somewhere between 17 and 28 percent of women* have been victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. According to those same sources, the numbers range from 3 to 17 percent for men.* They increase further for members of particular populations or communities, including Native American and Alaskan women; gay, lesbian, and queer folk; people with disabilities; and trans* people.

There are many ways you can support a friend who has been sexually assaulted.

Nearly every victim, every survivor, has a first person they tell — someone they confide in to help make sense of what happened, to help begin the healing process. Unfortunately, I know too well that sometimes the first person told only compounds the hurt. So I’m writing this based on what I wish people had done for me.

How should you respond if a sexual assault survivor reaches out to you?

Believe the survivor. We live in a culture that regularly disbelieves, minimizes, and judges victims of sexual assault. Additionally, there’s a strong chance that the victim knew the attacker before the assault — and a reasonable chance that both are members of a mutual social circle or community. In this light, it can be incredibly stressful for a survivor to speak up about an assault. Simply telling that person, “I believe you,” can offer immense support and relief.

Don’t second guess the decisions a survivor made before the assault or the reactions your friend experienced during or afterward. Continue reading →