Am I causing harm?

Call

Chat

SMS

Email

Hours: Mon 8:30-5, Tues 8:30-7, Wed 8:30-5, Th 8:30-5, Fri 8:30-5

Call (602) 279-2980 or (800) 782-6400

Arizona Relay Service 7-1-1

Causing harm refers to creating pain and suffering for another person through physical, emotional, verbal, and/or sexual force.
Arizona Coalition Support focus
The language used in the context of domestic and sexual violence is important and ever evolving. As the anti-violence movement makes the shift towards utilizing a transformative justice approach to support healing, one which recognizes the humanity in people beyond the harm caused, it is important the language used reflect that emphasis on human dignity. Previously normalized but punitive language such as “perpetrator/abuser/rapist/batterer/harasser” dehumanizes people who cause harm, associates their entire personhood as “criminal,” and reinforces a harmful binary thinking of good vs. bad. This effectively denigrates the perception and thus care and services available for people who cause harm on all levels of society, especially the institutional/structural level, which inevitably leads to more harm and less healing.

Transformative justice creates space for people who have caused harm to recognize the harm caused, practice & understand accountability, and ultimately is a survivor-lead justice approach that allows us to re-envision justice and healing beyond the criminal-legal system. It is an approach intended to respond to violence without creating more violence. People are not disposable, people are people and if we want to eradicate sexual and domestic violence, we must honor everyone’s humanity by developing tools to respond and provide services to people who cause harm.

Am I causing harm?

(This question might also sound like “Am I abusive? Am I causing abuse? Am I hurting someone?”)

Power, control, and oppression are at the root of why people make the decision to cause harm. Causing harm is a decision just like any other but the rationale for that decision has the potential to unveil oppressive beliefs that people who cause harm may rely on to justify the harm caused. Harm can never be justified and doing the work to upend bigoted ideological beliefs is an important first step in recogizing and ending harm. Information gathering, behavior change, and accountability practice can allow someone who has caused harm to stop that behavior and repair the harm caused. If you think you may have caused harm to someone or are actively causing harm to someone in your life, ask yourself if the way you are treating that person is coming from a place of equality and freedom or power and control. Are you attempting to use control over another? Do you leverage your position of authority to force a person to do something against their will? Do you support your partner/friend/family member in making decisions that are best for them or do you believe you know better than them? Do you honor the bodily autonomy of your partner/friend/family member? If someone sets a boundary with you, do you adhere to that boundary or disregard it? Are you holding other people responsible for your feelings? The answers to these questions can help you in understanding if you are causing harm.

thoughtful man
acesdvcampaign-page-gallery-16-square

How do I know I’m causing harm?

Causing harm can look many different ways and part of being a person is making mistakes and causing unintentional harm. However, it is important to understand there are different degrees of harm. Causing harm can look like saying something hurtful to a friend during an argument, misgendering a colleague, or being in a fender bender with a stranger and being the person responsible for the car accident. Causing harm isn’t always intentional and can sometimes come as a result of a mistake but when folks know better, they have a responsibility to do better. If you are using power and control over another person in any form, that is likely an indicator that you are causing harm. Once harm has been caused, it is important that a person’s response include taking responsibility for the harm caused and allowing the person who was harmed, or the survivor, to determine what justice looks like for them.

Resources