Meredith Baxter on Oprah
I am just watching Meredith Baxter on Oprah and finding so much of her story helpful. The stories she is telling is so typical of women who have been abused by their partner – the fear, confusion etc. Her examples of how her partner wore her down with insults and putdowns were powerful. As usual, Oprah missed the opportunity to engage the issue of woman abuse in a helpful way. Instead of seeing woman abuse as a massive sociological issue plaguing the world, she chose to interpret it as an issue in one woman’s life (in this case Meredith Baxter) and one that the woman is largely responsible for. It was also unfortunate that Baxter’s drinking was seen as an additional issue instead of (obviously) a coping strategy that Baxter used to survive in an abusive marriage. If Baxter’s story rang true with your story, I hope you will read our website and our book. You are not alone. 1 in 6 women in North America have stories very similar to Meredith Baxter and you.
I think it is a terrible disservice that Oprah has done to women. Women are always told, “the red flags were there, you just didn’t see them”, or “the red flags were there, you just ignored them”, “you ignored what you knew in your gut” “you weren’t paying attention to what your intuition was trying to tell you”. She says, “the signs are always there, it’s whether or not you paid attention to them”. Which extends to Dr. Phil, and all of the others in her sphere of influence.
In addition to that, I watched some of her interviews with Whitney Houston, and I thought the same thing. It became all about her drug abuse. But, what about the horrible relationship she was in, in which she clearly tried to find answers, and to solve it? It was heartbreaking to me, how hard she tried to fix her relationship.
Besides that, my own observation was that she had no real support from her family. She always was told she was being supported, but, mostly what I heard was blame against her for everything.
It would have a huge positive effect on women if these influential people in the media like Oprah actually, sincerely wanted to find the real answers and educate people, instead of perpetuating the very things that allow abuse of women to continue.