We are two Domestic Abuse Survivors who bought the Fifty Shades Trilogy believing we were going to read an erotic love story but were alarmed to recognise a pattern of domestic abuse within the first chapter. We continued to read the books and were horrified to see throughout the trilogy that domestic abuse was normalised and romanticised. The unrealistic ending that perpetuates the myth that a man like Christian Grey can be changed by the love of the right woman further added to our concerns.
With 1 in 4 women experiencing domestic abuse and 2 women in the UK per week being killed by it , we felt we needed to speak out against the dangerous marketing of the books.
We work hard to try and raise awareness that a woman meeting a Christian Grey type in the real world would be a horrific nightmare rather than a dream come true.
Originally we were part of a team of 3 tweeting from another account which we spent a lot of time and effort on. One more person joined the team and unfortunately in June tweets began which were a personal attack on another Domestic Abuse Campaigner. In our opinion, we felt this lost focus of the actual cause: to raise awareness of Domestic Abuse. We refused to join in with the twitter attacks only to then become victims of this ourselves. In June 2013 we stopped tweeting on the other account and are proud to have not been associated with the bullying tactics we observed on social media.
@50shadesisabuse was later set up as a new account for us to tweet from as we felt we needed a specific account to raise our concerns over the popularity of books that described a typical domestic abuse relationship. We are proud to say that our account is:
With 1 in 4 women experiencing domestic abuse and 2 women in the UK per week being killed by it , we felt we needed to speak out against the dangerous marketing of the books.
We work hard to try and raise awareness that a woman meeting a Christian Grey type in the real world would be a horrific nightmare rather than a dream come true.
Originally we were part of a team of 3 tweeting from another account which we spent a lot of time and effort on. One more person joined the team and unfortunately in June tweets began which were a personal attack on another Domestic Abuse Campaigner. In our opinion, we felt this lost focus of the actual cause: to raise awareness of Domestic Abuse. We refused to join in with the twitter attacks only to then become victims of this ourselves. In June 2013 we stopped tweeting on the other account and are proud to have not been associated with the bullying tactics we observed on social media.
@50shadesisabuse was later set up as a new account for us to tweet from as we felt we needed a specific account to raise our concerns over the popularity of books that described a typical domestic abuse relationship. We are proud to say that our account is:
- focused
- educational with informative tweets
- always open to discussions with others who may not recognise the abuse like we do
- happy to retweet other Domestic Abuse Campaigners
- links to blogs that help inform and raise awareness
- welcomes the opportunity to work with any charities or groups that would like to spread the word.