Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing: Stories and Approaches to Recover from Shunning, Aggression, and Family Violence

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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 itself is the site of 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 the family's own standing within their community. Family Mobbing tactics can include slander, gossip, rejection, beatings, anti-Queer violence, and even honour killings, child marriages, and forced abortion. Author Stephanie Sellers--herself a survivor--explores the global 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 shamedFirsthand 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 genders who have been mobbed by their families. She remembers and honours 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 honouring, valuing, and respecting daughters.

Reviews

"Dr. Sellers brilliantly demonstrates the common source of forced child marriages, female infanticide, genital mutilation, breast ironing, bride burning, honor crimes, widow rejection, and LGBTQIA2S+ scapegoating abandonmentand names it 'Family Mobbing.' Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing offers strategies and resources for healing from family tyranny. Opening a new, badly needed conversation, this book promises to become a feminist classic."
Sally Roesch Wagner, PhD, founder of The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation and author of We Want Equal Rights

"Daughters Healing from Family Mobbing offers wisdom and truth to all who are determined to stop repeating the past and allowing abuse to consume humans by destroying families. This book gives men and women alike acceptance into a family that understands and helps to mend broken souls. I applaud Dr. Sellerss accomplishment of a monumental and much-needed, timely text."
MariJo Moore, poet, anthologist, medium, and author of Power of the Storm

Sellers alerts us to the cruelty of Family Mobbing and, importantly, tells us how
survivors can heal. An essential read for veteran therapists as well as those in training.
PAULINE BOSS, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota and author of The Myth of Closure

Author Bio

STEPHANIE A. SELLERS holds a Ph.D. in Native American Studies with a research focus on women's issues. She's a committed volunteer victim's advocate and professor at Gettysburg College. She's authored two books, Native American Autobiography Redefined- A Handbook and Native American Women's Studies Primer and is a founding member of a collegiate women's leadership committee for the American Association of University Women.