Content Note: This conversation covers many topics, but makes regular reference to discussions of Abuse Dynamics / Harm / Abuse Apologism / Trauma / Sexual Violence
base It seems to us that many discussions on harm and accountability fail to adequately express the terms of the discussion. Seeing as you’ve already begun discussing some widely used terms around this subject as we were sitting down, could we perhaps elaborate on those as a grounding to the discussion?
A We’d just begun talking about the use of ‘gaslighting’ in an abuse setting where a person’s version of events are constantly undermined, or they’re told they’re misrepresenting the situation. Nowadays gaslighting is used for all kinds of things – some of which I think are less helpful. Different types of abuse arise out of specific power relations, which enable a person or group to perpetrate that violence against you.
C It’s helpful to think of the origin of the term which is from a film where this guy tried to convince his wife she was losing her mind – he’d make the gaslights flicker and then deny it had happened.
A With racism you might also have your experiences of harm undermined, but it can be perpetrated by groups of people or entire dominant structures. Do we want to expand the language of abuse to encompass structural racism? Or perhaps that will undermine the specifics of what we are describing, which is different to structural racism, even if it can be perpetuated by dominant structures as well as interpersonally.
B You said you didn’t know if it was correct to apply the term gaslighting if it occurred in a group. Maybe that’s just as valid, if not more so. If one’s faced with that from a whole group, you’re going to be left even less sure of what really happened. but yes, It may need a different term which differentiates between the intimate and broader social interaction.
C I find I’m made to doubt myself. “Am I making it about race? Am I playing the race card? Is it just in my head? Am I overthinking things?” But I think it’s important to recognise gaslighting is a deliberate act – and I actually don’t think group situations are necessarily attempting to make you doubt yourself. They can honestly believe it when they refuse to acknowledge a racial dimension. For example, I was telling a white friend about stop and search a few years back, explaining how my brother and his friends get stopped all the time. “I’ve never experienced that; that’s never happened to me” was his only response. He didn’t do it to deliberately undermine the claim, in his head, he really thought it wasn’t that much of a problem. But that’s an important difference to someone who maybe is well aware that it’s an issue and is trying to make you doubt the basis of your claim. I think recognising the meaning of abuse is key as well. Intent is important – whilst harm is always something that needs addressing, you might not mean to harm someone; whereas with abuse, I think it’s something very deliberate to cause harm.
A We can also consider the term “survivor”. Feminist discourse against violence will often use “survivor” instead of “victim” and this has filtered into popular discourse. I have issues with the uncritical way in which we often talk about “centring” survivors which evades a more structural analysis of why this is necessary and what it entails.
There was a recent situation with a political group, kick-started by a prominent member of that group on the radio show of a public figure with a long track record of misogyny and abuse. The denial of responsibility for deciding to appear on this radio show spurred individuals to make public disclosures about their attempts to go to that group and tell them they have promoted work by people who have abused them. Should there not have already been some sort of process in place so that didn’t happened? As these negotiations had been happening privately, the group was able to publicly say, “we always take these things really seriously and we would never do things to undermine survivors,” even though their behaviour proved otherwise. Then, rather than dealing with the harm caused by this specific series of harmful actions and decisions, almost everyone involved in the group began to come forward with their own survivorship, as if to offset the harm they had created. And I think it’s the problem that we’ve set up when we “centre” survivors without also analysing power; specifically who already has power and how it is used to silence others that don’t.
C But that’s not how it works. They’re not a survivor of those abusive people, or that specific situation. Just because you are a survivor of instances of abuse – which is awful and obviously deserving of solidarity in its own regard, that doesn’t mean you can bring it to a situation and demand your concerns be listened to because you’re “a survivor”. That’s not how it works, and that’s not what “centring survivors” is meant to mean at all!
A I think we need to continue working to meaningfully grapple with how experiences of traumatic violence impact on people in so many ways, but experiencing harm does not necessarily create a structural understanding of how harm is perpetuated on a larger scale and how we might be complicit in causing harm to others.
But with this group, this decision to weaponise their legitimate status as survivors was used to undermine a structural critique by implying “you can’t challenge us because we have survived abuse, or sexual harassment”. This isn’t a structural analysis that will help improve conditions for other survivors, especially those that were harmed by this group’s actions.
