If you take our DVSV trainings and workshops, you will learn about how domestic and sexual violence is rooted in systematic and institutional oppression. Our focus the first morning at the Advocacy Learning Center was setting this foundation, connecting oppression and DVSV. We discussed the Pillars of Oppression and did a Margin to Center exercise demonstrating how multiple identities intersect. In ways, we each are both the oppressor and the oppressed.
[image description: two photos side by side, on the left is a poster of the Pillars of Oppression: Center=Ruler/Oppressor (image of a triangle) Margin = Ruled/Oppressed, Make oppressed into inferior objets undeserving of equal treatment, Teach submission through day-to-day disdain and messages of inferiority and overt violence, Able to use violence against oppressed with impunity, Split oppressed into “good” (collaborators) and “bad” (resistors). Behind the poster is the “island of survivors” a large circle covered by many colored post-its with written messages. The second photo is white poster paper with a large circle titled Margin and a smaller circle inside it titled Center. There are hand written words on various parts of the circles such as men, white, rich, cisgender, heterosexual, temporarily able bodied at the Center and words such as single mothers, LGBTQ, rural, undocumented residents, HIV Aids at the Margin.]