But…I can't help thinking that I'm at a stage in my life where I'd also like to hear advice about what you can do when you can't get away. Or if you don't want to get away: is there really nothing else you can do?
I imagine an earnest mass-produced nonprofit-collectively-written help book, Where There Is No Safeword. Or maybe How To Be Complicit.
I am finishing up reading Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice. To way oversimplify: male-dominated discourse has often focused on rights and who has the power to stop whom from doing what, while women-dominated discourse has often focused on what we owe each other and our responsibility to reduce hurt. (Other people, please jump in and add nuance if I'm breaking things!) And I think both perspectives are necessary and useful, but when I can't leave a situation, "how do I reduce how much I'm hurting others?" is in my locus of control way more often than "what are my rights?"
Another useful distinction is that from the Hirschmann title: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. When we can't Exit a bad situation (not even venting through escape valves) and we don't feel safe speaking up about our displeasure, the sanest thing to do is to turn patriotic about it, to self-medicate with Stockholm Syndrome. Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life.
Or turn Buddhist and detach. That helps too. Where there is no exit and no safeword and no Constitution, it's rather an elegant hack to just chop out the desires, thus eliminating the heartrending conflict between what ought to be and what is.
On places one cannot leave: a rambling
I imagine an earnest mass-produced nonprofit-collectively-written help book, Where There Is No Safeword. Or maybe How To Be Complicit.
I am finishing up reading Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice. To way oversimplify: male-dominated discourse has often focused on rights and who has the power to stop whom from doing what, while women-dominated discourse has often focused on what we owe each other and our responsibility to reduce hurt. (Other people, please jump in and add nuance if I'm breaking things!) And I think both perspectives are necessary and useful, but when I can't leave a situation, "how do I reduce how much I'm hurting others?" is in my locus of control way more often than "what are my rights?"
Another useful distinction is that from the Hirschmann title: Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. When we can't Exit a bad situation (not even venting through escape valves) and we don't feel safe speaking up about our displeasure, the sanest thing to do is to turn patriotic about it, to self-medicate with Stockholm Syndrome. Always Look At The Bright Side Of Life.
Or turn Buddhist and detach. That helps too. Where there is no exit and no safeword and no Constitution, it's rather an elegant hack to just chop out the desires, thus eliminating the heartrending conflict between what ought to be and what is.