Name: Margot Story
Social Justice Group: 2020-2021, Violence Against Women
Date of Fieldwork: February 12, 2021
Person (people) with whom you met and their title(s) & Name of Organization: Women’s Advocates Outreach Team
Type of Fieldwork: Webinar
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
We attended a Teen Dating Violence 101 Webinar led by the Women’s Advocates Outreach Team. We learned many things about teen dating violence and, specifically, how it differs from typical dating violence and domestic abuse. We learned a lot about adultism, which is the power adults have over children and young people. Because of adultism, a majority of parents don’t believe that teen dating violence is a legitimate issue. This leads to very few abused teens seeking help or talking to adults. We also learned about the narrow mindset used to approach teen dating violence: very white, cisgendered, and straight. We saw many slides and learned a lot about the differences between abuse and violence, as well as the differences between an abusive and a simply unhealthy relationship. We also got to see the Duluth model of abuse, which was something we had come across in our research earlier, and we saw a comparison with a teen focused Duluth model. The webinar was led by Caitlyn Wright, who has a graduate degree and is a victim/survivor and youth therapist.
