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Normalizing Abuse: A Commentary on the Culture of Pervasive Abuse

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Normalizing Abuse...
Do you make excuses and rationalize abuse because it is so familiar that you discount it as being normal?
Many of us may be enduring some kind of pervasive abuse or are witness to it and may not even be aware of it. We’re being bombarded from so many directions that we may have become blind to it. The abuse almost feels normal. We might sense something’s not right, yet the problem is not apparent. That could be because abuse and resulting trauma is not always blatant or obvious. It can be collective, insidious and pervasive. We may also be conditioned to it so deeply that it is no longer recognized as abuse by the victims, perpetrators and greater society.

Normalizing Abuse - A Commentary on the Culture of Pervasive Abuse helps you to...
Redefine and recognize abuse and exploitation in your life and community
Determine if you’re experiencing trauma or abuse
Offers solutions to the abuse and exploitation going on in so many of our lives
Suggests practices and modalities to put you on your own healing journey
Recognize you are not alone trying to survive the epidemic of abuse around us
Understand why we tolerate or inflict abuse and exploitation
Find resources to help
Recognize abuse and exploitation you probably didn’t see happening in academia, armed forces, religion, corporations, workplaces everywhere, government, society and culture, among family members and friends, the media and law enforcement
Transform your life with the tools suggested in Normalizing Abuse
Karen Tate, thought leader, seven-times published author, podcaster, social justice activist and now, an admitted abuse survivor, reveals in her newest book, Normalizing Abuse: A Commentary on the Culture of Pervasive Abuse…

“I considered myself savvy, educated and an advocate for fairness and equality. I thought abuse was something that happened to others, not me."
In Normalizing Abuse, Karen Tate takes the reader on a serious and heartfelt journey of discovery, not just of oneself, but also aspects of society and culture--academia, government, corporations, religion, the military, the workplace and media, family and friends--to peel back the veneer hiding insidious abuse and exploitation.

This groundbreaking book examines some of the countless ways blatant and pervasive abuse is being acculturated, endured, and immensely impacting our lives - and the lives of all with whom we interact today.

With dozens of prestigious endorsements and a powerful foreword written by pioneering spiritual educator Matthew Fox, well-known activist for gender and eco-justice, Normalizing Abuse is being hailed as a bullhorn for truth-telling desperately needed. It speaks to how society is rife with trauma we do not recognize and abuses we do not reject. It helps readers recognize trauma and abuse, identify the cause and have the tools to transform how they react to the situations. Today we are being called to awaken, stand up and speak truth to those wielding toxic power over us, not just for ourselves but for the future.

392 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 13, 2022

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About the author

Karen Tate

22 books14 followers
Considered a trail blazer and visionary in her community, Karen Tate is an independent scholar of the Sacred Feminine, published author, lecturer, radio show host and sacred tour leader. Her weekly radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine, airs every Wednesday evening. As a sacred tour leader, she has had her passport stamped on five continents as she chased down sacred sites circling the globe.

Karen Tate's first book, Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations has been endorsed by the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Her newest book, Walking An Ancient Path: Rebirthing Goddess on Planet Earth, a spiritual, socio-political look at how to mainstream the emerging revolution of thought - the Feminine Consciousness, out June 2008, has also garnered this prestigious recommendation.

Karen is available to address public and private groups with lectures and slide presentations.

For details about lectures and appearances, see her website at www.karentate.com"

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Karen Moon.
1 review3 followers
January 12, 2023
You think you have a handle on things. And then you read a book like this. At first, you tell yourself she's just crying sour apples. But paragraph after paragraph and example after example, this little voice inside you won't quit nudging you 'what if?’

'What if' even if just some of what she says is true: that these abusive, traumatic, oppressive 'norms' have been built into and integral to the business, police, media and foundation that we grew up thinking were the land of the free and the land of opportunity?

Because let's face it, everywhere you look, people are sliding backwards, hurting, stressed and falling through the cracks while the 'haves' desperately hold even tighter to their so called ‘security’.

As for me, after experiencing abusive personal relationships and more than I can count bad work situations, where I took as ‘normal’ to struggle and to be diminished, belittled and treated as if I am not worthy, I personally made the decision to get off the treadmill, but I did it at great personal cost.

Along with inviting in Karen's 'what if' statement of the current systems, what follows is the possibility of what if we could build a world where everyone's basic needs were covered and where everyone is respected for what they do bring to the table? What if we started to think of all of us together not just an individual mad dash to the finish line?

