Erin Pizzey and the founding of dv shelters in the UK

Erin Pizzey is someone who was battered by her mother. I can understand her feelings to an extent. My own mother was sometimes violent, always emotionally abusive and a frightening woman. However, my mum was a product of her own lack of autonomy. She had no say in anything that happened in her life, and coped in her own way with the shit life threw at her

But your mother, as an adult, had every say in how she personally treated you as a child. It's bullying isn't it? It might, just, be understandable that she would pick on someone smaller, but it's not excusable.

I am pretty sure (in my gut, I have no research) that the frustrations of women with no control over the lives and no legal recourse are a major factor in female violence

And again, everyone has a choice not to be violent.

That would be my conclusion but I know a few women who felt the abuse from their mothers to be a greater betrayal than that of their fathers That was my comment, lnebriati was quoting me

And If you (general you) are going to put mothers and motherhood up on a pedestal, which a current thread is doing, the counter to that is abuse by a mother is worse. was the point both of us were making (if I have understood that correctly)

You do seem to have misunderstood.

Shall we start again? Find common ground?

I know that is what we are doing right here and right now.

I spend a few hours per week looking at funding implications of gender ideology. The practicality of keeping funding coming in. It is making a very real negtaive impact for many female service organisations

That leads to my being 'in the loop' with many meetings and debates of an organisation I don't work directly for, understanding what drives them and their decisions. And it has become much more pragmatic. They need cash, support right now. It is up to others to fight the politics of it.

Evidence based feminism feels like the work I am involved in.

Shit, I am tapping 60. Could I not just carry on shouting Women Won't Wheesht?

I remember her well. It was just Chiswick Women's Aid at first. Nobody took domestic violence too seriously before Erin Pizzey. Her husband was Jack Pizzey the TV journalist. But she later married an American guy. Did she end up living over there ?

That would be my conclusion but I know a few women who felt the abuse from their mothers to be a greater betrayal than that of their fathers

If you (general you) are going to put mothers and motherhood up on a pedestal, which a current thread is doing, the counter to that is abuse by a mother is worse.

I think that Erin Pizzey's argument back then, whatever she may believe or do today, is one example of a valid criticism of how radical feminism approaches domestic violence. And if you look closely at the mess we're in today, it's inescapable that radical feminism has contributed to getting us here.

It was in many ways a blunt instrument, many of its ideas unsuited to being implemented, but vital in highlighting serious issues women were facing. It was black and white in its approach to a number of issues, including domestic violence, while Erin Pizzey was looking at the many shades of grey inbetween.

Right now, I think we cannot afford to go all radfem, we have to be much more nuanced and careful. For whatever reason, second wavers didn't spend much time on NAMALT and yet we do. In my view they used class-based analysis in a different way from us - we use it for a particular purpose (in safeguarding or to address the effects of historic discrimination), and from my reading second wave feminists applied the technique in a much more general way.

I do wonder if we're going to end up with a more pragmatic, less dogmatic feminism because otherwise we cannot effectively address the doctrine of gender identity and its political implications for the rights of women and girls. We have to focus on the practical consequences of the doctrine, and we need evidence to counter a lot of the claims coming from the other side. It's not enough for us to simply assert something, we need to be able to show it's true. I don't believe that that is a bad thing for feminism as a whole.

Yes. I know I had to work through it and for quite a while had to work hard to see my mother's behaviour for what it really was/is.

There may have been a decade or so when I too would have thought that women can be just as abusive as men. Not giving the wider context a second thought. It takes a while to think passed the personal. Some people never quite manage it, in my experience.

Right now I'm less concerned about what Pizzey may or may not have said or thought as I am with the way her contribution to the movement appears to have been brushed under the carpet. If that's what happened then it stinks.

I'll read 'Difficult Women' - thanks.

I know a few women who felt the abuse from their mothers to be a greater betrayal than that of their fathers.

Thats a common reaction, isnt it? I think we expect higher standards of behaviour and solidarity from other women, especially when it comes to motherhood vs fatherhood.

Was I "flaming"? I disagreed with Thelnebriati? That's "flaming"

My apologies. Your curt sentence, a rather abrupt dismissal, did feel less discursive than it might have been.

