Speak Up. Stand Tall.

Contributed by Pam Cash, mother of the blogger.  Parents sometimes have vibes about things. Though it took a while, and I was not sure what my vibes were about, I did start paying more attention than usual to things that seemed a bit off during my daughter’s relationship as a teenager. I did not know that what I was getting were bigger hints of something wrong when the abusive relationship came to its worst point for my daughter. I want to go over the signs I saw over a four-plus year period and talk a little about them. In doing this, I hope I help parents gain knowledge about abuse that may be able to spot it in relationships teenagers might be in. This is not just someone else’s problem— it can happen to you or a friend. There are things you might not think of as a problem, things that could be small signs of abuse. If you start noticing small things, I suggest that you start writing them down. Just do it, because one day it could be useful to have an account of e...

Why is the subject of gender violence so often seen as a women's issue? It's for the same reason that racial issues are often pinned to minority groups. The group of dominance-- in the case of gender violence, men-- usually don't get examined in Jackson Katz gives such an amazing view on this topic. Katz gives us the work of feminist linguist Julia Penelope, an incredibly eye-opening segment of sentences going from John beat Mary to Mary is a battered woman . We see John removed from the sentence entirely, out of focus, and Mary becomes only a battered woman. That is her identity. The questions should not be about Mary-- the questions should not be put solely on the victim of abuse. Instead of people looking at me and asking ' why did you stay?' why don't they look at my abuser and ask ' why did he abuse her?' Through his entire talk, Jackson Katz points out how women who try to talk about these subjects-- abuse and violence against women and men a...

Does the girl in the picture look like she's being abused? When people talk about abuse, they usually are referring to something that leaves bruises or scars. When people say abuse, others think 'so he was hitting her.' The subject of emotional abuse is one that often gets overlooked because it has no real visible markers-- insults don't leave marks on your skin. At any age, this sort of abuse can be incredibly harmful, but for teenagers going through a time of development, it can be all the more confusing and painful. The fact is that emotional abuse is one of the most common forms of abuse, often coupled with verbal abuse. The girl in that picture is me, three years into my relationship with my abuser. In my own relationship, emotional abuse was what I endured most often. No one could really see what I was going through, or if they could, it was only glimpsed. Emotional abuse is defined as this on the site Healthy Place : "any act including confinement, isol...

Recently, I have come to accept the word ' feminist ' as a descriptor for myself. In the modern day, there are many kinds of feminism. My view was always pointed to the more radical of these groups, creating a dislike for the term feminist in its entirety, but recently I've found my point of view shifted. Feminism isn't all the Tumblr version of radical activity that my generation is exposed to. It is multifaceted. Just like all English majors aren't hoity-toity classical literature lovers who will scoff if you haven't read obscure translations of Russian books, all feminists are not seeking to tear down the society we live in and replaced by a matriarchal one where men have no necessary role-- in fact, that sort of feminist in the vast minority and, like snotty lit majors, usually aren't very boosted by the rest of the community outside of their circle. Most English majors are friendly and ready to learn and to talk about books we haven't even read beca...