No. You don't get to fetishize domestic violence and call it "raising awareness". Just. No. - Women's Agenda

No. You don’t get to fetishize domestic violence and call it “raising awareness”. Just. No.

Je-sus wept.

Some utter pillock has decided that photoshopping bruises onto celebrity women is a good way to raise awareness of domestic violence.

One of the women he used in his campaign for clueless idiot of the year has apparently been a victim of domestic violence in real life.        

Where do you even start?

Feeding prurient interest in victimised women by photoshopping bruises onto celebrities is obscene enough. But he also deliberately made it appear that all the women were naked (clothes photoshopped out, bare skin shown down to the shoulders) and alluring (made up, hair done).

This man (of course) behind this project aleXsandro Palombo claims to be “raising awareness”.

The goal, he says, is to persuade all victims of abuse to break the silence and raise awareness that all women can be subject to abuse and that no one is immune, even if you live a fairytale life like celebrities.

This is not raising awareness of domestic violence. It’s fetishizing it.

Fetishizing domestic violence, using actual victims, presumably without their consent and claiming the moral high ground in doing it. There may be more disgusting things to do in the international media, but I’m having trouble thinking of any right now. 

The woman in this photo series who has been a victim of intimate partner abuse (and the absence of information about any of the others is not proof she is the only one) wasn’t living a fairytale life then or now. She is probably living a life of great privilege, but we already know that domestic violence crosses all boundaries of class, race, wealth and education. We don’t need to re-traumatise domestic violence victims to spread that information.
We can just tell people. We can tell people in all kinds of ways.

We can talk about statistics.

We can talk about personal stories.

We can spend months making amazing documentaries.

We can listen to TED talks.

We can share books, articles, movies, TV shows, drawings, poems, chalk figures on the footpath. Humans have developed myriad ways to share their stories.

This is not telling a story about women, or victims of domestic violence, this is telling a story about one man’s salacious interest in battered women. It’s not a story anyone should have to hear, and it’s absolutely not a story anyone should be forced to participate in.

(I have deliberately not linked to the story, the photos are sickening and the article is uninformative. I’m sure it wouldn’t take you long to find it on google if you doubt the veracity of this report, but search for it with care.)

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