fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6569 ]

[ SECRET POST #6569 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6569 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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I wish this concept existed. I see so many women who would like to leave the relationships they're in, but they have limited support, limited resources, etc. and they feel stuck. Sometimes they're not truly trapped and it only feels that way. Sometimes they really are in a bad situation where their own families and/or friends can't/won't help, they have no money and no place to go.

I wish there was an underground railroad to reach out to women in all sorts of relationship dead ends and provide them with the emotional or physical/financial support to get out if they want to - therapy, birth control and sex education, abortions and other women's health advocacy and treatment, safe houses that will take pets as well, free legal advice, food pantry resources, job help, resources for any children, the whole nine yards.

In a world where men seem determined to beat women down emotionally, physically and legislatively, there needs to be SOMETHING to balance out that oppression.

I'm a little confused, I'm pretty sure a lot of groups and domestic violence shelters already do this?

Do they not do exist in your area?

womens' support groups*

Of course they do. But depending on where you are, they can be terribly under-funded places with extremely limited resources. Many of them don't take pets, and there are women who fear to leave their pets behind with their abuser. They don't necessarily have the ability (again, funding) to provide all the services I listed. Ask anyone who volunteers for such organizations and they'll tell you the same thing.

All of that would be true for an "underground railroad" too. Or did you think the underground railroad was a well funded machine that was available everywhere and took everyone?

Maybe I am just hung up on the kind of ignorant use of underground railroad though. It sounds like what you really want is better funding and support for shelters and programs we already have. Which I agree with.

Tbh, I'm a bit hung up on that, too. I wonder what anon thinks the underground railroad was.

I have a feeling OP has no actual idea what the underground railroad was.

Call me jaded but I feel like the thread creator is a troll who wants to egg someone on to call them out on their bullshit so they can have bad faith arguments. Using the term "underground railroad" was a part of their multilayer scheme.

I can get with that conspiracy theory. I was thinking they were either privileged and uneducated, or young and uneducated. Or all of the above. But tbh the odds are more in favor of your theory in this particular space.

Re: The underground railroad, for women.

(Anonymous) - 2024-12-31 18:12 (UTC) - Expand

Anon, what do you think the underground railroad was? Because well-funded and bursting with resources it was not. It was run totally by volunteers, typically using their own personal funds, houses, and transportation; and by necessity, it was both secretive and prone to suddenly vanishing out of an area in which it used to be available.

I'm not sure what you're looking for if you think publicly funded resources are worse than a loose patchwork of private individuals operating outside the law.

Ngl imagining someone demanding an underground railroad, but that railroad better be at least business class is sending me

I demand to speak to the underground railroad's manager. The services rendered by your loose and not quite legal organization of individual volunteers are inadequate. I will leave a bad Yelp review

DA

"A business class seat on an Underground Railroad" amazing, I love it

We've actually had the occasional thing that resembled "the underground railroad - business class." But for much more limited services than the OP is suggesting. The Jane Clinic that was providing illegal (but free and safe) abortions in Chicago was run from private people's houses, and from what I've read, it was downright nice. It's kind of a shame that ever closed, because they were getting lower rates of complications than the hospitals and happier women who felt less dehumanized. And that, aside from the fact that they could provide abortions to anyone who needed one, and were only charging people who could afford to pay for it.

Yep, which is a wonderful thing to exist, and an entitled thing to say others should do while insisting you aren't able to help because you're not a millionaire

Re: The underground railroad, for women.

(Anonymous) - 2025-01-01 01:48 (UTC) - Expand

Re: The underground railroad, for women.

(Anonymous) - 2025-01-01 06:31 (UTC) - Expand

So, start one.

That is how all the real underground railroads started. Some random nobody decided they'd had enough and started doing stuff on their own, with just their own personal resources. They didn't sit on the internet whinging about it. They made it happen. Also, these things do exist, you just don't hear about them because underground means you not hearing about them.

I'm not sure if you think you're being clever, or just being an asshole. Reread what I wrote and ask yourself what kind of money would be required to provide free shelter, medical care, legal advice and therapy and how one person who isn't a millionaire could do all that. Because the problem isn't that no one is trying or that these things don't exist, the problem is that there aren't enough resources to meet the growing need. No one person can fix that. I donate to local women's shelters when I can, but I don't have the ability to provide as much help as people need. I wish I did. That's what my post was about.

Don't be a dick, nonny.

Perhaps you shouldn't have asked for an "underground railroad," then, because what AYRT described is an underground railroad - a network run by private individuals using their own resources, often outside of the law.

It's very clear that you used that term without understanding what it refers to. AYRT may be a dick, but your ignorance hinders your point.

I think it's rich that you're telling someone not to be a dick when you aren't being realistic nor willing to listen to people's responses.

I think what you seek, there are already networks for. None are perfect but that's because funding and resources are hard to come by.
If you cannot start up your own support network with what you ideally want, go to an existing women's shelter or the like and offer your help. With money and with your time.
Ask around if there is a possibility to consider helping abuse victims with pets (based upon your responses this is something important to you).

Start where there is already a system and see who and where you can create some changes or options you want to see.

I think, start small. You can't do big things in one big move/money dump. Complex situations call for complex solutions. Ain't as easy as simply saying what perfect support networks look like and boom, it happens.

There are safe houses and shelters that take pets but they are few and far between. They are very rare.

So, the Jane collective, but for more than abortions?

As so many nonnys have said, these exist. As you’ve said, their funding is crappy. So figure out how to help. Can the shelters partner with Hobo dogs or some such group to make sure pets are taken care of? Can you put together a fund raiser for your local DA shelter?

I’m just throwing out ideas, nonny.

The "underground" part would really undo the whole project.

And look, I'm not an expert in the history of enslaved people in America, but my general understanding is you'd have big groups of people who were enslaved together. So if one of them could get out and find help they could either go back and get their friends/neighbors/family members to that same help, or else tell the help how to get in contact with the group.

That isn't the dynamic with domestic violence. A person might be the only one in their friend-group/family/neighborhood who is going through it. Or else they might think they are. You can't necessarily tell from the outside looking in. And then you've got the possibility for abuse inherent in handing people in vulnerable positions over to randos. Like sure, most will probably have a good heart but it only takes one person to really derail the train.

I think your heart is in the right place but you sound like Uber recreating a bus line. Or maybe a 17 year old internet leftist who'd rather burn down the imperfect systems that exist to build something perfect (how? for who? with what money?) that will never exist.

da

I think the original suggestion was kind of naive, but I think you're overstating your criticism by claiming they're 17 and want to burn the existing shelter system to the ground. I don't know of any shelter system that would even be inconvenienced, let alone destroyed, by some of the people who used to need their services being able to go somewhere else.

It's the kind of rhetoric I see a lot. Young and/or niave people who want to solve a problem that's So Obvious and So Easy. If Only Everyone Would Just ect.

Meanwhile they've done zero research into what's out there or what people need. And then you point out that animal shelters or homeless shelters or soup kitchens or warming stations already exist and NO! those have some flaw. And supporting an imperfect system is basically a sin. Better to do nothing but dream of perfection. I no more know that op is 17 than I know op is the personification of Uber. But they sound the same. Same vibes.

And yes, no shelter system would be destroyed by an alternative existing. Unless we took away the funding for existing shelters and put it toward a decentralized system acting in secret in private homes. I invision something like the change from orphanages to foster homes. I can't say that it would be better or worse.

AYRT

Ah. I don't have anything to add, but that does clarify for me why you were annoyed.

Quit this trolling. Enough. You're not really part of F!S.

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