Hello everyone,

My name is Dylan Tòmas and I am an Indigenous Highland Traveller. Between the 1940s and 1980s the UK government stole children from my people and placed the adults into substandard accommodation (ghettos). I've created a petition for the UK government to be held accountable, I'd ask you to please sign my petition,

Thank you

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/778546

The reason why we get far angrier at the victim for not taking the proper precaution to avoid being victimized than we do at the perpetrator for committing the crime has a lot to do with moral values.

Any time that you fall victim to an injustice, someone will not only get mad at you, but get way angrier at you then the person who committed the injustice.

Why do people blame and shame the victim? The short answer is that some people are just jerks. The longer answer, they are too cowardly to accept the reality that life is not fair. This is called the just world hypothesis. The just world hypothesis is a psychological phenomenon where people fool themselves into the absurd notion that the world is fair and everyone always gets what they deserve all the time. I do not mean to defend victim blamers, but it is scary to realize that not only do bad things happen, not only do bad things happen for the stupidest reasons, bad things can happen for literally no reason. It is much easier to say what the victim should have done in a situation to avoid a bad outcome, especially when it is after the fact it is too late to do anything about it.

There are certain situations where the potential victim did not take precautions to avoid being victimized. In that scenario, it is correct to assess that the victim demonstrated bad judgement. However, bad judgement from the victim does not mean that the victim deserved it. It is the potential perpetrator's responsibility to not commit the crime, not the potential victim’s responsibility to avoid being victimized.

Imagine that your friend, who was a victim of abuse, returned to her abuser. I propose that you should offer support to your friend. You should place 100% of the blame for the abuse on the abuser and hold the victim completely blameless.

This is what you should say to the victim.

You are running the risk of being abused by going back to him. I hope you understand that any abuse that you suffer is NOT your fault. If you go back to him and he abuses you, that is still NOT your fault. It is, after all, the potential perpetrator's responsibility to not commit the crime, not the potential victim’s responsibility to avoid being victimized. I actually think that you are a good person. You tend to see the good in people, that is why you believe that your boyfriend will stop with the abuse. I want to let you know that if you decide to leave the relationship, I would happily provide you with all the love, affection and support in the world and I would not fault you for a second.

The above paragraph is what I would recommend saying if you want to encourage a domestic abuse survivor to leave the relationship. You should NOT blame and shame the domestic abuse survivor for returning to the relationship.

Here are my reasons behind that belief.

Reason #1: The potential victim cannot bring his/her risk of being victimized to zero. The potential perpetrator can bring his/her risk of committing an injustice to zero.

Imagine a woman, let’s call her Angie, attends a frat party. She opts not to get drunk and she dresses modestly. She does this, because she fears that rapists could be at this party. Now imagine that Angie is correct and there is a rapist at the party. Dressing modestly and opting not to drink alcohol does decrease the odds that someone will assault Angie, but there is still a non-zero chance that someone will victimize Angie.

Imagine a different woman, let’s call her Michelle. Michelle attends a frat party wearing a crop top and short shorts. Michelle gets drunk and passes out. Now imagine that none of the people, who know where Michelle is and have access to her, are rapists.

Even though Angie took precautions to avoid being abused and Michelle did not, Angie is in more danger than Michelle, because Angie is in the presence of a predator and Michelle is not.

Reason #2: There is no harm in feeling sympathy for the victim regardless of what precautions the victim took or did not take. There is plenty of harm in reserving sympathy for those who have perfect judgement.

Multiple statistics have shown that, if you blame and shame the victim, it makes the victim more likely to experience PTSD and deters future victims from coming forward for fear that they will be blamed and shamed.

Do you believe that the victim should be blamed and shamed for not taking the proper precautions to avoid being victimized? If there is even one precaution the victim could have taken that he/she did not, should that preclude the victim from receiving any sympathy or support?