B But it’s not to say that somebody in that position couldn’t have a good critique and understanding of all of this. It’s just not automatic.
C It’s like when people try and excuse bigotry by saying “but my [marginalised group] friend told me that that was okay to say.” and you’re like, well, there are qualifiers
A A structural analysis is vital. There are examples of survivors of abuse who have gone on to perpetuate violent, carceral responses to abuse which do little to support survivors who are vulnerable to this abuse, as well as the violence of the state. We can see this in discourse of so-called ‘honour-based violence’, such as forced marriage and FGM, where the state weaponises disclosures of harm to perpetuate a racist narrative about regressive cultural practices in BAME, and specifically Muslim, communities. As a result, the state is empowered to increase surveillance and criminalisation of these communities. There are individuals who have made careers out of perpetuating this state surveillance and criminalisation of their own communities, including survivors. Disclosures of violence can have far-reaching political consequences and we need to continually situate our response to interpersonal violence within a wider political understanding of state violence, to develop truly liberatory ways to challenge these structures.
Black, brown and migrant feminists have had this dilemma for generations when we’re talking about violence in our communities. We know that perpetrators often face racist violence from the state, so have to create spaces which respond to violence without increasing the state’s power. We need to hold those that perpetuate patriarchal abuse to account, but we also need to respond to the violence they face elsewhere. It just gives us yet another thing to have to factor into how we deal with violence and how we’re trying to enact accountability in the ways that we organise and live.
base So if it’s difficult to think about a structural analysis and as you say, impossible for one person to speak for entire groups of marginalised people. How do we approach accountability then, not just for sexual violence but with racism, transmisogyny and more?
A There is an unhelpful current trend of fetishing the traumatised subject; constantly demanding that people disclose their most intimate personal stories as a mode of authenticity when discussing abuse. We shouldn’t require that individuals disclosure experiences of violence for them to have an analysis of abuse and harm, especially when there is already an imbalance in who has the freedom to publicly disclose their abuse and have it believed, as a result of migration status, race, class, gender identity etc.
C Someone might describe an experience. They’re the person who knows best what that was like, but that doesn’t then mean they’re able to analyse it, to apply what that should mean when it comes to how we deal with perpetrators. If that was the case, then we wouldn’t see the need for therapy, or other forms of group care. Why do people need other people to support them to actually work these things out? I think possibly the move to looking solely at lived experiences was in reaction to those very experiences being completely ignored. But now I think, yes, there is that danger of giving that too much value at the expense of…
A And also specifically when we’re talking about about abuse, individuals might not want to talk publicly about their abuse. And why should they have to?
C If you’re not willing to disclose you’re a survivor, or you aren’t a survivor, then you’re expected not to talk about it as much. As if If you’re not willing to come forward and say #metoo [A hashtag on social media which represented a mass disclosure from individuals detailing abuse they’d experienced] for example – you shouldn’t really have a voice in this conversation. And I think that’s a dangerous conception of what it means to centre survivors.
A This is in no way to undermine the strength it takes to make these disclosures publicly. But we should be able to speak about these things in a structural way, where we can begin to think about ways to meaningfully challenge structures of abuse in a way that benefits the most vulnerable survivors.
On the left specifically, I think there is a lot of talk about challenging abuse with little meaningful commitment from those that are not already harmed, or at risk of harm. Why is it up to us that are already abused, and at risk, to continually challenge those that perpetuate harm?
C Yeah, I’m tired of that “we all on the left need to do this or that” rhetoric as a way of making it other people’s problem, like a deferral of responsibility. So then it isn’t their own responsibility to change themselves. It isn’t their own responsibility to take ownership of what they’ve done or how they’ve abused people. I think it is a structural problem – but that doesn’t stop it being an interpersonal one as well.
A Following a recent disclosure about yet another person in leftist circles being outed as an abuser, a friend said to me that this just proves now that, more than anything, those of us who have been doing this work for a long time need to continue to build networks and support each other. This isn’t about appealing to those that abuse to stop abusing us, but to continue protecting our networks to defend ourselves.
We can say until we’re blue in the face that our spaces need to take sexual violence and abuse seriously, and that this includes holding your own friends to account. Yet how much has this worked so far? Maybe the best thing the rest of us can do is support each other and create our own spaces. But if we step back, that doesn’t stop other people being at risk. This is always where we find ourselves trapped: stay and face the constant threat of violence, or protect yourself from it through necessity – knowing that others will incur the violence instead.
