Pleasantly surprised

A few weeks ago I heard people start to talk about domestic violence on some radio show.  I braced myself for victim blaming, but it never came.  They talked about the cycle, they talked about ways to get help, and most surprisingly, they talked about how you shouldn’t blame women for getting involved with abusers or for failing to leave abusers because they can’t be spotted beforehand and because there are so many reasons why women stay.

So just now I stumbled onto a Dr. Phil show on the same topic.  And his first guest was a male minister at a megachurch.  I wasn’t sure what to expect…so far it seems really good.  The minister told the abuser they have on the show that he’s abusing her when he woos her back post-beating, too, because that’s part of the power play as well.  I thought it was a good point, to bring it back to the issue of power.

Normally, when people start paying a lot of attention to the state of a female celebrity’s life, the spread of good feminist information does not ensue.  So good job, everyone.  Maybe there’s hope after all.