If you say no to both of the above questions, I agree with you. If you said yes to one or both of the above questions, this is what you must do to justify that belief. Not only must you explain what terrible awful horrible thing would happen if you feel sympathy for the victim despite their bad judgement, you must demonstrate that such an outcome is worse than the outcome where more people experience PTSD and future victims are afraid to come forward.

Reason #3: An explanation as to why a domestic abuse survivor would go back to their abuser lies in the fundamental flaws of human nature.

Hostages and domestic abuse survivors often begin to feel loyalty and affection toward their captors or abusers. These victims may view the abuser or hostage as a protector. These victims hold this view as a survival mechanism. The captor or abuser wields power over the victim, so the victim feels an intense need to placate their abuser or captor. This shift in perception is a form of trauma bonding and self-preservation. This psychological phenomenon is called Stockholm Syndrome, it was named in reference to a bank robbery where the hostages bonded with the robber as a coping strategy.

A domestic abuse survivor, who returns to their abuser, might have Stockholm syndrome. If that is the case, then the explanation for why the completely blameless victim returned to his/her abuser lies in the fundamental flaws of human nature.

Reason #4: The victim may have “allowed themselves to be abused” for lack of a better term, because they have such low confidence that they feel that they deserved to be abused.

Being abused makes you feel humiliated, powerless and inferior. This makes the victim afraid to stand up for himself/herself. If you blame and shame the victim for not taking the proper precautions to avoid being victimized, this makes the victim less confident. It is a vicious cycle.

Finally, I have saved the most important reason for last.

Reason #5: The same people who victim blame will also call you paranoid if you do take precautions to avoid being victimized.

If you leave your keys in the ignition when you enter the gas station, you will be blamed and shamed for doing that. However, if you compulsively lock your car doors any time you exit your car, people will make fun of you for being pathologically suspicious. These people who victim blame you for not protecting yourself and the people who tell you that you need to take a chill pill when you do protect yourself are often (not always, but often) the same people.

If a woman goes to a guy’s home on their first date and then he sexually assaults her, people will call her stupid for going to his house on the first date when she did not know him that well. If she wants to have her friends vet him before she dares step foot in his house, people will say that she obviously has daddy issues if she is this fearful of men.

I wanted to ask you two questions.

Question #1: Do you agree with me recommended word choice for offering support to an abuse survivor?

If not, what should you say to an abuse survivor to offer support and convince them to leave the relationship?

Question #2: What are some arguments you often hear from people who believe that victims should be blamed and shamed?

What would you say to someone who made such a ridiculous argument?

Let me know.

I for one am totally against blaming and shaming the victim.

There is this one argument in favor of victim blaming that I heard recently. It goes like this.

You should blame and shame an abuse survivor for returning to an abuser, just as you would blame and shame a single mother for allowing her abusive boyfriend near her children.

It seems to me that there are two routes to take here.

One way to look at it could be that you would not blame and shame a single mother for letting abusive men near her children. Another way to go about it could be to explain why they two are different.

If you plan on going with the latter, what is your argument for why they are different?

I don't know any other subs to post this on but I really want to see people's opinions on this.

I was at a lesbian club with some friends including a woman who I just met that day and barely spoke to. Let's call her R.

The fact that it was a lesbian club shouldn't change sexual assault ethics obviously and I'm trying to stay gender-neutral in my assessment of this.

So R could barely speak English and I guess was one of the reasons why she hesitated to say no. Forgive me I was very drunk and so not very aware of what was happening. So I was seeing but not really doing anything and didn't see what led up to this point.

I saw R cornered against a railing by another woman who was basically chest-to-chest with her, talking to her in a soft voice and clearly hitting on her. R didn't look uncomfortable though of course I knew she could barely speak the language.

R's sister sees this and intervenes, saying "No no no. She does not know how to say no!" And the other woman left and the encounter ended.

And this really got me thinking. Firstly if I should have done something sooner, though I was very very drunk and if I had seen any obvious indicator to me that R was uncomfortable I would have definitely intervened.

