Shifting Paradigms Card Activity

Transcription

1 Shifting Paradigms Card Activity To Print The Cards: Use Avery Business Cards, Size 8371 (10 cards to one letter size page). Print the pages with the red text on the front of the business cards, and print the pages with the blue text on the back of the business cards. A complete set will have red text on one side and blue text on the other. The Activity: Have a volunteer sit in a chair, located in the center of the room. Take a card and read the victim blaming statement (the statement in red text). After reading the statement, place a blanket over the volunteer s head. After placing the first blanket on the volunteer s head, have her cry for help. With each new victim blaming statement read, place another blanket on the volunteer s head. Eventually, the volunteer s cries will no longer be heard. Take the cards that were read and turn them over. Read the victim helping statement (the statement in blue text). After reading the victim helping statement, remove a blanket from the volunteer s head. After all the blankets have been removed from the volunteer s head, process the activity with the participants. Discuss how a domestic violence victim s voice can be lost with all of the different things she is required to do while trying to keep herself and her children safe.

2 Leaving home and extended family is difficult in good times being in crisis makes it that much harder. It is not about what you did no one deserves to be beaten no matter what! Getting a job is difficult when you are being stalked and threatened. Let us help figure out how to find work with a living wage so that you can take care of yourself and the children. Living with the threat of violence every day drains energy and makes it difficult to get everything done. This is not about your tidiness but about power and control over your life and the lives of your children. Domestic violence can happen to anyone at any time and there is no predicting who will be a victim. People who say this don t want to acknowledge that they are also vulnerable. No one deserves to be beaten; this is not your fault. Most women did not recognize his violence before they married him or moved in with him. Victims of domestic violence may believe that they selected their partner but the truth is that the offender pursued and engaged with her; not the other way around. Domestic violence happens to all kinds of people rich, poor, educated, uneducated, and so on. All kinds. It is never okay to hit this is not your fault. Whether you were drinking or not does not justify or validate what was done to you no one deserves to be beaten for any reason or at any time.

3 You will need some help to take care of the children while you look for work; it will take some time for child support to be ordered. It is the job of the District Attorney to file charges; your part is to file a report, and only then if you think it is safe for you to do that. We understand that he has a public face and is not the same man in private. We are here to help you figure out what you need to do to stay safe. This is not a decision to be made in the heat of the moment; divorces cost money and take time so take time making this dangerous decision. There are no words in the Bible supporting physical assaults on spouses; it is not okay to hit. It is hard to be calm when you have just been hurt by someone you love; no matter what this is not your fault. It is part of the offender s strategy to isolate his partner from her friends and family this way she has no help when things are bad at home. Leaving is the most dangerous time for battered women; that are when they are most likely to be killed. Getting a Protective Order may not be the best way to handle the situation the victim best knows the offender and his response it must be her call - -it is not right to require a Protective Order as evidence that she is serious about going forward with the case.

4 With her mouth, she is just asking for it. She can always leave him. Have you seen how she keeps house no wonder he is angry with her. She should get a job and leave him. It is just her lot in life what did she expect when she married that bum? I would never accept that kind of treatment at the hands of any man what is wrong with her? They are just poor poor people fight, all the time. She picked him, what did she think would happen? She was drinking, too he said she hit him first! She is probably having an affair no wonder he whupped on her?

5 She should file charges on him. She is just leaving him so she does not have to work and can draw welfare and food stamps. Why doesn t she just divorce him? They go to church and he seems like a really nice guy wonder what she did to make him so mad? Look at her, she is acting crazy screaming and cussing maybe she deserves what happened. The Bible says that the woman is to submit to the man. She is not serious about stopping the abuse; she has left him several times. Why doesn t she call her parents or family to help her? I don t understand why she is going to a shelter. I thought we had Protective Orders for that kind of thing if she were serious about making him stop she could get one of those things.