C Yes it’s just relentless. Just yesterday afternoon I learnt of yet another group with severe accusations of abusive and controlling behaviour. What got me was seeing other people saying they alway knew this. And I got really angry. Like, you have to let us younger organisers know. I’m tired of these constant innuendoes and hints of things, but not actually know what’s happening, or find out later, and then a load of people say they knew. It’s like, well, why didn’t you tell us? Maybe some people argue it’s the wrong way but as soon as I heard about it, I shouted about it all the time so that other people can know and then they can make their choice based on that knowing. In this case, I’m particularly emotionally affected by it because I’ve felt like I’d supported this group and thought I’d found something rare in organising, where I’m not surrounded by white people. Here was something that put people of colour and migrants at the forefront – what felt like a very different way of organising.
So I feel like there needs to be something. I don’t know how it could be done in a way that’s not just like exploitable and could be abused as well. Something that informed people who are maybe new to organising or community groups. People have done it sometimes with individuals where maybe I’ve engaged with something or said something about an abusive person and then someone has quietly got in touch. They’re not demanding action, they’re just informing me.
A Something I’ve spoken about a lot with like-minded friends recently is formalising the systems that we already have in place to warn and protect each other; specifically women and non binary people and in a way similar to the woman in the US who had created an open web spreadsheet of abusive men in media. Obviously it’s not a particularly accurate method because it could just be people who have some other issue with an individual putting their details in. But there are ways of creating this protection amongst ourselves and not simply battling with others to take it seriously. I know people talk about doing it through a formalised left structure like a union, but then we know there are unions that literally protect abusers within their own ranks!
C How do we do that? We’re talking a lot about challenging our friends. Who are your friends and then who are the people who get left out of that? What about those people who need warning not in those friendship circles. And how are those reached and how are they informed? I definitely agree about the whole idea of not making it another big organisational thing.
A Many people I know who do the work of building structures of accountability are constantly reflecting on the harm that they themselves might be complicit in causing and how to challenge that. Admitting that constant self-critique is not a weakness, but necessary. In processes of accountability, it is also important for those that are involved in holding others accountable to think about ways that they have harmed others. A recognition that no one individual, or group, is immune from creating harm has to be central to the new models of transformative justice that we want to create.
As we’ve said, all of us are capable of causing harm.
B I’ve just had an experience of where that actually did happen – somebody did put their hand up and admit to causing harm. They got heavily criticised and were sanctioned for what they were admitting to. And I think it’s something that needs very careful managing, but it’s too important to ignore
A How did that situation play out?
B I think in the end everybody came to an understanding and they’re certainly all working together and things are beginning to mend, but it was quite hurtful in lots of ways
A And is that person ever likely to make such disclosure again?
B I think that’s a problem. Their opinion of these processes has been damaged itself. And that’s really sad.
A It’s a real challenge in these situations not to simply replicate a statist model for justice, as that is so pervasive. So, resisting the urge to immediately opt for banishment or punishment, instead actually looking at how we can seek justice as well as growth and transformation. Any attempt to enact transformative justice is difficult because it necessitates not simply abandoning the person who caused the harm and potentially grave abuse, especially when you go through a process of second guessing whether their desire to transform is genuine or not.
C And what is the measure of when somebody is beyond help? Often, actually, the people we speak about in these spaces have done things on a serial basis.
B I mean, that’s the key isn’t it? The first time around, hopefully, an abusive person has been transformed. The only way to tell is by watching it. As time progresses, if it is serial, then it needs some other kind of remedy. I do believe that one has to give people a chance – but not if that is itself being taken advantage of by an abuser.
A And also who are the people who get second chances or that potential for transformation? That’s decided on the grounds of race, class and access to certain spaces. So we can believe in an individual’s capacity for change, but structurally there are social groups with historical impunity for committing crimes against others. I also don’t know if either of you has ever been involved in a successful accountability process? It’s often impossible.
base It would be interesting to navigate a bit between at what point this imperfection becomes complicity – you are saying perfection is a very dangerous thing to start trying to seek with each other – playing out in both expectations of the “perfect victim” but also in conceptions of the “perfect abuser”. How might we accept that these processes are imperfect – but that isn’t about excusing harm? How do we recognise it’s the failure to attempt accountability that causes more anger than whether we’re successful in making an abuser accountable?
