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This forum is about interpersonal manipulation (especially in its extreme forms) and also about how we are all the hero of our own stories, our own lives.

Highly manipulative relationships and groups include battering relationships, cults, and many others which are more subtle and therefore harder to spot. Being a healthy hero is centered on the opposite -- becoming as autonomous as possible and endorsing the autonomy of others.

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Subject:		Re: hierarchies of oppressivity
Name:		Beth
Date Posted:		Jul 4, 08 - 1:51 PM
Website:		http://www.beth-peterson.com
Message:		Sorry about that misunderstanding on my part.... FGM is a hard one to come to grips with, I know. It isn't too much different from other authority-driven situations, though. Especially those that are embedded in the culture as a whole. Part of why older women who have been through the procedure support it is because in their eyes, it is necessary for a woman to go through FGM in order to either 1) be a woman in good standing in her culture / community, 2) to be acceptable as a marriage partner in the culture, and/or 3) to move from childhood into adulthood. Short form: the mutilation is supported and justified as being the path to a good end result. Another part of this for some women is that those who have gone through the mutilation themselves must support FGM's continuation in order to avoid facing their own mutilation as mutilation (and therefore victimization). It is easier to support the nebulous --but very powerful -- authority of the culture then to face their own victimization (at the hands of those they loved and trusted), as well as the attacks by the community and culture for standing out against the practice. Cultural worldviews and mindsets can be very, very hard to go against. They are so deeply ingrained in every part of the person's own concepts and ways of thinking that they appear unquestionable -- they appear to be completely valid. In regards to FGM, education and the challenge to re-think and re-examine cultural norms is the real key. To work best, this needs to be on a community-wide level. In that way the cultural authority can be broken, because the community culture supports the change.

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