In high school, one of my teachers showed us footage from Milgram’s experiments around obedience to authority -- the ones where subjects were asked to give high voltage electric shocks to a person they thought was a fellow subject in an experiment on memory + learning but was actually in on it.
The subjects can’t see the other person they think is receiving the (fake) shock but they can hear their (very realistic + disturbing) screams, pleas to stop, and eventual silence.
More than half of the subjects continued to the end, delivering the final shock with highest voltage, to a person they believed was unconscious at that point, prompted by simple phrases like: “please continue” and “you must go on.”
As a 16 year-old, this absolutely shook me.
Not only because it illuminated a dark + terrifying truth about human nature.
But also because I honestly didn’t know what I would have done if I had been a subject in that study.
So I promised myself from that moment onward, I would know -- and that I would develop the skills I needed around self-determination + power to make it so.
Up to that point, my life was largely about making the authority figures in my life happy.
And I was really fucking good at it.
Which was mostly okay. I had great parents, teachers, and adults in my life who were supportive, wanted good things for me, and mentored me well.
But as we all do, I also encountered people who abused their power with me.
And when that happened, I wish I’d had a more developed core of self-trust + self-determination.
I wish I’d known it was okay to push back, say no, or just trust my inner knowing that the dynamic or behavior was fucked up in ways that weren’t my fault.
I wish I'd known that niceness isn’t a virtue to aspire to.
I wish I'd known that kindness can look + sound like fire + rage, a resounding NO, or an invitation to get fucked -- and that it can be loud + fierce + even frightening to witness.
I wish I'd known that compliance, obedience, and silence do nothing to make me a good person.
I wish someone had taught me how to be a bitch.
There are so many ways in which people and systems try to pressure, disorient, manipulate, and shame us into compliance.
Media and advertising. Systems of oppression. Institutions that seek to maintain the status quo at all costs. Abusive interpersonal relationships.
In my domestic violence advocacy, it’s a pattern I’ve witnessed again and again: abusive and dangerous situations beginning with the abuser testing the waters: How does this person respond to shame, manipulation, and pressure? How successful are my attempts to confuse and disorient this person?
This is a hard thing. And to be clear: it’s never the survivor’s fault.
And when things like this happen -- when we bump up against abusive systems, patterns, and dynamics -- it’s super useful to have a solid + developed core of bone-knowing, self-trust, + power to lean on.
Because in a moment of stress, trauma, or disorientation, it’s hard to summon that from scratch.
All of this to say: our efforts to develop a solid foundation of power + self-trust + self-determination matter. Not only for ourselves, but for the world we’re creating + the evils we’re resisting + the humans we’re becoming together.
And I’m cheering hard for all of us as we do that.