ECLIPSEs C2/R3 Concept - Reducing Victim Blaming through the recognition of Primary Victim Resistance Strategies​

DISCLAIMER - This Blog discusses sexual violence

ECLIPSE C2 / R3 CONCEPT ©: ​Reframing Victim Blaming

• C2 = Comment - Context

• R3 = Reframe - Resistance - Reality

Everyone has a responsibility to gently and professionally challenge victim blaming mindsets.

There are many ways in which primary victims resist the violence that is perpetrated against them. ​

This may not look like kicking and screaming or fighting back or arguing - it could look like and sound like silence, or stillness.

1. Primary Victims actively analyse the risk of the situation and in response they actively strategise their safety.​

2. Primary Victims recognise the risk of the situation and Actively Submit and Actively Comply.

3. Primary Victims may determine that if they continue to try and avoid conflict, that the risk will only increase and the outcome will be worse​, and so they decide that active submission/active compliance is the safest option

   • EG: As Debbs talks about in her book One Soul, One Survivor by Debbs Murray | A book about a journey into and out of family violence:

     1. When Debbs ex-partner Max wanted to engage in sexual activity and she didn't

     2. Max would accuse her of being unfaithful and loving someone else

     3. Debbs would deny this (as it was the truth)

     4. Max would continue to escalate verbally and physically

     5. Debbs would analyse the risk and strategise the safety, she realised that if she continued to try and explain to Max he was wrong that he would just get angrier.

     6. Debbs Actively Submitted and Actively Complied as a survival strategy

     
     

4. Primary Victim silence and/or not physically resisting a survival strategy?

When you focus on victim response, you are not focusing on the causation of coercive control in the context of family violence – THE VIOLENCE AND ABUSE​

REMEMBER – sometimes silence is the survival strategy – NO PHYSICAL RESISTANCE DOES NOT EQUAL NO HARM, NO VIOLENCE, NO ABUSE, NO COERCIVE CONTROL!​

REMEMBER – SILENT RESISTANCE IS NOT CONSENT, IT IS A SURVIVAL STRATEGY

COMMENT​	CONTEXT​	REFRAME​	RESISTANCE​	REALITY​
“She didn’t scream so she can’t have been that scared” ​	Being assaulted at knife point by partner​	“She didn’t scream that loud because she recognised if she did, that he would likely stab and kill her” ​	She analysed her own risk and strategised her safety. She recognised that her silence would increase the chance of living​ She chose survival and strategised her own safety to ensure she did​	She was terrified and in pain, she did not enjoy being assaulted by her partner.​ He had told her if she screamed, he would kill her.​ She wanted to live so she remained silent. ​

 COMMENT – consider the victim blaming comment that is being made, it could involve minimisation, normalisation, judgement, bias, lack of empathy and compassion for victims experiences.    If so - explore further  ​

CONTEXT – explore the context of the episode – would anyone in that position normally give consent to that behaviour, harm, abuse and/or violence?  If not - explore further​

REFRAME – When you reframe the initial comment to include and highlight the ciontext fo the abuse does it make you think differently about the situation?    If so -explore further​

RESISTANCE – Consider how primary victims resist the harm, abuse, and violence being perpetrated against them in order to actively reduce risk – if any of the below are possible – explore  further​

• PV actively analysing the risk of the situation and strategising their safety?​

• PV recognising the risk of the situation and Actively Submitting and Actively Complying?​

• Is silence and/or not physically resisting a survival strategy?​

  
  

REALITY – When exploring the COMMENT, then considering the CONTEXT, then REFRAMING thecomment to include the context, then recognising PV RESISTANCE strategies you get to the REALITYof the situation.