A I often have to contend with other people’s understanding of violence, which can be different from my own. I know that it might be easier for me to recognise because my own life, work and how my organising has shaped my politics. Simultaneously I don’t feel equipped to have to explain abuse, power and violence constantly. But what do people even understand to be abuse? What is people’s understanding of violence? What counts as complicity? Different people read violence completely differently.
C It’s really hard to articulate all that – it’s something that you recognise but you wouldn’t necessarily be able to articulate.
A I think it’s also okay that we don’t have any perfect models for justice yet. If prison abolition movements have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes you don’t have a full idea what the end result will resemble and that it will likely not exist in our lifetime.
I think all of us here believe in prison abolition [vigorous nods!] But we are nowhere near perfecting how structures of transformative justice look – especially as we continue to live under patriarchal white supremacist capitalism. But we can keep working at it.
C There seems to be a difference between disclosure in these public spaces and more personal spaces. In fact scale comes up a lot – the abolition of prisons is a really big task, society-wide, what does that look like across various scales? And that’s what some of these things going on with the #metoo hashtag – they’re really being done in a very public way. But then we’re also talking about us, our friendship circles, working groups that we’re in. And these levels are interconnected involving written and unwritten rules or standards of behaviour and so on. So it is complicated but it would be lovely to be able to think of some kind of a spectrum that one can start with the personal and work their way outwards, see how it would work.
A In one group that I organise as part of, we only put in place a full process for accountability once an incident had taken place where one member was harmed.That’s another problem – we only tend to talk about these things after harm has been caused because we are often trying to do so much at once. And when that happens it fails not only the survivor of the violence, but also others who look to the group as working to enact transformative politics on a small scale.
Yet on the left we see people whose literal close friends and “allies” have abused others and this is no one’s responsibility. If people don’t even understand accountability in their own circles, in so-called radical spaces, how can we possibly have truly transformative politics on a bigger scale?
B Is that because it’s their friends and they have too much of an emotional response towards them?
A It is definitely easier to chastise others from a distance.
C I think that’s the thing. It complicates relationships. There can be a failure to decide to actually deal with it – and people choose either silence or simply distance – and there can be something very easy about just cutting someone off. Just having nothing more to do with it – I’m definitely guilty of that. Because it’s very easy “I want nothing more to do with you. You’ve done this crap thing. You don’t seem to care about it, so therefore I don’t want to know you.” But maybe, having to talk about those difficult things and having to have them between you and work out is important. Hold them to account and all of the difficult things that that brings with it.
B I think we’re invested in our friendships. If something is happening with somebody we’re close to, then psychologically that reflects on us as well so that we can feel we need to whitewash it, or distance us from complicity.
A If we take the word ‘community’ to mean anything (and it can sometimes be essentialising and unhelpful), if we really think we’re accountable to each other as a community, it means that we have to reflect on ways that we’ve enabled or refused to acknowledge abuse and what structures allowed that to arise.
It’s really hard for your politics and emotional wellbeing to be in this constant state of questioning. But where else can the commitment to transformative change come from? Certainly not from complacency about abuse. How do we make this process of constant critical thinking and action widespread? Most people I know who are doing this work already are constantly overstretched without others willing to share the load. More people need to take on that work, especially those who benefit from relative protection as a result of their race, class, gender identity or able-bodiedness.
C Yes. There’s a limit to what you can deal with. You can be tired; you can go through that discomfort, but if everyone else isn’t as well, then it’s pointless.
A The same few people are the ones who are constantly exhausted by it. Then people burn out and those that should be holding one another to account close ranks.
C There’s also a dismissal of the people who are shouting about it, the same old constant undermining: “You’re just being divisive. You’re giving other people fuel to fight us. We shouldn’t be infighting.” That whole weaponisation ”You’re just playing out the vendetta you’ve always had with this person. You’re just sectarians” and all the other micro acts of undermining. And yes, then you get worn out and fed up and just give up.
B On a more structural note, I think you’ve made the point, or it’s sort of implied there, that the problem is trying to devise accountability processes when you’re in the middle of needing it. It’s far too late. So, ideally one would do it as part of the group but then most groups are so busy, it’s sometimes also very difficult to say let’s sit down and work with this- we don’t have the capacity.
