[image description: a tweet by user @indigenousAI saying
“fun fact: as a DV survivor i cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public. anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug”]
I don’t know of the original poster might not be aware
but!
if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, you can enroll into the address confidentiality program (free of cost!) and be registered to vote as an absentee voter and your name and address will not be made available for the public
it is super easy to get enrolled - the application takes like 5 minutes, but it has to be with someone who is certified to do it (most likely an advocate! try going to a family justice center in your area or calling the Attorney Generals office in your area!!!!)
ALSO :
you don’t need to have any police reports or have a protection order to qualify!!! you just have to sign stating that you’ve been a victim of one of the aforementioned crimes.
Links to the info for every state in the Wikipedia article:
The election news has been hitting all of us at RFAS hard. We will be back to work, but, for the moment, I think a lot of us (myself included) need time to mourn and regroup and connect to our support networks. We can’t help others unless we have our oxygen masks secured first, so we’re going to take some time to do that.
Updates may continue to be sparse for a little bit. I’m trying to get folks waiting for List connections that information as soon as possible, but that may slow down too for a bit.
In the meantime, here is a list of suicide/crisis support lines in the USA, compiled by Elizabeth:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1 800-273-TALK (8255)
“Hey- I’m a CSA survivor. jw does anyone else get caught up reading sociological/psychological/psychoanalytical stuff about the effects of CSA on adults and get really bothered by the clinical/patronising tone, and also, how it feels like reading a never-ending compendium on all the ways that you’re broken? I keep reading this stuff to Learn More about myself even though it ends up triggering me - like a compulsion. Sometimes I think they can be REALLY bad too? insensitive and uneducated? […] I’ve just thought that I think what bothers me the most about some of them is that they can treat you like a subject with no agency and with no real sense of self - it’s kind of dehumanising.“
A few weeks ago, we received this message about the clinical and patronising tones of academic research on abuse and sexual assault, and it really struck a chord with me. As a psychology student who has done public advocacy work for nearly 5 years, the message felt like an echoing of my own concerns with academic publications that address abuse.
Whether the intention is to raise awareness, highlight new approaches in therapy or medicine, or reflect on norms in society, the same tone is found almost universally across papers. It’s a well known problem that some have tried addressing within fields of study, but I don’t think it’s something that has been shared with the general public who consume the same literature as us: academics are pedantic assholes who use research papers and journals as a pissing contest with little to no reflection on how that limits the accessibility of their research.
I’ve struggled with the impulse over the years. In fact, it’s almost an instinct at this point to convolute any text I’m writing to create a maze of terminology and references that show not only do I know what I’m talking about, but I know it better than my fellow students, who are both working with and against me in this rat race. Even this short piece I will edit a thousand times over, because I know that instinct in me will surface and I’ll put on my Academic Hat™ and make a mess over something I could explain concisely and simply. “But then how will readers know how vastly educated I am if I can’t be pedantic?” I think, even though I know better. Curbing that impulse is crucial to creating literature that is truly accessible and productive.
For people who are survivors of abuse or assault, it’s natural to seek out similar stories in an effort to cope with what’s happened, understand what you are going through, and find means to heal. It feels impossible to navigate the waters of healing alone, and the widespread availability of the internet has made access easier for nearly everybody and allowed information to be read about nearly every situation: When I was trying to escape an abusive relationship, online resources were one of the most important tools I had at my disposal. I was able to find a shelter near me, a crisis line, and tips on packing and hiding a go bag. I also found an obtrusive amount of material that outlined all the red flags I “should” have seen from the get go and poignantly worded articles on how far I had allowed the abuse to go. Was the purpose of these articles to blame me and lecture me on all the traps I had fallen into over the years? Probably not. But the cold and impersonal tone, married to paragraphs of offensive and graphic descriptions across the board, further isolated me and caused me to shrink away from reading materials that might have otherwise helped me - if only they had kept those like me in the forefront of their mind.
Trigger warnings have become a rather controversial topic lately, largely owing to the fact that people who are against trigger warnings don’t really understand what they are, how they function, or what their purpose is. A few simple sentences or keywords at the beginning of an article or journal publication can help readers prepare for what’s ahead of them and take care of themselves. Trigger warnings serve as exposure therapy that puts the exposure in the hands of the person who knows themselves the best, and yet they aren’t required in academic texts. In fact, I’ve even been a part of studies and classes where professors have gone out of their way to explain that trigger warnings should always be optional because as academics and professionals we should be expected to read things we disagree with. Ignoring the obvious (that trigger warnings don’t serve to caution against material you may disagree with), the problem now becomes that although we write for a public laymen consumption and to share new ideas and insights, we aren’t really supposed to care what the public thinks or wants.
You’re right; it is dehumanising to read much of the work that is out there. We - myself included - have been trained to feel as if being objective and being crass are the same thing, and it is a huge problem. There is no need to explain, in detail, instances of sexual assault, domestic violence or hate crimes. There is no need to tote graphic images. These images do not help people relate to a victim of a crime; in fact, they may create increased instances of anxiety and mood disorders in people who previously had none to speak of. So why do so many of us insist on using them within our papers? It’s because we’ve been told over and over again that there is no place for softness and understanding in our field, because the job of an academic is to show and explain to others and it isn’t our job to try to understand how others will feel when reading our works.
To a point, there is a truth to this, but it’s how this point is used that shows the real problem. I’ve given up caring when people get upset when I share statistics of sexual assault and domestic violence and I’ve given up wasting breath starting and ending every study and story in my arsenal with my personal belief that I don’t think it’s all men or all white people or all straight people, etc., etc. I don’t care that it makes people in positions of power and reading from seat of privilege uncomfortable to be faced with the blood on their hands. Isn’t the point of academia to challenge and upset instances of compliance and comfort with new information? Where in this mess did this come to mean throwing people who have been hurt and disadvantaged by the wayside for academia’s demand to produce more and more grief porn?
Reading about people who have survived situations similar to yours shouldn’t feel like a punishment, and you shouldn’t have to purposely trigger yourself just to gain some understanding or insight into parts of yourself you’re still learning about. Myself and other academics need to do better, if not for the sake of people like those who sent us this message, then for our own profession.
[image description: a tweet by user @indigenousAI saying
“fun fact: as a DV survivor i cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public. anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug”]
I don’t know of the original poster might not be aware
but!
if you’ve been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, you can enroll into the address confidentiality program (free of cost!) and be registered to vote as an absentee voter and your name and address will not be made available for the public
it is super easy to get enrolled - the application takes like 5 minutes, but it has to be with someone who is certified to do it (most likely an advocate! try going to a family justice center in your area or calling the Attorney Generals office in your area!!!!)
ALSO :
you don’t need to have any police reports or have a protection order to qualify!!! you just have to sign stating that you’ve been a victim of one of the aforementioned crimes.
Links to the info for every state in the Wikipedia article:
