"What they did to you, wasn't done by you" so stop tearing yourself apart. 

Originally published on Medium, here.

Some people blame men mistreating women, on women “ignoring” red flags. People imply that the fault lies with women, for being too “gullible”, “naïve” and “stupid”:

“How couldn’t you see this coming?”, “you should have known better”, “how could you fall for his bullshit?”, “we all saw the red flags”, “the writing was on the wall!”.

However, the reality of why women “ignore” red flags, is a lot more complex than because they’re “stupid”. Society conditions us (especially women), to excuse, justify and minimise men’s bad behaviour. You can’t blame women for failing to “see” men’s red flags, when they’re continuously sent the message they’re green ones.

On top of being taught by society to romanticise and normalise men’s “red flags”, men manipulate them too. Women don’t “fall” for men’s bullshit, men lead them on through lies and gaslighting, they take advantage of their feelings to emotionally manipulate them. When you’re experiencing such manipulation first-hand, it’s very hard to see “red flags” from an outsider’s perspective.

Also, if you have feelings for someone, naturally you’re going to want to give them the benefit of the doubt. In fact, we’re taught that in order to have a healthy relationship, we have to trust our partner and believe the best in them. However, when we do exactly that but they turn out bad, suddenly blame is shifted onto us. Now we’re “too trusting” and “delusional”.

However, it’s seen as a negative trait within women to be wary of men. You can’t win: wrong to trust men, wrong not to.

Trusting = stupid, distrustful = cynical and bitter. It’s confusing being a woman, we’re sent mixed messages:

“Men change when they find the right woman” becomes “I can’t believe you thought he’d change”. “Be forgiving!” becomes “what a doormat”. “Don’t hold people’s past against them” becomes “it was obvious they were a bad person”.

How can you blame women for not recognising red flags, when they’re not taught how? When society misleads us by normalising and romanticising toxic traits in men? The truth is, people hate women. They see women being fooled by men, by no fault of their own, as an excuse to degrade them and dismiss them as “stupid”.

The victim-blaming of women, perpetuates the problem further. If women feel “stupid”, it makes them doubt their own perceptions and ability to discern red flags. If women blame themselves for how men mistreat them — that there’s something inherently wrong with them that caused it, they won’t believe they deserve better.

If people actually cared about women, they wouldn’t treat them with contempt, they’d educate them about red flags, they’d empower them to trust themselves and their gut instincts. Instead, women’s feelings are invalidated, they’re told they’re “overthinking”, “overreacting”, “too sensitive”, “paranoid”, “crazy”.

It’s ingrained in women to self-blame when they’re fooled: “how couldn’t I see this coming?”, “I’m an idiot!”, “I shouldn’t have trusted them”. However, hindsight is 20/20. Beating yourself up over what others did to you, changes nothing because you’re not the issue and never was. Even if you were “naïve”, so what! They’re even more in the wrong for taking advantage of that.

I’m not saying don’t learn about red flags, I’m saying no matter how hard we try to see red flags, it’s still the perpetrators fault regardless. You should never be motivated to work on your expectations and boundaries based on shame and fear. Women can’t be expected to predict men’s behaviour, to be clairvoyant, mind-reading. To be FBI agents on high alert for red flags 24/7. That’s not a way to live!

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my thoughts on “why women ignore red flags” 🚩 #sophiesredflags

A post shared by Sophie King (@kingsophiesworld) on Aug 6, 2019 at 9:11am PDT

I’m not against the concept of forgiveness, I’ve chosen to forgive people countless times. However, what I’m definitely against, is pressuring people to forgive and shaming them if they don’t. I’ve found there’s a lot of stigma attached to those who choose not to forgive, especially if you’re a woman.

Women that don’t forgive, are assumed to be “scorned”, “bitter and twisted”. The stereotypes that surround “unforgiving” women, are used to gaslight them.

When women express that they’re upset or angry (and justifiably so), as a result of being hurt, people dismiss them as “bitter” and the validity of their feelings and experiences are questioned.

She isn’t psychologically traumatised because she’s been wronged, she’s just a “scorned woman”, “got an axe to grind”, “holding a grudge” and “unable to move on”. The fault lies with her, not the perpetrator because she won’t “let it go” and “get over it”. She’s not the victim, she’s bringing it on herself by not forgiving. The blame is shifted from the wrongdoer to the victim.

People assert she isn’t understandably angry and hurt, she’s “overreacting”, “irrational”, “crazy”, “psycho”, “too sensitive”. She’s “making something out of nothing”, she’s being “petty”, “creating drama”. She doesn’t want justice, she’s “out for revenge”.

Labelling a woman “bitter”, is like calling them “crazy”, it’s just another way to dismiss their feelings and whatever has happened to them as “all in her head”. Her feelings and experiences are just irrational and paranoid delusions of a “bitter” and “crazy” woman, not the reality of how women are mistreated every day all over the world.

Men often use the status of an unforgiving woman, to avoid accountability for their actions by disregarding whatever women accuse them of, by saying they’re “just bitter”. What he did was wrong but she’s worse for not being the better person and forgiving him.

No one wants the reputation of being a “bitter” woman, so this manipulates women into keeping silent and the perpetrator remains protected and their behaviour remains unchallenged.

In the past, when I’ve chosen to forgive and I’ve chosen not to, in both instances it was for my own benefit, on my own terms and my personal choice. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t end up a bitter and twisted woman for the times I didn’t forgive. In fact, I found it empowered me to draw the line, my line of what I deem forgivable, to protect myself. I don’t owe anyone forgiveness and I won’t be shamed if I don’t forgive. Instead of telling someone they should forgive, tell the perpetrator not to do unforgivable things. Instead of assuming women that don’t forgive are scorned, listen to them.

This is my ongoing series of "red flags" I've been making over the last year or so about dating, relationships and people in general. This series is inspired in part by the cultural pressure placed on women to be clairvoyants when it comes to men's intentions. Society often blames women for not predicting men's behaviour, as opposed to blaming men for mistreating women in the first place. This encourages women to internalise blame and feel ashamed for not "seeing" the red flags. These red flags are about some of the things I've learnt:

"Just because you couldn't see someone's red flags doesn't mean you deserved to be treated badly"

"When they expect you to be their girlfriend, without being your boyfriend"

"they only want you when they can't have you"

"When acquaintances love them but people who know them hate them"

"When people derail conversations about social issues because they're not about them"

"When they refer to women as females"

"When they think compassion and emotional intelligence are signs of weakness"

My article on "Why women "ignore" red flags" Medium. 

I’m not anti-forgiveness but I’ve often been on the receiving end of men using forgiveness as a tool to avoid accountability for doing wrong. I’ve been guilt tripped and manipulated to “get over” what they’d done, under the guise of “forgiving” them. They twist seemingly harmless popular wisdom “I’m only human, we all make mistakes” into excuses.

Popular wisdom tells us that “forgiveness is for you, not them, it’s not about condoning what they did wrong”. Which might be true in some cases but in my experience, the concept of forgiveness is often weaponised to excuse the perpetrator’s actions, at the expense of the victims healing and justice. Especially when the perpetrator is male and when the victim is female or from another oppressed group.

People put the onus on women to forgive men for mistreating them, whilst normalising what they’d done wrong in the same breath, by making excuses, justifications and minimisations.

“Give them a second chance… they’re only human/ we all make mistakes/ no one’s perfect.”

I have an issue when forgiveness is used in this way, when excuses are attached to it. When we’re told to forgive and sent the message that how they’d mistreated us was acceptable. It teaches perpetrator’s that they’re not fully responsible for their actions, that they can demand forgiveness and can just dismiss what they’ve done. In this context, the concept of forgiveness perpetuates a culture where men don’t take accountability for their actions.

When people say things like “everyone makes mistakes. If you can’t forgive others, don’t expect other to forgive you”, they’re trying to deflect blame by counter-accusing others of making “mistakes” too. It’s a threat to victims to think twice before they speak out.

It’s weaponising forgiveness, it’s saying we’re obliged to forgive others because we’re all guilty of making “mistakes” too, that we’re no better than them, so we better “let it go” or face punishment too.

When people say things like “we all make mistakes, forgive them”, they’re using forgiveness as a form of manipulation, to excuse and counter-attack, so we “go easy” on the perpetrator, sympathise with them and pressure victims into keeping quiet.

Men be like: I know I ruined the lives of countless women, wasn’t sorry until I was found out but everyone make’s mistakes… give me a second chance.

People also pull the “but everyone does it” card, to excuse their wrongdoings. That everyone makes the same “mistakes” as them, so it’s ok. Which is easier than taking individual responsibility for their personal choices.

Another excuse people make, is that “no one is perfect”, which is a common counter-attack placed on victims. And they’re right, “no one is perfect” but is that a reason to excuse our wrongdoings? No. Does that mean we don’t have to take accountability for our actions? No. Does that mean we’re entitled to be forgiven? No.

People also use the fact we’re “only human” to minimise personal responsibility for their wrongdoings. They’re not in control of their actions, their biology is. They try to normalise their behaviour as “just the way people are”. Being human is not an excuse to remove accountability from people’s actions and normalise bad behaviour. 

The problem is people use excuses like “we’re only human, we all make mistakes, no one’s perfect” to minimise things like sexual assault, cheating and so on. Stop teaching people that such things are justified, that’s how people give themselves permission to do it in the first place. It might be the norm (currently) to do such things but that doesn’t make it ok.

Why do we use the “people can change, everyone deserves a second chance” argument to persuade women into forgiving men for mistreating them but in every other area of our life, we would never apply this type of logic?

If a mechanic had a history of scamming customers, would we just say “people change, give them a second chance”, to encourage people into trusting them with their car? Doubt it, unless we had an ulterior motive.

So why are people so quick to tell women to forgive men for hurting them? The “people can change” narrative seems to specifically serve men who’ve mistreated women.

For example, the “people can change, everyone deserves a second chance” narrative, is used to deflect blame onto women. When women give men “a second chance” but said men wrong them, the woman is blamed because “what did they expect”. Women are blamed for “giving a second chance” to shady men, instead of blaming men for being shady.

Saying “everyone make’s mistakes, they’re only human, no one’s perfect… forgive them”, to victims is adding insult to injury. Not only are you minimising what the perpetrator did to them, you’re invalidating their feelings by implying it wasn’t “that bad”.

We've been forgiving men for centuries and what good has that done anyone? If forgiveness as a concept challenged the status quo, do you really think those in power would be telling oppressed groups they have to do it?

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we’ve been forgiving men for centuries and what good has that done anyone? - what no one likes to consider, is that sometimes the concept of forgiveness is weaponised to avoid holding men accountable. They demand forgiveness without earning it, without learning or changing. Often without even acknowledging where they’ve gone wrong. They expect forgiveness whilst excusing their actions “everyone makes mistakes, you should forgive”. In this context, forgiveness is a scapegoat and protects the status quo, normalising bad behaviour as forgivable.

A post shared by Sophie King (@kingsophiesworld) on Sep 21, 2018 at 9:52am PDT

I've touched on the topic of people posting artists' work uncredited to social media before (here) but today I'd like to go into more depth as to why I find it sketchy when businesses do it.

For example, when clothing brands post images of my hand embroidered designs uncredited to their followers, they're misleading them into believing it's their product and they're selling it.

Evidence of this is in their comments, where their followers ask if it's for sale by them. This generates interest and traffic to their shop. This is wrong as they're using my intellectual property to market their business.

It benefits their business to slyly try to pass the work off as their own, even if they're not brazenly ripping it off and physically selling it.

Businesses posting artists' work uncredited is detrimental to the artist in so many ways. Most importantly they're erasing ownership of the artist over their own work and claiming it for themselves instead.

It's not enough to just tag the artist, if you don't clearly @ them in the caption, it's not obvious it's not the brands.

Also, in my many years of experience of this happening, brands don't just stop at posting my designs uncredited to promote themselves.

They see the demand it creates from their followers and see £££ signs. The next thing you know, not only have they stolen your copyrighted images to slyly market themselves for free, now they're ripping off your designs for profit. 

This is why I find it sketchy when brands post my work uncredited. I know they have ulterior motives. 

Alien Outfitters and Missy Empire both posted my copyrighted images to their social media uncredited, only to create very similar designs weeks later. Not even paraphrasing my words but directly copying them. More recently the brand Branche did something similar:

If you were one of their followers, would you be lead to believe it's their design and that they plan on selling it? They're also using their businesses # to promote themselves.

To other artists:

If you find your work being posted by businesses uncredited, file a copyright report form with whatever social media platform they're on. It's easy and most posts get removed within hours.

I always politely reach out to brands to ask if they can credit or remove my copyrighted images but they ignore me the majority of the time.

If they get back to you half a day later the damage has already been done, in the world of social media, posts get buried within a few hours, by that time potentially tens of thousands of people have seen your work uncredited, or worse, been given the impression your work is the brands.

To people who just want to support artists from theft:

Just let artists know when their work is being posted uncredited, it's a big help! Sometimes these businesses have blocked the artist pre-emptively.

To brands:

Social media managers should know better, you're using people's copyrighted material to promote a business FOR FREE, you should at the least find attribution. 

If you're going to use others copyrighted material to promote your business, credit them clearly in the caption, it's free, it's easy.

If you can't find who made it by left clicking "search google for images" just don't post it.

It's the least you can do, if artists' work is good enough to promote yourselves, they deserve attribution. 

I can't speak on behalf of other artists but I'd venture a guess that most people don't have an issue with their work being shared with credit, it's when it isn't you create problems. 

So please make everyone's lives easier by simply crediting. It makes such a big difference to just credit.