Three great posts on victim-blaming myths
Feb. 13th, 2012 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaEvery time I read a post naming and counteracting victim-blaming, I breathe a little easier as I lean into the support.
karnythia writes Strong People Don't Have Needs and Other Myths that Can Kill You
"I think some/most of us are familiar with the Strong Black Woman Trope right? Right. For those that are unfamiliar with it, it can best be summed up as the idea that black women are so strong they don’t need help, protection, care, or concern. [...] It feeds into external & internal victim blaming when people insist that only the weak can be prey. The One True Way To Be Strong So You Are Safe idea is comforting right up until it backfires on people who are victimized."
meloukhia writes 'Just Try Harder': The Health Bootstraps
"With mysterious chronic pain, for example, that doesn’t neatly fit any diagnostic criteria. People tell the patient to try harder and work more and bootstrap up and express shock and surprise when the patient is still ill, still ill, even after all this time. [...] The ‘try harder’ rhetoric positions illness and disability both as things that can be ‘overcome’ and as things that are personal responsibilities, when neither of these things are the case.
rachelmanija writes Trauma and PTSD Reading and Excerpts
PTSD is largely a matter of conditioned physiological changes, which are very hard to change via insight and introspection alone. [...] Often, these responses become habitual, and, as a result, many victims develop chronic problems initiating effective, independent action, even in situations where, rationally, they could be expected to be able to stand up for themselves and take care of things.
karnythia writes Strong People Don't Have Needs and Other Myths that Can Kill You"I think some/most of us are familiar with the Strong Black Woman Trope right? Right. For those that are unfamiliar with it, it can best be summed up as the idea that black women are so strong they don’t need help, protection, care, or concern. [...] It feeds into external & internal victim blaming when people insist that only the weak can be prey. The One True Way To Be Strong So You Are Safe idea is comforting right up until it backfires on people who are victimized."
meloukhia writes 'Just Try Harder': The Health Bootstraps"With mysterious chronic pain, for example, that doesn’t neatly fit any diagnostic criteria. People tell the patient to try harder and work more and bootstrap up and express shock and surprise when the patient is still ill, still ill, even after all this time. [...] The ‘try harder’ rhetoric positions illness and disability both as things that can be ‘overcome’ and as things that are personal responsibilities, when neither of these things are the case.
rachelmanija writes Trauma and PTSD Reading and ExcerptsPTSD is largely a matter of conditioned physiological changes, which are very hard to change via insight and introspection alone. [...] Often, these responses become habitual, and, as a result, many victims develop chronic problems initiating effective, independent action, even in situations where, rationally, they could be expected to be able to stand up for themselves and take care of things.
