Hmm.... I don't think that calling someone a nasty name is directly equivilent to physical violence, but I don't thing that they're entirely different.
This first example is one based on personal experience as someone who has received street harrassment for looking visibly queer.
If you look at the effects of physical versus verbal harrassment... slapping someone has a fairly minor physical effect. Its quite a momentary physical pain with no lasting physical damage, and the fear of escalation and feeling of discomfort which come from having someone show that they they are willing and able to violate your rights are far more lasting than the initial sting.
Verbal intimidation in the context of shouting at someone in the street and being physical intimidating without actual physical contact can have a lot of the same consequences in terms of diminishing people's safety as physically hitting someone; the end result makes people afraid, upset, or angry.
Once someone has shown that they are willing to be verbally abusive to you in an unprovoked way (which in the UK is a criminal offense, particularly if its covered by hate crime legislation) then it is hard to separate that from an implied threat of violence... at the point where a stranger is in your face, spewing out a load of homophobic abuse like that, and asking you about what bits you have under your skirt you don't know whether they'll hit you or not, and what level of violence there'll be if they do.
If something is purposefully used to make someone miserable, afraid or un comfortable then it has many of the same effects as physical violence.
People start wanting to avoid work or school and their ability to concentrate and function as well as their attendence suffers, as well as their performance.
In a relationship verbal abusiveness (not neccessarily fairly 'meaningless' expletives but targetted attacks on people's self esteem) is used as efectively to take away someone's self worth to the extent that they can be controlled as physical abusiveness.
And from a doctor, police officer or other person of trust and/or authority who act as doormen for provision of services it can stop people from accessing services that they desparately need.
Sending someone a random internet message 'ur hair is stupid' is mean but unlikely to have long and profound consequences in and of itself, but if you perpetuate a sort of discrimination that society as a whole has inflicted on someone then racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia is often part of a wholescale hate campaign which is delivered by droplets rather than barrels...but eventually droplets add up to barrels.
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Date: 2010-07-16 01:43 pm (UTC)This first example is one based on personal experience as someone who has received street harrassment for looking visibly queer.
If you look at the effects of physical versus verbal harrassment... slapping someone has a fairly minor physical effect. Its quite a momentary physical pain with no lasting physical damage, and the fear of escalation and feeling of discomfort which come from having someone show that they they are willing and able to violate your rights are far more lasting than the initial sting.
Verbal intimidation in the context of shouting at someone in the street and being physical intimidating without actual physical contact can have a lot of the same consequences in terms of diminishing people's safety as physically hitting someone; the end result makes people afraid, upset, or angry.
Once someone has shown that they are willing to be verbally abusive to you in an unprovoked way (which in the UK is a criminal offense, particularly if its covered by hate crime legislation) then it is hard to separate that from an implied threat of violence... at the point where a stranger is in your face, spewing out a load of homophobic abuse like that, and asking you about what bits you have under your skirt you don't know whether they'll hit you or not, and what level of violence there'll be if they do.
If something is purposefully used to make someone miserable, afraid or un comfortable then it has many of the same effects as physical violence.
People start wanting to avoid work or school and their ability to concentrate and function as well as their attendence suffers, as well as their performance.
In a relationship verbal abusiveness (not neccessarily fairly 'meaningless' expletives but targetted attacks on people's self esteem) is used as efectively to take away someone's self worth to the extent that they can be controlled as physical abusiveness.
And from a doctor, police officer or other person of trust and/or authority who act as doormen for provision of services it can stop people from accessing services that they desparately need.
Sending someone a random internet message 'ur hair is stupid' is mean but unlikely to have long and profound consequences in and of itself, but if you perpetuate a sort of discrimination that society as a whole has inflicted on someone then racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia is often part of a wholescale hate campaign which is delivered by droplets rather than barrels...but eventually droplets add up to barrels.