The idea of writing a survivor a love letter set off warning signals in my mind. As a counselor-advocate at Women’s Services, I know how difficult conversations around sexual assault can be and the care that needs to be taken in addressing issues of sexual assault. I understand where the sentiment is coming from, supporting survivors is important and we do need to shift the onus onto others to address sexual assault and not place it all on the survivor to do all the work in fighting back, but I find the idea of survivor love letters to be problematic and I think it speaks to a larger problem that we have in our society. First, we can’t take away the autonomy of a survivor and we need at least some training and education before we can understand, to some extent, the thought process during and after being in an abusive relationship. Second, in our culture, specifically with social media, we tend to be able to have conversations and show our support from far away, but when it comes to talking about sexual assault in person, we don’t know how to navigate those conversations. Writing a love letter to an unnamed survivor is difficult and somewhat hollow, lacking the authenticity of actual human connection. In order to write a love letter to someone you have to have an intimate and deep connection, you have to know them. In this case, I think these letters facilitate an awareness around the need for support, but lack actually support, mimicking social media.
Understanding a survivor is a difficult task that is not easily achieved. And understanding how important having autonomy back after being in an abusive relationship is critical. And the original movement around Survivor Love Letters encapsulates this idea. The love letters started by Tony Ikeda were about survivors writing reasons to themselves about why they loved themselves and loved ones writing letters to a survivor about why they loved them.
This gives authenticity, it gives autonomy to survivors, by allowing them to reclaim their love and improve their self-esteem with authentic gestures. And self-esteem is critical. In The Battered Woman by Lenore E. Walker, she talks about the psychosocial theory of learned helplessness. Essentially when someone is in a situation they can not control, it influences how they will react. In order to reverse this, survivors first need to move away from their abusers and then learn to rethink. Walker states “Self-esteem and feelings of competence are extremely important in protecting against feelings of helplessness and depression”. By having survivors recognize what they love about themselves this helps as a tool in recovery and is vitally important in breaking this cycle.
This Survivor Love Letters movement gained traction on Tumblr. In this case, social media was helpful in sharing recovery stories, focusing not as much on the survivor’s story, but on recovery and the importance of support for oneself and from loved ones. When we broaden the idea of this, though, it loses authenticity. The movement moved away from survivors writing to themselves or loved ones expressing their comfort. It becomes about show, which is necessary to stop rape culture and make people feel comfortable sharing sexual assault stories, but not to help a survivor, which is how the event on our campus was framed. It’s by including the generalization of “Write any compassionate messages that will help show your support to survivors everywhere” that this loses authenticity. It isn’t about supporting survivors specifically its a show of support, not a love letter. Social media often becomes a place where we can condemn or exalt fairly easily and this trait is being transferred into our everyday lives. In the infamous Steubenville case, the use of social media caused a huge stir and controversy. It became a tool for persecution.
There is a use for social media, it brings attention, it starts a dialogue, but we need to be cognizant of the fact that we can’t incorporate generalizations into dealing with sexual assault. We can’t just have hacktivists and we can’t have hacktivist responses to talking about sexual assault. We need action, dialogue, and education in order to combat sexual assault.
References
Walker, Lenore E. The Battered Woman. Harper & Row Publishing. New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London. 1979. Pages 43-77.
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