Thank you Karen for opening the conversation on these important subjects in a very worthy, extensively researched and thought-provoking book.

--Caryn MacGrandle, Workshop host and Creator of the divine feminine app, bringing [mainly] women together in Sacred Circles, events and resources since 2016

1 review
April 16, 2023
If you are a woman who has ever felt like you could never do quite enough or never get it quite right, this book is for you. If you are a woman who has ever been taken for granted or taken advantage of, this book is for you. If you are a woman who has ever been used, misused or abused, this book is for you. Abuse is not always physical. Exploitation is not always financial.

Karen Tate takes us into the darkness of the womb to be born again anew—strong and supported to walk away from people and places that not only do not support us, but undermine us, desert us and leave us weak in the knees. In her pages you will find that you are not alone—that your experiences are not “just in your head” and that you are not “just too sensitive.” You will find that there are others who have experienced what you have experienced and who now stand ready to walk with you on your path to freedom.

~Duann Kier, author of "Return of the Divine Feminine, Rise of the Divine Masculine: And the Men Who Are Calling for Her Return"
1 review
April 19, 2023
The title of this book, Normalizing Abuse, conjures the all too familiar scenarios of domestic abuse, misuse at the hands of persons most to be trusted, but the palette has many colors and the canvas is the entire expanse of our society, the flawed supposition of male superiority, the entrenched constructs of historicity, the dogmas of political correctness, the academy whose members are more impressed with power than truth. Anyone who is found not in conformance is fair game.

Interspersed with the author’s commentary that attempts to organize, categorize and make sense of it all, are the many short personal accounts of abuse, testimonies confided by victims shielded from the shame of their sufferings by pseudonymous anonymity.

These are not a compendium of Jerimiahs, Cassandras, a voice crying in the wilderness, but a clarion call for reform - to discover who we are, before it is too late, and uncover a braver new world with many marvelous creatures in it.
Profile Image for Jack Dempsey.
Author 8 books3 followers
April 16, 2023
This is a work sure to help and heal both individuals and our pathological society. From her choice of its voices to its organization and positive spirit in the face of so much criminal exploitation, Tate has given people a library of powerful testimony that can only convince them more than ever that capitalism is a plague working actively against our humanity, and that there are ways out and beyond. This is cutting edge analysis of what simply has to change or we are not going to make it as a society or, for that matter, as a species. And I know it will connect countless people into a new human unity eager and able to create something far better! BRAVA! A work so full of perception and compassion sure to reach millions of people who need to know that they're not alone, nor are they responsible for others who inflict abuse.
1 review
April 20, 2023
Normalizing Abuse by Rev. D Dr. Karen Tate is a tour de force. Everyone who has experienced mistreatment and cruelty will recognize the suffering it yields regardless of our stations in life. But why read an entire book about abuse, enormous hardship, and exploitation? The purpose is to open our eyes, to unveil the reality of what is taking place in order to see and understand the dynamics of exploitation and cruelty within ourselves and others. To look the other way and to be silent in the face of anyone's mistreatment perpetuates the damage for everyone concerned. After breaking her own silence, Karen Tate has become a powerful truth-teller who calls all of us to stand up and join her in having the courage to speak the truth in the face of injustice in order to have any hope of transforming the suffering that is rampant in this world.

Joan Marler PhD
Profile Image for Thomas Quinn.
1 review1 follower
April 17, 2023
A powerful and comprehensive exploration of abuse in all its forms and definitions, and its impact on our lives, our culture, and our institutions. It’s an archive of trenchant anecdotes relating abuse in an astonishing variety of contexts, including situations where we don’t recognize it for what it is. Are we normalizing abuse? Karen Tate’s book delves into each major aspect of society to find her answers.
A monumental work.
13 reviews
November 15, 2023
Trauma or Transformation?

Author, podcaster and social activist Karen Tate demonstrates we stand at a cultural crossroad - do we choose trauma or transformation for our future? In order to choose the latter, we need to pull back the veils, individually and as a society to look at the truth of how the world is functioning in families, at work, in classrooms, in our society. It all starts with the words we speak. It continues with what we tolerate or perpetuate. I found so many a-ha moments reading this. Tate is right. It is time to stop thinking 'this is just the way it is' and recognize the abuse out there for what it really is and name it as such. When it's all put in one place like this - and no doubt there is so much more - it's hard to deny. Really makes one think about things in our own life. I was really moved by the insightful foreword by Matthew Fox.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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