Can we talk about Camilla Batmanghedjh?

whiteribbon.org is owned by Erin Pizzey and hosted by 'A Voice for Men'. It has all sorts of made up obnoxious women-hating 'facts' on it, like 'the stereotype that we seem to all accept now of the helpless, innocent woman who is beaten on by a brutish, thuggish man and needs to run away represents perhaps only 4 or 5 percent of all domestic violence cases and that almost all other cases are more complicated than that.'

She says that 60 percent of the women who came to the Chiswick refuge were as violent as their partners or indeed were entirely responsible for the violence.

Her mother was abusive to her but that really doesn't excuse her spouting all this MRA crap.

I think I'm with SGB on this. I'm sure that KC does some good work. But they have been untouchable/beyond criticism for years. A charismatic leader who goes unchallenged can be quite dangerous

I agree with you that Erin did work which was absolutely needed and that, as you say, perhaps it came about because people like that are the way they are.

I agree, too, and also see some parallels between Pizzey and Batmanghelidjh. I knew Pizzey back then and, yes, found her irritating. She has, I feel, been judged retrospectively. All of the criticism levelled at her is based on psychological & social theories which simply didn't exist at the time she was blazing the trail. She's being judged for using 'incorrect' language, simplifying the answers to "why do they have them back?" and basing her understanding on her extensive observations - she was the only person making these observations, how could she adopt theories that hadn't even been developed yet? She's been rubbished for not having a time machine.

I think her reasons for "not being a feminist" are daft and, in effect, she has been a feminist all her life despite that.

As a vaguely relevant sidetrack, I once quit a well-respected women's charity for reasons I suspect CB would recognise. I raised a lot of money for a project I was personally involved with. At handover time, I was told the charity was changing its perspectives and the money would not be given to 'my' project but redistributed among different projects (some of which looked, to me, directly opposed to the charity's women-only focus.) I walked out and got on a plane to deliver the money myself. I am sure this was seen as irresponsible, selfish and what-have-you; you can reframe any series of actions any way you like. But I don't regret it - my lovely donors funded a new house for the project, which is still helping the most disadvantaged girls.

And the reason there is a national refuge movement is because a hell of a lot of feminists got on with setting them up, frequently unglamorously and in ramshackle houses. I was involved with our local one back in the day, when I was a young warthog.

yy motherinferior, that particular stance comes over loud and clear in her novels. I was about twelve when I first read one of them and thought it was bollocks even then.

No, it was a fictional homeless charity at the start of the "squatting movement" ()

Some clients were victims of DV but others were families, people with substance abuse problems etc

I agree with you that Erin did work which was absolutely needed and that, as you say, perhaps it came about because people like that are the way they are.

The book describes a very chaotic approach but the worst characters were the people at the top, the society patrons. They had a jolly fundraising ball where they all dressed in rags ffs!

Pizzey clashed horribly with the feminists of Women's Aid, suggesting that women colluded in their own abuse. By 1980 she'd really blotted her copybook.

The original refuges you mean? You certainly couldn't run them like that today. But at the time they were desperately needed.

I'm in two minds absolutely. On the one hand Erin Pizzey (and so on) are clearly self centred narcissists, which long term does not make for a successful organisation to help people in real terms. But on the other hand, perhaps causes like this DO need that kind of grandiose, self important personality to force them into the public consciousness. Would we have anything like the scale of refuges we have today had Pizzey not done what she did? Looking at the US for example - there are shelters, but there is no nationwide organisation and network to move women between them, there is no set code of practice, one shelter might be brilliant whereas another is problematic in how they operate.

• Erin Pizzey comparison.

SGB, the Erin Pizzey is spot on. I remember reading one of her novels set in the late seventies about a homeless charity and thinking you'd never be able to run a charity this way today!

I think I am minded to disbelieve the "KC are terrible" accounts as thoroughly as I disbelieve the "KC are beyond reproach" accounts.

Me, too - although I know nothing about any of it, and am just picking up on what's being said & not said. It just feels very much like someone falling off a pedestal: that's always unfair and, of course, nobody should be on any pedestal where the welfare of others is concerned.

