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I've been spending a lot of time over the past year thinking about interpersonal conflicts in organizing, why they escalate, and why organizations are sometimes so ineffective at resolving them. Weirdly, the best resource for me on this has been a subreddit about mother-in-laws.
I started reading r/JUSTNOMIL for fun, not advice, but it has actually taught me a ton not just about family relationships, but also healthy boundaries, productive ways of conflict resolution, and, painfully, how to tell when you're being manipulated and abused.
Obviously I don't think all conflicts in organizing are related to manipulation or abuse. But a lot of toxic behaviors that serve to escalate those conflicts follow very similar patterns to those in abusive relationships.
And so often, where an org fails to deal healthily with more routine conflicts among members, it also fails to deal at all with (particularly gendered) harassment, abuse, and assault.
An org that doesn't have a healthy, robust way of dealing with conflict before it escalates is ripe for manipulation and abuse, not just from bad actors, but sometimes from otherwise normal people who have developed really unhealthy boundaries and organizing tactics over time.
Manipulators have a few characteristics in common: They gain some power and set themselves up as somehow indispensable to the org; They cultivate an in-group where there is little open dissent and set up those who disagree as both political and personal opponents of the group;
They use fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG) to get people to do what they want; They gaslight, deny, deflect, or present themselves as a victim when people try to hold them accountable; They refuse to deal with a conflict directly or in front of witnesses;
They are passive aggressive; They turn political disagreements into personal conflicts or ways to carry out a grudge; They project their own inappropriate actions onto others in the form of accusations; They take advantage of formal procedures and weak org structures.
More than anything, they thrive in environments where people are conflict-averse and lack appropriate accountability mechanisms. They make it easier for most other members to put up with their inappropriate behavior than to call them out on it and hold them responsible.
Because of this, often those who try to hold them accountable--those who are seen as rocking the boat--are the ones who suffer, because they're not provided adequate support by the org or they're seen as causing the conflict by insisting that it be dealt with appropriately.
Meanwhile, manipulators are skilled at evading accountability, often following a pattern called DARVO:
1. DENY that they behaved inappropriately, that they did anything wrong, that the situation was actually as their accuser described--this is where gaslighting comes in
1. DENY that they behaved inappropriately, that they did anything wrong, that the situation was actually as their accuser described--this is where gaslighting comes in
2. ATTACK the credibility or behavior of their accusers, the credibility of the organization or its accountability procedures, basically they'll throw out pretty much any accusation under the sun that will deflect or distract from their own actions
3. REVERSE VICTIM AND OFFENDER. They will point to ways that they are, in fact, the true victim, claiming that they're being harassed or bullied, and attempting to gain the sympathies of everyone around them with personal appeals or by emphasizing how they're being persecuted.
DARVO was coined by Jennifer J. Freyd, who discussed it in the contexts of grooming and parental abuse, but it has since been used especially to illustrate the pattern of offenders denying sexual assault and harassment accusations in the face of Me Too. https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/defineDARVO.html#:~:text=DARVO%20stands%20for%20%22Deny%2C%20Attack,whistle%20blower%20%2D%2D%20into%20an
Again, I don't want to say that orgs are just chock-full of abusers and manipulators. But I do think that a number of organizers who are exposed to unhealthy patterns of behavior go on to perpetuate these dynamics, because they're so insidious and easily internalized.
For new organizers who don't have a good idea of what a healthy organizing relationship looks like, or even somewhat experienced organizers new to an org, it's all-too-easy to be exposed to this behavior and mimic it, thinking that this is just how things operate.
If organizations want to combat this, they need strong structures and robust accountability processes, yet an awareness of how those very procedures can be abused; training on boundaries and appropriate organizing relationships; well-trained and informed meeting facilitators;
a culture that favors open and immediate conflict resolution; and members that are trained on how to recognize and prevent manipulation and abuse.
I'm sure there's a lot I haven't covered here, but I'm tired. Anyway, our organizing spaces have to reflect the world we want to win.
