A review by inquiry_from_an_anti_library
Breaking Through Silence: A No-Nonsense Love Letter to Women by Kathleen Hoy Foley

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

2.0

Is This An Overview?

There are social and personal problems of keeping silent about abuse and harassment.  Those who are socially punished into silence, do not receive the support needed to recover their physical and mental health.  Those who are dehumanized do not simply get over the trauma.  Those who had traumatic experiences become vulnerable and do not develop appropriately.  Without support, trauma can take on a language of its own, in the form of inappropriate behavior.  Tantrums, quick to become aggravated, and even lash out by physically harming others.  Traumatic wounds teach lessons that ought not be learned.

 

When a culture is blind to the victims, the culture protects the guilty.  While the harassed carry guilt and endure silent torment, the abusers can skillfully continue to inflict violence.  If society will not give the abused power, the abused need to take control, assert authority, to recognize and label what happened as abuse.  The traumatized transform themselves when they break the silence.  Speaking about what happened is a way to support oneself, to find understanding in what happened, to become empowered.

 

Caveats?

The book is poorly organized, without a systemic analysis of trauma.  Although being traumatized is tragic, the author assumes that the way people react to the situations and recover is the same for everyone.  The problem is that not all women think the same way about the tragic circumstances.  The book is against the silence of the harassed, against how society can silence the harassed, but movements and organizations have developed to provide support and give the harassed a voice.