#normalized abuse

[furiousgoldfish]

me: you should not have hurt me like that!

abuser: I have my excuses tho!!!!

everyone else: they're right, these excuses are sound and valid, go home everyone abuse is justified

[bindi-the-skunk]

It makes me sick seeing people on Youtube who think it’s FUNNY to INTENTIONALLY make babies and very little children CRY and do not apologize or try to comfort the child after

ITS NOT FUNNY!

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

A Community Post from YouTuber and Professional Horse Trainer Shelby Dennis

(Posted here with her permission -- Source: https://www.youtube.com/c/ShelbyDennis/community)

[Preamble from me: I have a couple of low-key “campaigns” for this blog: 1) posting/sharing content to get people over their fear of my personal favorite animals, including spiders and horses, and 2) trying to shift the focus of anti-bullying campaigns from the behavior of children among their peers to the responsibility of adults who teach those children.

I found Shelby Dennis’s channel when looking for horsey things to post. Then, the other day, she posted this message about how bullying horses is considered normal by a lot of horse trainers and riding instructors. And how she was taught to become a bully by the adults in her life. And how she’s trying to unlearn all of that.

So this fits two goals for my blog at once. And that’s why I asked her if I could share this here.]

I started riding at just 4 years of age.

At the same age, I started watching role models and adults openly mistreat horses in the name of teaching them how to “safely behave” around people.

I had loved horses since before I could even speak and initially was deeply uncomfortable with what I witnessed.

But, those I trusted as experts were doing it, so it must be okay, right? After all, adults were all knowing and knowledgeable.

A knee to the belly when a horse bloated for the girth being done up.

Reefing on the mouth of a horse who dares pull back a little or spooks sideways as you lead them to the arena.

A punch to the nose of a horse who is merely just trying to explore and interact with the world using his mouth, as his species is supposed to.

I saw all of this and more on a regular basis for the first several years of my riding career and it changed me from being the happy go lucky horse loving kid I was to being a child who still loved horses but was taught to take my frustration out on them.

In the process, I developed incredibly poor emotional control and was encouraged in using horses as a means for anger management, that I was justified when I disciplined my horses because they were being bad. I needed to show them who was boss, because that’s what I was told.

It may have been more damaging to me, as a child with undiagnosed ADHD as controlling difficult emotions was already hard for me, so this quite possibly was one of the worst lessons I could’ve learned in terms of where to direct my anger.

Breaking free from what encouraged me to not only elevate my level of anger but to redirect it onto the innocent beings that are horses has been a lot of work.

When you’re in fight or flight mode, you’re not thinking properly as is. It’s incredibly easy to sink into lifelong habits, so undoing what I was taught to do from such a young age took a lot of self reflection and accountability. It took a lot of mistakes, too.

And, I felt a lot of guilt during it. I made myself angrier by adding in the addition of anger towards myself, something I’d initially not been taught to feel because I was encouraged to feel righteous in my discipline of horses.

It’s been a lengthy journey of self reflection and really trying to sit with the gravity of what I was put through at a young age.

A child cannot be expected to fully understand how wrong the lessons they’re being taught are because they often trust the adults in their life implicitly. I was no different.

Even adults, when new to horses, are at the mercy of their first teachers, they may just be slightly more likely to see through the charade than a kid.

So, when you look at your faults as a horse person and start to feel guilty and beat yourself up, try to also sit with that discomfort and understand that you were misled by people much more experience than yourself.

That the true wrong is the fact that so many of these types of role models are readily available in the industry, not being held accountable and continued to be encouraged in teaching these ways. It makes it hard for us to avoid these types of teachers because they’re allowed to teach the way they do and there’s very little pressure, even still, for them to self reflect to the extent they need to.

New riders deserve access to better teachers. Teachers who won’t wrong them or their horses. Teachers who set good examples for them instead of setting them on a path of a lifetime of correcting mistakes and bad habits they picked up at the very beginning.

All of this starts with us persistently pointing out these issues and demanding the world we want to see. After all, we were the ones keeping such trainers in business. If the demands of those paying changes, so does the content we are being taught.

Horse show organizations also need to be pressured to help along with the process. If horse abuse no longer affords people ribbons and attention and instead impacts their livelihoods, they will no longer be as quick to engage in these methods at the expense of their horse because it no longer serves them.

Change is possible but it starts with the masses recognizing where it’s needed, even if it means being honest with your faults and where they started.

Check out her other links:

Website: http://milestoneequestrian.ca

Patreon: http://Patreon.com/sdequus

Facebook: http://Facebook.com/milestoneequestri...

[davekat-ectobiologist]

Fuck Mitsuki Bakugou and my former coworker who brags about hitting her children

There are real life abuse victims like bakugou and that makes me even more upset.

I’m staring at you, former coworker. Bitch I hate you

[pajaritafem]

Listening to the hets talk about their long term relationships is so... scary???? I’ve been with my girl for a whole year and N E V ER have I “wanted to punch her in the face,” “wanted to kill her,” or said I hated her? Are y’all like..ok?? Do they actually hear themselves?? That’s??? Not???? Normal??? That should never be normal??

