The New Yorker article: "How Far Can Abused Women Go To Protect Themselves"

[Dr. Richard Grossman]

Hi everybody,

Here's a horrifying article on voicelessness written by Elizabeth Flock in The New Yorker (1/13/2020):

"How Far Can Abused Women Go To Protect Themselves"

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/how-far-can-abused-women-go-to-protect-themselves

Richard

[Hopalong]

Doc G,
I see the world through the filter of the pervasive reality of sexism and overall male domination, and as terrible as this story is, it didn't shock me at all.

Systemic sexism is an ugly billboard I see hanging over the culture, in ways great and small every day.

Many women are raped and murdered just for daring to exist or to assert their human rights.

Much of our pop entertainment is built on the bodies of women: murdered or sexualized.

And predation on children is increasing at an incredible rate with the dark web.

It's hard to be optimistic.

Hops

[lighter]

I have some thoughts on this topic.  It's something we talk about often in this house.

I'll have to think about it a bit, but I'll be back.

 



Lighter

[sKePTiKal]

I found the article is kinda confusing legal and moral justice issues.

Legally: The 2nd Amendment says I have a right to defend myself; that's been qualified and restricted and regulated by every state in the country. But the "right to self-defense" is still a precedent in the judicial system. Perhaps not effectually in that locality, equally for everyone - but corruption/power networks have been around a LONG time. It is true, that poorer women suffer this kind of "justice" decision from the "system", than more upper-class women.

Morally: I also believe I have a right to defend myself, but that's taken a long, long time and many arduous hours to arrive at and it's a PERSONAL choice to believe that. I accept fully that other people make other choices for themselves and that's perfectly fine by me. Like I said, it's PERSONAL. I understand that some will judge me for my choice, but then, they haven't lived through what I have or had to do the work to get A choice, of any kind for themselves, because no one can imagine what that involves until one has actually lived through it.

More than that I'm not willing to discuss. Except to say I truly feel for the woman in the article.

(From the title of the article, I expected this to be about denial, self-sabotage, etc. instead of physically defending oneself. Tells ya where my head's been at lately.)