teenade attitudes to relationship violence

[sabelmouse]

after the recent chris brown/rhianna incident several newspapers have reported this

http://www.bphc.org/news/press_release_content.asp?id=473

apparently almost half of the teenaged girls accept violence toward woman as normal and rhianna brought this on herself. i find this shocking.
at nerdfighters wich consists of almost 20000 members, mostly teens who consider themselves above average in awreness the situation is similar.
however feisty some of those young women appear to be when faced with this kind of thing they are very quiet and apologetic.
also; when did femenism become a dirty word?
i have read about attitudes like that within hip hop comunities and most music videos certainly don't portray respect for women.
as a mother of teenagers, or a mother i find this disturbing.
do any of you have any thoughts/ experiences to share?

[Penne]

Hi Sabel! Highly recommend Marshall Rosenberg's writings at the Center for Nonviolent Communication for insights into this mindset, individually and collectively.

Excerpt, Class Notes from a 2-Day Advanced Intensive:
There is a lot of beating up going on around the world, so I’ve had a lot of experience. At the least, teaching a woman to have a Giraffe response to having been beaten up requires that she learn not to take responsibility and think she somehow deserved it. There’s evidence that when children and wives can be trained to give empathy, there is less chance of getting hurt. Of course, it would be better to be working with the men. The middle stage of this learning is when the person gets obnoxious, it’s when they say "that’s your problem, not mine." That’s cause for celebration because at least the person no longer feels responsible and isn’t being an emotional slave or having to deny her feelings and needs.

The goal, however, is to get to Giraffe.* Guilt is such a prevalent form of power over people, so empathic listening must come first, the education for other options to deal with the situation. We can’t get rid of our Jackal images (nor should we), but we can go into them and transform them into a life-serving type of energy, empathize with ourselves for the need that isn’t getting met. Then we can hear the other person’s situation.

See examples in the Role Play on Healing, Day Two. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts/experiences with this change of attitude (teenage and otherwise) toward relationship violence.

Cheers ~
Penne & the CanDo! Crew :o)

*Please note that Marshall sometimes uses Giraffe and Jackal as metaphors for Nonviolent Communication and life-alienated thinking and speaking, respectively.