It could turn out that CB and KC have all done an absolutely marvellous job - thing is, because it hasn't been monitored properly, we don't know.

Bearing in mind the new broom at the Charity Commission that I mentioned, I think I am minded to disbelieve the "KC are terrible" accounts as thoroughly as I disbelieve the "KC are beyond reproach" accounts. We need a bit of proper scrutiny from someone who doesn't have anything to prove either way, and who is open to non-standard approaches, before we will know what's really been going on.

Garlick: Yes. Yes it is. Perhaps the 'lessons to be learned' over this is that no charity should be allowed to 'just get on with it' because the charity's leader is well-connected and an ace self-publicist. It certainly sounds as though, for years, everyone was going 'Oh KC are marvellous' (as LU said) and if anyone did ask any questions they would be either fobbed off or condemned for heartlessness/malice/snobbery/NIMBYism.

Which agencies, Garlick?

If you are all right in saying KC was run chaotically, ineffectively and even harmfully, that's a harsh indictment on the agencies tasked with monitoring the welfare of deprived children, isn't it?

It feels as if someone had said "KC and CB do a marvellous job" got the answer "oh yes of course marvellous, er what is it they do?"

Good practice would suggest the following should be present:

1. Accurate identification of those who need the service (not done as 98% self referred)
2. Planning and delivering the intervention (food, new shoes, leccy bill whatever)
3. Monitoring and evaluating the impact (this could include if the money handed out was actually used as intended etc)

It seems like only 2 was done. Which is at best an inefficient use of funds.

Given what other people who work in the charity sector have been saying on this and the other thread, it sounds more as though CB made herself 'uncriticizable' for a good long time, despite running a chaotic and ineffective organisation. There seems to be no evidence that KC did much, if any good, but was able to make people believe it did by means of lovely soundbites (and the reluctance of the authorities to spend too much time looking at or dealing with these allegedly feral, disturbed kids anyway).

It's because vulnerable, troubled young people aren't necessarily poor little things grateful for any attention, and some of them may well lash out when distressed, that you need some sort of structures in place to stop them harming one another on the organisation's premises. There are certainly suggestions that this wasn't the case because, unconditional love and mystical healing and 'we're-the-maverick-outsiders' and 'Not-so-little-Johnny only threw a chair at another kid because he hasn't had enough hugs today'. Not much comfort to the smaller, equally troubled kid picking up his/her teeth.

Bear in mind there is a new (and rather conservative) broom at the top of the Charity Commission, which might be the reason for them reassessing it now after having taken no action before.

Harvey - if, as a poster on the other thread alleges, young women feel unsafe at KC, then that's a really big issue. Regardless of all the other allegations.

The Charities Commission had a complaint about KC a while ago but after an initial investigation, decided not to take it further. They are now carrying out an urgent inspection. www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/19991/commission_urgently_assessing_kids_companys_funding_position

I am using KC and CM interchangeably, it seems ...

Harvey, the assumption you are making is that KC is effective. I think that is what everyone assumed for a long time until this has come out in the news. This is all news to me.

Whilst cash, knives and fights don't surprise you, to me and I suspect a lot of others, KC doesn't sound like a particularly well managed organisation who has a grip on the situation. Bear in mind it is KC herself who has brought all this additional scrutiny onto herself by criticising the authorities.

Yes, I would be very interested in how KC compares with other provisions which help troubled children. Those answers are not coming from KC herself, just accusations and smoke and mirrors.

I too am all ears.

That would be interesting to know, Garlick.

Harvey there is first hand experience posts on the other thread. theres talk of money being wasted /given to kids ,fights ,teens with knifes not being told to leave scaring younger kids etc . so maybe leading to more feral/aggressive kids getting more not necessarily the most in need.

There has to be some sort of balance between "measure and bureaucratise it all to death, ignoring alternative approaches which may work better for some children" and "have no effective oversight over hundreds of thousands of pounds of donated money".

Have the relevant agencies been visiting KC centres regularly? Just hanging out, talking to people? If they have, where are their reports?