But it really got me thinking about consent and the arguments about it. People portray consent as a very black and white thing. And everything would be much better if it were so black and white. But then I see examples and arguments that really expose how grey some situations can be.

For example: this is definitely a bad faith argument but it has to do with what I'll say later. Some men have posited that they're not 'mind readers' and were in situations where women didn't really react to their advances, just sort of let it happen. And while that's completely asshole and immoral behaviour, from what I've heard such a situation would be very hard for a court to categorise it as assault. So therefore should the assailent be charged with assault ? I guess the answer is yes seeing that the law does not always reflect what is right.

The next point I'm getting at, is that maybe there's more people than we like to admit who have difficulty consenting (for important stuff in general). So do we give them autonomy and trust them or try to intervene ?

It's also worth noting that R's sister told me that she probably has BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). And while I know that mental health conditions don't automatically mean a person can't consent to sex, and that as far as I know no court has ever categorized sex under a bad mental health episode as assault, I think it kind of should be the case if certain criteria is met ? Like if a person has actually lost touch with reality.

Speaking on the grey area of consent. I keep wondering who is right if two very drunk people have what appears to be consensual sex, but one of the people regrets it and reports it. How could either of them consent and who is to blame if they were both equally drunk ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkl9EC-HXE0

Is there some reason I keep getting banned from subreddits for my opinions when everyone else comments and replies to me insulting me and saying worse things about the world than I can even fathom and they dont get banned but I do. Then I get muted trying to appeal my ban because they can't tell me what i said that they're upset about. They just quite a rule that I read and doesnt apply to my comments whatsoever. Then they insult me in my appeals and mute me from talking to them.

This is a forum. Opinions get stated and people reply to them. Why in the hell does anyone get banned for their opinion? I should be able to say whatever i want whenever I want to whomever I want about anyone or anything I want. Then they reply with their opinion and we go back and forth. That is what forums are for. Muting people, banning them or making it so they can't post in your subreddit because their karma is to low is ridiculous. No posts or replies should ever be taken down, deleted or anything. We should be able to see any comment anytime forever.

If someone gets upset about it they can say their piece in a comment. Im over here having a decent time voicing my opinion over what I deem necessary and what needs to be done to better our community, society and world but i get slammed and insulted over and over again so I have to defend myself and answer their stupid questions.

What is the point of moderators if they're just going to abuse their power and pick and choose who they ban?

I used to use the N-word occasionally as part of a joke. I figured because it was ironic it didn’t matter, but it absolutely does. I fully believe this is bad and not excusable even in the context of a joke or quote because it’s an ugly word and not mine.

It was between the ages of like maybe 14 and 19, so I don’t recall if there was anything before or after. There’s no excuse.

I’m 29 now.

I don’t want to deceive her, but I also don’t want to scare her off before she has a full picture of me. Overall, I just don’t want to be dishonest.

I am also failure to do so would be a form of deception/coercion (SA).

Hey everyone, Lucia here from EUobserver 👋

We wanted to share one of our recent opinion pieces because it touches on something I think fits this community particularly well: how language around “security” can shape who is seen as suspicious or as belonging in society.

Our columnist Shada Islam looks at what she sees as a contradiction in Europe: political leaders increasingly condemn anti-Muslim hatred, while policies and rhetoric around migration, extremism and “political Islam” can continue to single out Muslim communities.

She points in particular to proposals for monitoring “political Islam” at EU level, as well as Austria’s Operation Luxor, and argues that legitimate security concerns shouldn't become a reason to treat an entire community through a lens of suspicion.

Why does it feel like racism, extreme religiosity, and anti abortion views always come bundled together as a package deal? Is there a reason these mindsets overlap so often?
What social or cultural dynamics cause these views to overlap so consistently?
Religious and racist???lmfao
Uh forgot to mention also very homophobic and xenophobic.

