A galvanizing call to end family-based anti-female violence, shaming, and shunning–stories and practices for healing from family mobbing.
Family mobbing is a strategic process of power and control. When daughters are mobbed, they’re not just shunned, attacked, or slandered: they’re also subjugated by a system of family rules that reinforces patriarchal oppression. What makes mobbing so insidious–and so under-reported–is that here, family is the site of the violence, trauma, and shame.
Family violence against girls and women is still legal–even in America, and even now. Across cultures, girls and women may be shunned or shamed, emotionally mistreated, or physically attacked by their families to maintain status, social conventions, and a family’s own standing within their community. Family mobbing tactics can include slander, rejection, beatings, anti-Queer violence, and even honor killings, child marriages, and forced abortion.
Author Stephanie Sellers–herself a survivor–explores the phenomenon of family mobbing, revealing the secrets and patterns that play out behind closed doors and remain unseen, unacknowledged, and unaddressed. She discusses: Why families and communities alienate members of their groups Why women, girls, and LGBTQIA2S+ people are at higher risk of mobbing The ramifications of raising daughters to be submissive How (and why) mothers and grandmothers perpetuate cycles of family mobbing against their daughters How to move on after being mobbed, shunned, or shamed Firsthand accounts from people all over the world who were mobbed by their families How different religious worldviews inform the practice and perpetuation of family mobbing
Sellers offers stories, definitions, and solutions to help women, girls, and people of all gender identities who have been mobbed by their families. She remembers and honors vast, ancient traditions that recognize female sanctity and personhood as paths forward to healing, with a focus on the practices and worldviews of Mother-first cultures that can illuminate the path toward honoring, valuing, and respecting daughters.