C In the group I organise with the most, we had a get-together on Skype. People are all over the place and very busy. We wanted to create this accountability process. We haven’t needed it yet, thankfully. But we do need something in place. I was one of the people putting together questions for it and bringing together the information. We met in August and people have all answered the questions. But I haven’t collated them yet and this signifies part of the danger – we’re all so busy and part of it I think is I’m consciously thinking “we’re doing okay”, so there’s not that push for urgency. It’s difficult to do, even in the abstract.
A It’s also important that people are being held to account when they put you in political harm – e.g. either with police or journalists. There are ways in which people operate in spaces where they can move with protection that others do not have. If we think about solidarity and minimising harm, that also means taking into account how some groups are more at risk from the state etc. and how our actions might perpetuate that harm.
I think that’s probably a whole other area of discussion. But this stuff is why I rarely want to associate with institutions of the left because the way that a lot of the left organises creates risks for me and people around me.
C Do you know what I think part of the problem is? It involves changing the way people think. And you can’t. You can’t. That has to come from themselves.
B Yes. But it also has to come from hearing the very things we’ve started to talk about. And it’s the way you listen. And it’s why it’s important to listen.
A If we believe in abolition, if we really believe that we can have a better way of living, we have to embed processes for accountability and supporting survivors of violence into all of our politics. But again, whose responsibility is it to ensure that this happens? Because I’m tired of talking about this all the time and I know a lot of people that feel the same.
C And then, what do you do with people who still claim it doesn’t apply to them? I was having a conversation with a friend about different ways of organising community groups and different ways of living. And we were talking about accountability and crime and our end thing was, well, if in the end they really wouldn’t, they really wouldn’t, you’d just have to put them in a boat. Put them in a boat and make it float away so they couldn’t harm anyone else.
A And maybe we just need to form vigilante gangs that hunt down and beat the shit out of abusive men.
C Don’t put that in.
base But this is important – this is where a basic necessity of safety meets capacity, right? If you’re going to force people into dangerous situations, when they’ve no capacity left for dealing with the harm, they’re going to have to seek the other necessary options. So in some ways this is exactly the kind of warning that does need publishing, and it’s essential that people realise the result of a lack of ability to reduce harm any other way but the immediate physical removal of danger.
A People may know on a political level why it has been important for people of colour, specifically black people, to be able to fight and arm themselves – so why can’t we do that against dangerous abusers when we don’t want to perpetuate carceral systems? Most of the people I’ve had these discussions with are women and non binary people who are constantly having to have the same discussions about abuse and it gets tiring. We can skill up to fight because if that’s the thing that makes them afraid, let’s make them afraid. Similarly, I know that this form of violence isn’t so different from the violence we’re opposing.
B Yes. I mean, I’m wholly against violence against anybody.
A I mean, I’m not going around just starting fights with people. But it feels a necessary thing, that this is a level that we’ve got to now.
B But that worries me very much. We start off from a point of reason and a point of necessity, but then, and I think American gun laws is a good example, where I’m sure when that was first put in the constitution there was a really good reason for it – but the moment it was used by marginalised communities for self defence, it was totally abused and we see that its deployment is just another aspect of the oppressions and harm we see elsewhere.
C I think that people are tired and fed up, just wishing people would get on with it, but it feels impossible sometimes. I recognise that there are certain people who are called on all the time, who always show up and do the work, and that shouldn’t be the case. But I can’t help but think that is also necessary right now? It’s all so imperfect and this is part of that but the people who do so much of the work do still need to be relied on. What’s important though is that there should be less of an expectation on them to do it and I don’t think that there’s always space for them to go, “I’m not doing this anymore, I’ve had enough, I’ve done enough”. That is very valid response that should be respected, but I do understand the need to ask those people for help.
A This work needs to be better understood as a site of education. Often you get this imperative propagated in online thinkpieces that ‘this is what you all need to do to be better’. We could all sit here and issue commands.
Sometimes it can be useful, but I know I don’t learn when someone’s simply commanding a change. I become resentful and non-compliant. I don’t want the work we do to just add to a chorus of people saying, ‘do this, do that, you’re all doing it all wrong’. I mean, I do think some people are doing things wrong (!), but I don’t think it’s useful to present a list of wrongs. It keeps coming back to finding more energy to continue this dialogue, which more people can take on.
