Violence in movements:
When the solution becomes part of the problem for girls
Violence in movements:
When the solution becomes part of the problem for girls
From revolutionary political parties throughout history, to NGO structures to local collectives, spaces that are meant to house and foster progressive movements are too often sites of violence.
As a deep seeded and often taboo topic, many girls enter into movements thinking they have found their community and a political home, but are met with experiences of violence. Internalised patriarchy and unhealthy power relations show up in and fester in movement spaces and organisations, often with little space to address, hold experiences with care, or enforce systems of accountability for those who created harm. So many people bring their own experience of violence and trauma into movement spaces, and girls often experience retraumatization and violence at the hands of people who themselves have histories of violence and untreated trauma.
I left at 16 and entered at 8 years old. It was my whole life, there it was, everything. I idolised that space, but that space was corrupt. When I discovered it. No, it was not corrupt, it became corrupt. It became abusive of power and when I started denouncing it because I was part of a national platform, oops, they eliminated me! And they started to push me away, so I started saying, yes, I’ll move away. I always said that they taught me to have megaphones. Do you understand what a megaphone is?
I don’t know what it is about women, like older woman are really scary because it’s just like, y’all grew up in this sadness and you want to keep the sadness for the next generation, even though you are all like feminist. I was like, what are you doing?
If they taught me how to have a megaphone as a child to report violence, they are not exempt from me denouncing them. I will use that symbolic megaphone, even against them, and at the age of 16 it was a rupture of pain, of tearing, because it was my space. It was the only thing I knew how to do; it was all my national networks, all my links were there. I entered into discussion and frustration with great friends like [name redacted], because I told him, this is happening, this is happening and [name redacted] stayed and I entered as in, well, ready, you already chose, but a little later [name redacted] realised the same thing, maybe two or three years later and [name redacted] left under the same circumstances as me, from being a star child to being an expelled child.
- Explore: Complexity of Resistance