[morphenomenalbabe]

on the radio last night the dj was talking about how t*ylor sw*ft and t*m h*ddleston were photographed at the beach and TH was wearing a shirt that said “I <3 TS” 

and let me make it clear i do not give one single shit about either of these celebrities

but the DJ was like “clearly TS made TH wear this shirt as a way to establish her brand and as a way to claim him” which is a fuckin weird statement on it’s own (and according to @oceanfae, TH has been photographed in this shirt before, like way before the two were dating) because...what kind of assumption... where does that say “TS owns me” like 

dude is a fan dude has a shirt and me, a person who is in love with my SO, would absolutely wear an entire outfit made up of clothes with the phrase “I <3 AKSHAYA” including my underwear and a hat, not because Akshaya would be forcing me to but because i LOVE HTEM and i want everyone to know???

anyway i’m way off subject becuase what happened next is truly where my mind was blown

The dj says “call in and tell us how u claim your SO. do you make them wear a wristband? do you track their phone? do you pee on them?”

like the peeing thing was obviously a joke but the other two were so clearly serious that i genuinely said, out loud to my empty car, “what the FUCK is wroNG with strAIGHT PEOPLE?”

[cool-yubari]

I think western storytelling alienates large chunks of its audience by insisting on a cookie-cutter moral formula of rewarding social normativity and punishing deviance. Part of what I loved so intensely about anime was that, as someone who identified much more personally with the villains, my favorites could have something to look forward to other than inevitable tragedy, humiliation, and death. I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed by queer and trans anime fans, and I’d imagine it also resonates with many other people who feel things that are socially ostracized in a Western setting. A story that isn’t symbolically criticizing your existence and stomping on avatars of “people like you” is vastly preferable to one that is. (And wow, do I feel like I’m stating the obvious when I put it like that, but I’ve yet to hear anyone come out and say it.)

--Excerpted from this old post of mine, because the situation persists. And the media persists in making up really ridiculous, obtuse explanations for why people like bad guys to avoid dealing with this. Bolding added.

[cool-yubari]

Now comes a fascinating slice of history even if it is a digression- the curious manner in which the RSPCA by chance became involved in leading the way to the formation of another great society-the NSPCC. The trail that was to help children can be said to have started in New York where-as a direct result of British efforts-magnificent work had been done in suppressing cruelty to animals in the US. Two men were responsible for the early efforts: the Secretary of the RSPCA in London, Mr John Colam, and Mr Henry Bergh of New York who, helped by Mr Colam, founded the American SPCA in New York with branches soon flourishing in many American cities. But what had this to do with children? One day in New York a woman who did a lot of charitable work was sitting by the bed of a dying woman and asked:'Is there anything more I can do for you?' To her astonishment she received an incredible reply. 'Yes, please, madam. In the next room there lives a woman who has a child. She leaves it alone every morning without food, and when this woman comes home at night, she beats the poor child so severely that her shrieks distress me.' 'A little animal' The lady accepted the message as a dying charge and went to the police. There she was told firmly that the police could not interfere between parents and children. She then consulted her lawyer. He tried to persuade her from pursuing the matter. Indeed he refused to take up the case. Undaunted, the lady went to Mr Bergh whose work for animals was well known,- and told a white lie. 'There is a little animal suffering from the unkind treatment of a bad woman.' Bergh immediately promised to interfere on behalf of the 'little animal.' Only then was he told that the victim was a child. 'Well! You've done this cleverly,' replied Bergh. 'But don't worry-I will not go back on my promise.' Sure enough, the SPCA investigated the matter and brought the case before the court where it was contended successfully that the child was an animal. Mr Bergh was commended and the child was given proper care. The immediate result was that Mr Bergh was inundated with so many cases of cruelty to children that a New York society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was formed.

--Excerpted RSPCA history from SoulRiser’s forum post, Animal Rights came before Children’s Rights

If you’re inclined to meet this story with disbelief, I can attest to it being a footnote you find in information about the history of the animal rights movement. Right along with the fact that someone wrote a satirical lampoon of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, attempting to invalidate the idea that women should have rights, called A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes (animals).

One group’s fight for humane treatment, and the victories they win, always impact how people think about similar injustices. Once it became unacceptable - and legally actionable - to starve and beat your dog, this lady had the framework to argue that it should be equally unacceptable to starve and beat your child.

Which still begs the question: why was the default that bad to begin with? And why was there more concern for an abused pet than there was for an abused child? Well, as I see it, neglect and mistreatment is not distributed equally in any population. The same way that women being romanticized and showered with pretty words didn’t mean society did jack shit about domestic violence, animals being put on a pedestal as innocent and majestic didn’t mean they weren’t treated horribly. And a lot of them still are.

I’m reminded also of a moment in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables where a street urchin fights some waterfowl for a crust of bread. People were starving in Paris, but the rich still went to the public park and fed the swans. Does this mean swans had it so good? Hell no. A situation where someone's access to food depends on whether someone better off decides to be charitable is inherently unjust and precarious. But it does mean you have to look deeper than the over-culture’s representation of an oppressed group - because there’s always a minority that’s “receiving bread,“ sort of. Sometimes. Definitely when the cameras are rolling. And that doesn’t mean they have any institutional power or self-determination.

(Note: Les Mis is fictional. But the dynamic I’m describing is not.)

For too long, the fact that lots of women weren’t being beaten was used as an excuse for ignoring the ones that were. And for portraying womens’ rights as an affront to all the nice men who would have acted benevolently towards them anyway - the ones who weren’t rapists even when rape was legal, for instance. There are direct correlations to be drawn between this and the way society tries to argue, now, that youth rights is some sort of insult to parents. Parents who aren’t abusive have every reason to be all for it.