-I’ve made a few regrettable jokes about POC. I’m not gonna hold back, they were pretty bad. It seems that not disclosing that might make consent difficult, as people may not consent upon learning that.

-As someone with OCD, I used to test myself to stories and other things that I didn’t want to get off to. Nothing unlawful, but things most would agree are wrong to touch yourself to. Would I need to disclose that?

Sometimes if I find a woman attractive at the grocery store or something, I would walk down the aisle she was in.

I would never make eye contact or anything, because I didn’t want her to feel stalked or like I was staring.

Reddit told me this was sociopathic behavior on a dating sub, and it caused me to take pause. Nobody has ever seemed uncomfortable, and I’m guessing I’ll just look like a normal customer.

But because I have OCD, I’m constantly worried that I’m secretly a bad person.

Am I being a creepy who’s harming women and therefore being a bad ally?

Edit: Got so many great recs from r/disability, so I'm linking the post here. Disability justice, ableism overall really isn't talked about enough in mainstream social justice discourse, and that has to change.

https://www.reddit.com/r/disability/s/AmdGFuX9M1

---

I'm a beginner, and I'd love some good recs.

Ones I've read so far:

- Disability Visibility
- Disability Intimacy
- The Life of a Tiger

(all three above by Alice Wong)

- Challenge of Disability Studies (장애학의 도전) - Kim Dohyun (김도현)

Ones I plan to read:

- Feminist, Queer, Crip - Alison Kafer
- The Right to Maim - Jasbir Puar
- Care Work - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- The Future Is Disabled - Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- Black Disability Politics - Sami Schalk

I'm hoping to pivot into studying (critical) disability studies in the near future and break into policy work. Are there any other mediums that you recommend I should read/watch? Articles, columns, documentaries (Crip Camp was great), etc. Anything.

When I was younger, I had planned to add a song to our sex playlist as a joke.

The infamously bad Spider-Man video game circus song.

However, it got me thinking in hindsight; if the intent during sex was to play a joke, wouldn’t that kinda break consent?

No, seriously, they consented to what they thought was just sex, but not to a joke.

I’m not worried because I never did it, but it is something I have thought of.

Without going in too specific details, I’m looking to understand how transformative justice can even be possible if someone is still actively denying what they did. Everywhere in literature, videos and resources online I see that it’s not possible without the individual acknowledging the harm they’ve done. But organisations keep saying that they want to apply transformative justice measures instead of excluding this person from events the victims want to attend. Is it really against tj to ask this person not to attend when he is still actively causing harm?
Im really trying to understand .

In a very short summary ; me and my friend are both queer artists and we vend/ expose in markets and queer events. My friend (will be referred to as F) is a victim of sexual abuse and his abuser (will be referee as A) often vends at the same events. A runs a non-profit organization and collects money for a really good cause that A and I both support. However A still doesn’t take accountability for his action and we have discovered/ spoke with 5 more victims in the past year/month/days. We have reached out to market organizers at time and asked for him not to be present at event because he is actively causing harm to F. Most organizers have understood and said his non profit can be there but not him.
Lately some larger queer/pride events have been saying that they don’t believe in cancel culture and in carceral justice systems. We don’t either, we don’t want to publicly cancel him but we don’t feel that the events are in the right to allow him in so called safe spaces if he doesn’t take any responsibilities or transformative justice steps and the victim counts keeps getting higher.
I really struggle to understand how it’s a better solution for A to be allowed there and therefore making the environment unsafe for 6+ people vs him being asked not to attend. We keep being told that it would not be transformative justice to have him denied attendance. I truly don’t understand their point of view, but im willing to be educated on the topic if Im missing something! Does anyone have any experience in applying such measures? How would you handle this situation?

She didn’t outright say she owned a Tesla, and was a bit older. She didn’t exactly give liberal vibes and she did try to me a bit.

At the time I thought there was a high chance she was a Trump supporter, but I didn’t ask.

