Accountability FAQs
These are just some of the frequently asked questions when it comes to accountability. Many of these questions arose in the context of larger trainings, workshops and discussions about accountability and as such are built upon a basic foundation that accountability is taking responsibility for our choices and the consequences of those choices. The foundation for accountability in communities and relationships is self-accountability, that is first doing our own work to be in alignment with our own values and actions on a day to day basis and if/when we are out of alignment figuring out what happened, what was going on for us and what we are going to do about it. The responses below are meant to be a jumping off point not the last word.
Question 1: How can I hold someone else accountable?
For better or worse, you cannot hold other people accountable. The foundation for accountability in relationships is self-accountability. This means focusing on being responsible to ourselves and to the people in our lives for our choices and the consequences of those choices. We can’t control the choices that others make, and we can’t force anyone to be responsible in the exact way we think they should. Ultimately, we focus on being responsible for our own behaviors and choices because that’s what’s most readily in our control.
Question 2: Does accountability apply to abusive relationships?
Agency is essential in maintaining equity in relationships. Accountability requires agency. Agency is our sense of ourselves as people who can act powerfully and make choices about our own lives. Abuse, violence and exploitation erode agency. Domestic violence attempts to turn a person—who can act powerfully on their own behalf—into a thing—someone who is acted upon. Accountability relies on people who are able to be responsible for their choices and the consequences of those choices. Violence, abuse and exploitation limits survivors’ ability to do this and undermines everyone’s ability to do the work of accountability. The work of accountability requires that all parties are working to be accountable to their own values. Each person’s agency is essential in creating this process.
Question 3: Doesn’t self-accountability conflict with the notion of intent vs effect? I’ve learned that intent does not matter as much as the effect on others. Your approach seems to get you off the hook with yourself if you didn’t intend the harm and had no idea you were causing it.
The definition of accountability is taking responsibility for our actions and the consequences of those actions(emphasis added). Self-accountability isn’t about getting off the hook. It’s about getting to know yourself and your patterns. It’s about getting grounded in your values. This foundation is the building block of accountability with others. Self-accountability can work in helping us to get more grounded and clear so that we can deal with the impacts of our behaviors.
People can struggle in seeing the impact of their behaviors often because they believe themselves to be good people and they “understand” why they did what they did. Self-accountability asks us to go beyond the question of whether or not we are good or bad people and to look at:
What happened (what was the action and impact),
what was going on for me (context and getting clear) and
what am I going to do about it (action).
Self-accountability is about reflection and action. The action is centered on getting clear about our own behaviors and “getting right” when we’ve acted outside of values. This is the skill building for scaling up and doing the work of accountability with each other and in our movements.
Self-accountability is the starting point, not the end point. We have to start where we are. So much of our accountability work with each other goes off the rails because we haven’t practiced this fundamental skill. This process of getting clear can help us to slow down and look at the impact of our actions and where and when our effect does not align with our intent.
The harm we do to each other and the work of accountability for that harm are fundamentally intertwined with structural oppression. We can’t opt out of structural oppression and it’s always at play in our relationships. The question is, how is oppression showing up here, not if it is at play. For people and communities who are being crushed by this oppression figuring out how to be in relationship with the impacts of structural oppression within our own groups and communities is one of the preverbal walls we continue to hit our heads against.
People tend to falsely equate experiences of marginalization/structural oppression with interpersonal power. You can experience structural oppression, be a person of color, be queer, be trans, have a disability (and so on) but none of these experiences prevent us from doing harm to the people around us. Self-accountability asks us to understand the harm caused to marginalized communities through structural oppression and the harm we do to each other within our own communities. There is no identity that prevents us from causing harm.
Question 4: Any recommendations for helping someone recognize the harm they’ve caused when they themselves have experienced massive amounts of trauma throughout their lives?
This is one of the hardest questions when it comes to the work of accountability. We can’t make others be accountable but we can help create the conditions for them to do their own accountability work. This is community work, society work, work we need movements to help us practice and sustain. It’s often too much for just one or two people to try and overcome the massive number of barriers to creating these conditions. The short version is to get help and to be gentle with yourself.
