“fuck abusers! let’s kick abusers out and make the whole world safe!” sounds great, but is nonsense. where do they go then? we need to fundamentally change the way in which we relate to each other or risk kicking the abuse down the road or on to less empowered communities

we must understand that “abusers” as a blanket term applied to wider social contexts, however useful it can be, denies us the ability to examine our own capability to cause harm. it designates those who cause harm as an extraneous group of people to society

which goes some way to explaining why so many people “can’t believe it” or are “shocked” because the way we speak about “abusers” fails to acknowledge the simple truth that abuse is something that ***people*** do.

and when we fail to acknowledge that we are all capable of perpetuating these cycles, and fool ourselves into believing that abusers are somehow “other”, we are not holding ourselves accountable.

this is not to say that language is capable of accommodating such nuance, & I am absolutely not telling survivors how to speak about their own experiences, but the internet spectators weighing in with “fuk HR! fuK that! abusers out!” plz consider what you’re contributing & why