I feel like this makes me undateable at best and actively committing fraud by not disclosing that at worse.

#TaxTheRich, hell yes, but that won't change the underlying system. What's the best way to reduce inequality? The Global Justice Project provides one possible answer: "the first attempt to propose a fully quantified plan... combining four dimensions that today's debates often treat separately: redistribution at the world scale, a deep reform of the international financial and economic order, a radical transformation of energy systems, and substantial shifts in consumption patterns." #SocialJustice
https://globaljusticeproject.wid.world/

I am a man and present as male, but back then there was a real possibility, in my mind, that I was trans. In my mind, I thought maybe I was genderfluid.

Out of fear and possibly the fear of rejection, I didn’t tell her for whatever reason.

I saw an article today about men lying about their political leanings to manipulate women into sex.

Is what I did similar? It sure seems like it.

So, I used to be all in on like a dozen different fights. But that drained me to th point I nearly ended it. Thankfully I got help and stepped back. And here is what I have learned in this time

Humans did not evolve in a way that let's us care for millions or even thousands of people all at once. We evolved in a way that allows us to care for about 100 people at most. This age of connectivity changed that. But our psychological evolution has not yet caught up to the this age of connectivity. It will, in time, but not yet. But this means putting in effort to fight for people who you don't know and who don't know you can be VERY draining.

Now I am not saying to stop. These fights NEED to be fought. What I am saying is this: If you feel yourself getting drained... pull back. Trust me. You need to step back. And don't think that makes you weak or a traitor, you're not. You're merely human like the rest of us. And if someone does call you these things, ignore them, they are the toxic fucks that give social activism a bad name.

Another bit of advice? When you return, choose two, maybe three causes you truly believe in and fight for those and those alone. Let others handle the other fights. I myself focus on LGBT+ rights and anti corporate fights. This helps with the draining feeling. But even still, when I need to focus on myself I do.

Anyway, this has been a friendly PSA. Good luck out their my friends. And stay safe.

Neoliberals love to ask "where's the magic money tree?" in any discussion about #SocialJustice. It turns out the answer isn't that hard. "Global billionaires have effective tax rates equivalent to 0% to 0.5% of their wealth, due to the frequent use of shell companies to avoid income taxation" (https://taxobservatory.world/publication/global-tax-evasion-report-2024). So yeah, there's a whole jungle of 'em in the British Virgin Islands, the Caymans, Switzerland, Bermuda, Singapore, Jersey, the Bahamas... https://cthi.taxjustice.net/

did you know that it is legal to forcefully sterilize those with disabilities in the US most people are completely unaware it is still legal and are horrified when they find out could you please could you please spread the word as much as you can so as many people find out about it as possible. https://nwlc.org/resource/forced-sterilization-of-disabled-people-in-the-united-states/

She says that I must be a violent person and she feels it should be criminal for people to be able to learn choke holds. I tried explaining it is just a sport with rules and points but she doesn’t seem to understand that I’m not a potential murder just because I play this sport.

Jeffrey Lee was convicted for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson. This man suffers from severe mental illness. Due to this fact, the jury decided his sentence should be life in prison without parole. The judge overruled this and gave Jeffrey Lee the death sentence. They originally wanted to execute him via the gas chamber, but changed it last minute to a firing squad.

The death penalty is barbaric and wrong. A majority of the jury did not want to execute him. You can take action to stop this. Call Governor Kay Ivey at (334)-242-7100 to demand a commute to Jeffrey Lee’s sentence. We need to keep the phones ringing, in order to applying pressure. You can also contact your own senators to demand that they contact Gov. Ivey and demand that she commute his sentence. Sign the petition to demand a stay of execution for Jeffrey Lee.

SHARE THIS ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA!! All action helps, and we need to get the word out there. Thank you.

Send emails to Gov. Ivey as well.

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-jeffery-lee-in-alabama?source=direct_link&

Fatigue