I didn’t grow up with the whole taboo on “victim”–so it is VERY confusing to me. When I tried to write on FEMINIST CRITICS (yes, I know, glutton for punishment) about my intense feelings over not being allowed to play drums, (a very charged-issue in my life and a post I am still struggling to write), I was inundated with nasty remarks about how I was “playing the victim” and I could have played the drums any time I wanted after I left my family home (the people who refused me the right to play–to clarify: my family was a musical family and there were drum kits right there in my house; I was not allowed to go near them, rather like men’s carpentry tools)… this seems to overlook how oppression works, and how pervasive it is. Because of this unpleasant thread, I –1) left FEMINIST CRITICS, never to return and 2) never posted the part of my childhood recollection I finally DID finish. I worried I was “playing victim”–especially since I really don’t know what the hell that means. I mean, facts are facts, and I was not permitted to play drums because when I was growing up, because that’s the way it was. (And as I reminded the guys who held her up to me as an example: KAREN CARPENTER HAD HER DRUMS TAKEN AWAY FROM HER AND EVENTUALLY FUCKING DIED, OKAY? Please stop the mindless “What about Karen Carpenter?” yammering.)

How else to talk about such realities? YES, I was a VICTIM of SEXISM and NOT ALLOWED to play the drums, which I think would have radically changed my personality, allowing me to release a lot of physical aggression, permitting me to develop strength, not to mention doing what I really loved. Why can we say this about generations of would-be female athletes, denied the right to join teams, but no other activities? Wait, maybe we AREN’T allowed to say that any more… OMG, maybe they are “playing the victim” TOO!!!!

This is all a way to SILENCE people, IMHO. The neocons decided “victim” was a whiny excuse, and now, even the liberals tote their water for them. It’s disgusting.

Thanks for your awesomeness, yet again!

An immense part of my sadness afterwards was the realization that somehow I had been there all along; that I had enabled his abusing me; that there is something in me that must make people (men) insecure or angry with me and my ways… That I could have left earlier, or spoken up for myself more, or done something! That, in a weird way, I was the one making it all happen, either because I was provoking him or because I didn’t speak up when things were happening.

I still have to be reminded now and then that I was, in fact, a victim. I have difficulties using that label – it does indeed carry the associations of weakness. But you know what? I was weak in that relationship – not because I am inherently so, but because he undermined my every move and thought. Weak is a relative term, and there are very few people who are not ‘weakened’ when confronted with emotional, physical, sexual abuse.

So claiming that word, victim, did help me; it helped me stop blame myself.