Surprise!

I surprised myself this week by having an altercation with my boss. Now you may say, Don't be ridiculous, Hound, you could start an argument in a phone box. And of course you're right - what surprised me was the position I took, so this post should probably be read in the context of the last one.
I surprised myself by saying that if someone keeps making the same mistake in life, sooner or later they have to come to the conclusion that since they are the common denominator in this, they must put some consideration towards what they are doing themselves to create the problem, and how they can change.
The specific case was about abused women in relationships, and my boss surprised me by having none of it. She told me that the abuse is never the woman's fault, and I agreed. She told me the man needs to take responsibility for the abuse, and I agreed with her. She told me that if you have the sort of mindset where being abused becomes normal, you can't see an alternative, and I agreed with her. I said that in those circumstances the problem is the acceptance of the problem and that is what needs to change first.
She actually horrified me, because it felt like she was allowing no power to the woman. To me the power would be seeing there is a problem, apportioning blame, and then taking the power by doing whatever you have to do next.
Of course I get that it so difficult to do this. I also fully understand the repercussions (a good deal of the fracture in my relationship with my mother is because she refused to believe me about a difficult thing when I was much younger). I suppose what I'm saying is the witchly thing that while bad things happening to you may be the complete fault of another, part of moving on is a frank inventory of how it happened, including how you have yourself allowed the situation to develop. For example I have reflected on what I failed to do when I was in the hellish situation of being managed by Zippy. Of course the irony is that then the universe doesn't present you with the same situation.
So wife beaters are scum and deserve karma. I could tell you the words of a little invocation I say to the goddess in the evening, because it will make my position on wife batterers, queer bashers and paedophiles clear. The thing here is that a victim should not only be a victim. Getting power involves introspection because it you accept power you have to acknowledge when you have failed to exercise power and not been sovereign over your person and life.
The question is 'Will this give me power or take it away?'