B Just from an education point of view, it’s far more effective to demonstrate the effect of what this harm is doing, presenting how can we change and work together.
A I wanted to ask you a question. You’ve been at all this longer than us, and is this just a thing that keeps coming around every few years that just gets worse and worse, is it something that’s gotten worse over time do you think or were there better ways of intervening before that don’t exist now?
B Of course there were women’s groups and consciousness raising groups to try to raise awareness amongst each other, supported by the feminist movement, but actually things have moved on and I think that there’s much more awareness now; and still a growing awareness. My experience, historically, is that the victims were seen as a problem. My personal experience, professionally, was as a woman in the 60s and 70s working in the computer industry…apart from anything else I was totally isolated most of the time and I couldn’t really speak out and I wasn’t really aware actually, as far as being aware myself, of what abuse was going on and the subtle ways that people were reacting to me – some of the things were very obvious though. I think there’s much more awareness now and much more willingness to tackle it and think about it, and understand what it is and listen to other points of view, which is good.
A Even over the last few years I feel there’s been a shift in how we’re able to talk more openly about abuse, but how has that improved our support for those making disclosures? We haven’t spoken about the influence of online spaces. There are people who talk about social media being toxic, who criticise ‘call out culture’, but often these critiques are a way of distracting from the individual’s own harmful behaviour.
When we were talking earlier about formalising the networks that we’ve always had to warn each other, the internet and social media have offered this to some extent – an ability to make anonymous disclosures and connect with others.
So I just think it’s useful to mention that we’re having these discussions in various different spaces, but much of it also happens on the internet; so people are coming to certain realisations about how abuse is perpetuated and how they might be implicated. Terminology can be misused and I’m not saying that the internet can’t also create harm, but it has also been very helpful.
base There are so many subtleties when it comes to successful accountability, because it’s all so imperfect. In that example, for instance, you were taking the responsibility of not undermining necessary political work that was happening. But that seems to take a toll too – of knowing that you would have to deal with the fall out, including the anger of friends and comrades who might feel they’re been kept in the dark – how do you manage that boundary between necessity and safety?
A Prioritising people’s safety and protecting people from harm, especially those who face greater vulnerability, as a starting point. Examine how people in organising spaces put others at risk – call out events and spaces that don’t foregrounds people’s safety. This seems the basis for each of our politics here: How do we keep people around us safe and make sure that they’re not further harmed by these systems that have already created immeasurable harm?
B Because that’s what we’re working for isn’t it? Enabling people to live well? We’re working towards bringing down these structures.
base That’s basically what people call prefigurative right? In that how we empower, how we organise, resist or whatever terminology we want to use – we’re actually trying to put the foundations for a new way of relating to one another. And we see that in a lot of left spaces as well as thinking about accountability around survivorship but for ableism and its exclusionary nature too – this seems a basic call for that kind of that project yes?
A I think it’s also really important that we make it clear this isn’t about expecting people to become experts in theory, or have complex knowledge of feminist academia, it’s actually about basic decency. It’s having care for people around you. There’s a list as long as my arm of text that I still need to read and things I still can’t my head round. But that’s an excuse too often wheeled out and has been used as a weapon against feminist groups attempting to de-centre whiteness – where people always claim it’s too difficult to talk about these concepts, when it’s not. It’s often dismissed as an academic issue and it’s not. In fact, the foundation of all this is really basic.
B But that’s another way of excluding people. You don’t have to be formally educated or “well read” or whatever it is.
A Absolutely. Most of my politics haven’t been shaped by academia, but learning from my organising and others around me about how I need to be more responsible to, and for, other people. There’s also a danger of over-reliance on theory. In the left there are plenty of people who can use particular language and concepts, such as anti prison thinking and writing, and the the discourse of black feminism, to justify abusive behaviours and structures. It goes back to what we were saying earlier – that we don’t have a particular protected status or better understanding just because we’re people of colour, women or survivors. Clearly, we can all manipulate situations and we can all cause harm. For now, it seems like discussions of that may continue to have to happen in private. I know that when I try and discuss this publicly, it still gets picked on by people who want to attack these ideas- but it would be good to be able to safely challenge this stuff more.