In my personal experience I’ve had limited success in trying to convince loved ones to act differently when they are deep in their trauma responses. When I have made reasonable efforts that do not seem to be producing any change the most loving thing to do, for myself and the other person, is to get grounded and focus on what is in my control. Whether or not someone else does their own trauma work is not in my control. What is in my control are my own boundaries, actions and behaviors. If someone is acting in a harmful and destructive way sometimes the most loving thing to do is to let them experience the consequence of their own behaviors. I say this truly knowing how hard it is to love someone, see them struggling and not be able to change the conditions of their struggling.
Question 5: I love this language of "Come collect me." Can you say more about that?
Sometimes when we’re broken open it literally feels like we’re spilling over (I sometimes use the phrase “spewing trauma”) and having people who can “collect us,” who can help us get grounded and reoriented, is essential. We are designed to see ourselves as the protagonist in our own stories and as such we tend to understand our actions as “justified” and “right.” It’s hard to see our own stuff, we’re so close to it. Having support from loved ones who will let us know when we are acting outside our values is an important part of the accountability puzzle. I do this by having explicit conversations with loved ones about how and why I want them to support me in my commitment to self-accountability. For me this is 2-3 people (my mom, my partner, several close friends) who can reflect back to me when I’m acting bad. These are people I trust, have practiced conflict with and with whom I have a solid foundation.
I have never once enjoyed receiving this feedback. My first reaction is always “But…” It’s scary to both give and receive these reflections. Through practice, I’ve gotten more familiar with what it feels like to receive this feedback and how to humbly receive it and use it for reflection and action. At first this was in hindsight, a loved one would tell me something they were worried about and I would dismiss it only to realize months later that the feedback they were offering was exactly on point. Through this practice I’ve gotten better (but not perfect!) at recognizing this invitation into reflection and accountability.
Question 6: So are you saying it’s my fault if I was abused? As a survivor of abuse, I don’t understand how to apply accountability to my relationship.
Domestic violence is a pattern of power and control that attempts to turn a person who can act powerfully on their own behalf into someone who is acted upon. In the mainstream domestic violence movement, survivors are often framed as people who do whatever they have to do to survive. In response to the constant victim blaming by abusive partners and society at large, many advocates have told survivors, “Anything you had to do to survive is justifiable.” This message has been inconsistent with what many survivors feel about what they’ve done to resist patterns of power and control. Many survivors find a sense of relief and healing in being able to talk about and take responsibility for things they did in the process of resisting abuse that they may not feel good about. This is one of the many reasons we focus primarily on self-accountability, a process you can do with yourself and for yourself. In self-accountability, you can be responsible for your past behaviors by thinking about what you did, why you did it, and what you need in order to act more in accord with your values now and in the future.
For survivors of domestic violence, engaging in a process of self-accountability increases in direct relationship to our ability to access safety, support and agency. This process can be a powerful healing tool. Figuring out how accountability and domestic violence connect is confusing in many ways. One dynamic many survivors have experienced is a process of gaslighting in which abusers distort basic facts and information in their relationship. Many people who are abusive use a false premise of accountability to further perpetuate a pattern of power and control. When survivors attempt to live up to their abusers’ false concepts of accountability, the misinformation, manipulation and gaslighting behavior can be overwhelming. In this context, understanding what it means to be responsible for their choices and the consequences of their choices is extremely difficult. That is one of the many reasons we engage in accountability as a process and not an outcome and support people in fostering a feeling of grace and compassion for themselves and others.
Question 7: I feel more confused than when we started. What do I do now?
This accountability discussion is intended to be a jumping off point. Accountability is a hefty and often overwhelming subject. This is life long work. We encourage a spirit of engagement and invite everyone to explore the places where they still have questions. This conversation reflects the best thinking we have to date about accountability, and there is still much space to learn and grow. These skills, especially self-accountability, are a basic toolkit meant to expand and grow as your learning and exploration does. Talk to others interested in exploring these ideas, and always feel free to ask more questions.
