Amidst the Turmoil of Events, Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind

A- A A+

Amidst the Turmoil of Events, Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind


by Diana Gorham
Executive Director, YWCA Greater Austin

Diana Gorham

Is anyone else noticing the recent and increasingly blatant attacks on women – our health, safety, prosperity and wellbeing?

Anyone know who fills the ranks of the army that is waging this “war”?

Looking at all of the reports and headlines, we at the YWCA Greater Austin have identified almost all of them as individuals who occupy relatively powerful positions in our society in the eyes of many: legislators, clergy, and members of the media!

How have they have managed to incite such passion that justifies attacking one of the most fundamental issues that affect women’s health, safety, prosperity and wellbeing, i.e., our reproductive rights?

Is it coincidence that the overwhelmingly vast majority are white, middle-to-upper class males?  Is it coincidence that the overwhelmingly vast majority of those who will be affected are women, especially women of color?

Their behavior began to look interestingly familiar to us.  We have observed repeated attempts to control – to intimidate – to even resort to verbal name calling (“slut”).

Because of the work we do at the YWCA Greater Austin, we help women and girls overcome such behavior in their lives, and we have a name for it:  BULLYING.

When a person or group “repeatedly tries to harm someone who is weaker or who they think is weaker”, that behavior is defined by the National Institutes of Health as bullying:

Sometimes it involves direct attacks such as hitting, name calling, teasing or taunting. Sometimes it is indirect, such as spreading rumors or trying to make others reject someone.

Sound familiar?

Interestingly, the federal Departments of Education and Health and Human Services define bullying as “aggressive behavior…that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”

Sound familiar?

The power imbalance and repeated attacks make it closely related to, and sometimes difficult to distinguish from racism, especially when the perpetrators are overwhelmingly white males.

How can we combat these attacks?  Don’t give in.  Don’t lose your presence of mind.  Use your VOICE AND VOTE!!

Diana Gorham is the Executive Director of the YWCA Greater Austin, overseeing its award-winning community-based mental health center and prevention/intervention services for youth, with a particular focus on adolescent girls.  In the almost 18 years that she has been with the YWCA, she has served on regional and national YWCA boards, as well as on numerous committees at both levels.  She is most proud of her participation in the creation of a foundation for the intentional involvement of women of color and young women in YWCA leadership positions throughout the USA.


Stand Against Racism logoThis post is part of the YWCA Stand Against Racism blog carnival on issues of race, justice and diversity. We invite you to join the dialogue! Post your comment below, share your story and follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism.

10 responses to “Amidst the Turmoil of Events, Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind

  1. Hello there,

    My name is Aly and I would like to know if you would have any interest to have your website here at ywca.org promoted as a resource on our blog alychidesign.com ?

    We are in the midst of updating our broken link resources to include current and up to date resources for our readers. Our resource links are manually approved allowing us to mark a link as a do-follow link as well
    .
    If you may be interested please in being included as a resource on our blog, please let me know.

    Thanks,
    Aly

  2. Normally I do not learn post on blogs, however I would
    like to say that this write-up very forced me to
    try and do so! Your writing taste has been amazed me.
    Thanks, quite great post.

  3. Thanks a lot for sharing this with all of us you actually recognise
    what you are speaking approximately! Bookmarked. Please additionally talk over with my
    website =). We will have a hyperlink change arrangement between us

  4. Undeniably imagine that that you said. Your favorite reason seemed
    to be at the web the simplest thing to understand of.
    I say to you, I definitely get annoyed even as other people
    consider issues that they just don’t know about. You managed to hit
    the nail upon the highest and outlined out the whole thing with no need side effect ,
    other people can take a signal. Will likely be back to get
    more. Thank you

  5. I’ll right away snatch your rss feed as I can’t to find your email subscription hyperlink or newsletter service.
    Do you’ve any? Please let me recognize so that I could subscribe.
    Thanks.

  6. whoah this weblog is great i like studying your posts.
    Keep up the great work! You understand, a lot
    of persons are hunting round for this info, you
    can help them greatly.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *