Social Media Buzz: Embarrass the abuser—historical domestic violence and vigilantes
skegnessuk recently posted this link on Twitter
skegnessuk: Check this video out — Historical domestic violence and vigilantes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9vWMsaX2Gc
This video is about a book called Skegness of the 1880s that features various news stories of the 1880s. “Among human interest stories, is a story called alleged wife beater humiliated. This was about a local man who beat his wife and was punished for this by being humiliated by vigilantes and other local people who were outraged by what he had done. This practice of humiliation was called ran-tanning." According to this definition of ran-tanning (process of public humiliation), “If a person had committed some act of which the other villagers disapproved, they would congregate near his house, making a terrible noise by beating with sticks, tins, cans, buckets and kettles, playing mouth organs, booing, shouting and singing and on occasions would light a bonfire and burn an effigy of the person who had incurred their displeasure. This was carried on for a number of nights in succession.”
Public humiliation isn’t a new concept. However, not often, in the recent years, has it been connected with domestic violence. This concept of ran-tanning tangentially shores up the concept of embarrassment for the abuser. In this testimonial, Boman Irani urges you to go up to the violating door and ring the bell, “so that he knows that you know”. At Breakthrough, we did baseline surveys which threw up suprising insights. Our focus group discussions threw up insights like men don’t intervene in situations of abuse because they say, no one ‘asked’ them to intervene…or that abusers are embarrassed the moment their actions inside the house are open to public scrutiny. There was a need to capitalize on this ‘humiliation factor’. These insights helped shaped the thought behind the campaign—non-confrontational, smart, excuse-making ways of intervening in situations of abuse and letting the abuser know that you are not ignorant of what happens behind closed doors.
When the Bell Bajao campaign released, a very popular film critic in India told me over a cup of coffee about how she too was a victim of domestic violence. During one of the fights between her and her now ex-husband, he became violent and was trying to choke her. “I was struggling and gasping for breath and in the struggle to save my life, I let out a huge scream. The neighbours came running and looked through the grille of my second main door, which was open. My ex-husband removed his hands from my neck when he saw these people peek in. I could have died that day. But I survived because he was embarrassed. The neighbours didn’t intend to intervene, but their curiousity led to embarrassment. That’s why I know Bell Bajao will work, because it has an underlying thread of intervention leading upto embarrassment.”
Have you been witness to ran-tanning?
Follow our tweets HERE.
Tagged domestic violence
Share this:
