CCChat-Magazine_Issue-17

MG: I find it really difficult not to be
affected by what I read, as so much of it is
really distressing. How did you find it?
AB: I found a similar thing. I was
reviewing over 80 studies and with some
of it, I had tears. I had stopped reading at
some point, stopped writing because it’s
so much. Some of the accounts that you
read in the reports are so harrowing,
really really difficult.
MG: Coming from a place where I have
lived experience, I’ve had to be very
mindful of how what I read affects me.
I’ve had to learn to to pace myself. What I
don't understand is how people can read
these visceral accounts and simply say
MG: And let’s be honest, they do tend to
say the same thing, it takes my breath
away how different yet similar so many of
the instances globally are.
AB: Yes, they absolutely are. You look at
studies from England and Wales,
Australia, US, Canada, Europe, all overand
they’re all saying the same things.
But I think people who say that have a
vested interest in not wanting all of this
information to be presented as credible.
MG: That’s certainly true, or maybe they
have some experience but they just can’t
bring themselves go there.
“I’ve been trying to track back, where does this hostility
and, let’s face it, it’s to female victims, come from.”
Dr Adrienne Barnett
that the account is anecdotal, that there is
no proof, that it's 'he said/she said'.What
I don’t understand is how someone can
just switch off from all that.
AB:There’s all sorts of reasons why
people do but, actually, when people say,
it’s anecdotal, it’s only one person’s
account, there’s such a wealth of research
and literature. A lot of it may be small
qualitative studies, but there are so many
of them and they all say the same thing so
that in itself increases the validity and
reliability of all these accounts.
You have one small study saying this is
what happened to me; this is the way the
courts reacted; this is what’s happening to
my children but when you’ve got ten
studies in different places, in different
jurisdictions, all saying the same thing- it
builds up a body of reliable evidence.
AB: That’s also possible. A lot of people
just can’t see themselves in that lightthey
can’t see themselves as victims or
survivors.
MG: I don’t know whether you’ve noticed
this but, on the whole, we don’t want to
think the worst of someone, we always
want to give them the benefit of the doubt
– just in case they’ve had a bad day, just
because we don’t know what’s going on in
their lives but for some reason that
allowance tends to be focused towards
abusers but not victims, Why do you ty
hink that is?
AB: It’s a really strange thing and
something I’ve been working on for a very
long time. There’s a general distrust,
almost hostility towards victims and a
sympathetic and open response to
perpetrators. It’s a really strange thing
and it seems to go back a long way.
Making The Invisible Visible