In the fairytale Schneewitchen (or Snow White), a magical mirror is utilized to tell the evil queen (who is also Snow White’s stepmother) that she is the “fairest of them all”. Eventually Snow White turns sixteen and now is the “fairest of them all”. This ensues great panic in the queen, who enlists the help of a hunter to rip out her heart and put it in a box to prove he has killed the girl. Eventually he ends up fooling the queen with a doe heart in the box instead. The ending follows of Snow White using birds to fly after the queen and peck out her eyes brutally. “Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie nach heute.” (Translations: Fig. And they all lived happily ever after. Lit. And if they didn’t die, then they lived to see another day.)

The Little Mermaid originally included a scene where the mermaid was in so much pain that every step felt like her walking on broken glass. She even had to bargain with the sea witch to not kill the prince, despite that being the solution to being human forever.

Cinderella included descriptions of the stepsisters (under the direction of their mother) cutting off parts of their feet to fit into Cinderella’s incredibly small glass slipper.

Sleeping Beauty was originally about childbirth; that she was cursed to die in childbirth, up to the metaphor of her pricking her finger being substituted in later to represent the baby entering into the world as she died, unable to witness her heir.

There’s a lot fairytales taught us.

But one thing isn’t clear: who saved these women?

Did they save themselves?

Did their prince help or harm them, ultimately?

Sometimes we find ourselves in a triangle of dysfunction.

There’s a more formal term somewhere out there, but I’ll explain it as a “triangle of dysfunction” anyway.

The triangle includes three people: the hero, the villain, and the damsel. Sometimes these go by different names, such as: the rescuer, the perpetrator, and the victim. Both sets of terms hold equal weight. Pick which set makes it clearer to you.

Some of us are in a situation where we’re as much a hero as the person we’re with. A healthy relationship model allows both people to be equals to each other. Dysfunctional models essentially relate unhealthy patterns to presumed roles.

If you are wondering why this model exists, it’s because often when someone is in an unhealthy relationship, people try to help them out. In this sense, they are assuming the hero role.

There’s an issue with the model though.

It only works if there is truly an issue.

Otherwise you could have doubles of one archetype and zero of another in the same set.

This is what happens when well meaning people intervene in other people’s lives. There are patterns of behavior that some people think are malicious but that may be symptoms or even just an off day, meaning that while someone may mean well when forcing police intervention, it almost always creates more chaos and strife than it solves.

Why?

If you’re the one calling the police on an argument, consider that neither person in the argument called the police. Consider that people have autonomy and logical reasoning. Consider as well that both people may have considered involving police.

See, my take is that we have crisis intervention.

And that’s not the police’s problem to take on.

Corruption is rampant.

In Mesa, Arizona (which is part of Maricopa County – the county with the highest reported amount of police misconduct reports and least resolutions), police will arrest women for everything that could even be theoretically claimed as domestic violence.

Reports will show that women beaten black and blue will get citations for screaming for help or breaking an object they own in sheer terror. If a woman even knocks over a tissue box off the counter in a marital argument, she is liable to be arrested for domestic violence. If someone chases a woman around and freaks her out, and she punches him in the face and he leaves her alone, she is the violent one.

There’s a flip side to this.

When a man beats the woman black and blue, he gets written up for disorderly conduct without a domestic violence designation. He’s likely to argue this away in a pretrial.

The man who chases the woman around and terrorizes her will be goaded by the reporting officer to press charges onto the scared victim. If a man beats a woman nearly dead, he will get the charges dismissed in a heartbeat. They don’t care.

This is all because of the triangle of dysfunction. There’s an assumption that someone given second-hand information can accurately assess a situation.

See, the police assume the role of “hero” on the scene.

They get to select “victim” versus “villain” and don’t try very hard. Fuck, they will even be goaded into not completing an investigation if they think they would be proven wrong. They know that a “perfect victim” can be argued for, when no such thing exists.

“Reactive Abuse”

Say someone is beating you senseless and you push them away. In earlier times of society (prior to dumbass men’s rights movements), we would call this self defense. You would be able to use this as proof that you were being harmed. If your neighbor calls the police on you defending yourself, you best bet they are altering the narrative grotesquely.

Modern narratives showcase something called reactive abuse, which is a fancy way of saying the following: “We saw you were in danger (or being abused) and we don’t like that you fought back (to protect yourself), so we are going to rewrite the story to further gaslight and victimize you. We believe that victims are held to impossible standards.”

Where does this leave us?

Well, we need to actually support victims of violence. We can’t claim we are here to stop violence against women and children if only the perfect victims are able to be helped. (By this, I do upfront imply an ability rather than a guarantee to be helped.) I am aware that men can be victims of violence as well. Yet, I would like to point out quite boldly that often men have more power/flexibility/chances to leave abuse than female counterparts.

We can’t only help people we want to help.

I remember hearing many moons ago, “Justice is blind.”

I can now say, “Justice may be blind, but the scales of justice are written by those in power, and powerful people are not free from corruption or discrimination.”

There’s a lot more on this that matters, but just know that until police are held to a code of ethical standards, I don’t see any solutions coming forth.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

“Perhaps it is you. And perhaps no one truly is, after all.”

XOXO,

Dorothy B.