You misunderstood my post. Please just stop it and let the discussion move forwards.

I really recommend Difficult Women, as per previous posters.

Don't get me started oon Buffy or the Stephanie Meyers stuff, Catniss Everboodydean etc that came out of it. Strong women? Only if viewed that way through the male gaze!

I would have thought Pizzey's proximity to many abused and abusive women over the years would have led her to a less simplistic conclusion that women are just as abusive as men

That would be my conclusion but I know a few women who felt the abuse from their mothers to be a greater betrayal than that of their fathers. Maybe it is seated in there, somewhere. It is something that needs to be discussed. How else to find a way to 'fix' it?

Erin Pizzey is someone who was battered by her mother. I can understand her feelings to an extent. My own mother was sometimes violent, always emotionally abusive and a frightening woman. However, my mum was a product of her own lack of autonomy. She had no say in anything that happened in her life, and coped in her own way with the shit life threw at her. My father got away with being the better parent (best of a bad lot) simply by dint of his relative autonomy. I used to think my mother was evil. Now I think she was just a very sad, sad woman whose life and great potential (she was very clever, very creative) was lost to her. I would have thought Pizzey's proximity to many abused and abusive women over the years would have led her to a less simplistic conclusion that women are just as abusive as men. There's a legal and societal framework that contributes towards human behaviour, and I am pretty sure (in my gut, I have no research) that the frustrations of women with no control over the lives and no legal recourse are a major factor in female violence.

I understood the controversy as that Erin Pizzey said DV victims fell into two camps.

The first camp consisted of victims who had been badly abused, came to the refuge, used the time to get things sorted, and then never went back to their abusive partners.

The second, however, were the victims who perpetuated the cycle and were locked in co-dependency dance of violence with their partners. It was a way of being for them, almost a culture.

These victims were as verbally, physically and psychologically aggressive as their partners, but as their partners were often male with greater physical strength, when the domestic situation became very inflamed, these victims suffered a greater level of physical harm.

When Pizzey set up her shelters, she expected victims to be of the first camp. She expected to be providing a way for victims to escape their abusers and begin new lives. She did not reckon on, or possibly even conceived of, the second camp. I suspect her lack of knowledge of the intricacies within English working class strata did not help.

Now, I understood what she was talking about, because I grew up in a former industrial town and everyone knew those kinds of "camp two" families. My grandmother would refer to the wives in them as "mill-molls", which was a kind of shorthand for very aggressive women who were vicious to everyone not in their circle and who were known for "playing hell". She would talk about taking steps to avoid their mothers when she was working on the factory floor back in the late '30s, so this gives you an idea of how long this phenomenon has existed.

Now I look at those families and see them as the consequence of the brutalisation of a certain strata of the English working class by industrialisation and slum poverty, but when I was young, they were the families where you steered clear of their kids because they were so aggressive and you didn't want to set them off.

But, you see, because so much of the world of liberalism and feminism takes a middle class consciousness as a base, it's very difficult to talk about this kind of thing and what it means for policy and social problems. The middle class left just come over all indignant and start muttering about how shameful it is to split people into the "deserving and undeserving poor", like any of them have the faintest clue about that world.

And I know, by writing this, I'm probably going to piss someone on this board off. So I am going to write this disclaimer, even though I shouldn't need to: "I believe with my whole heart that no-one should ever be abused physically, emotionally, financially, or psychologically."

The issue is the refusal to consider what generated violence.

And there are multiple reasons for that and any other aspect of this.

It is possible to focus on different parts of such a complex iue. You have focussed on one and are taking umbrage because someone else has focussed on a different aspect. Both of you have a point, neither is wrong. Just differently focussed.

As @ArabellaScott said, stop 'flaming' and allow the discussion to be had!

I don't think anything needed to change to ask women to stop hitting their children or taking the violence inflicted on them out on their children.

I don't think that's what @Thelnebriati meant. You are conflating 2 issues. Which I think is, in part, what some of the article, and Erin Pizzey, struggles with too!

No flaming here.

I think she raises some very interesting points that need not to be brushed under a carpet - indeed it would be dangerous to do so.

As with many who campaign she isn't trying to be 'reasonable' or globally encompassing. She never was!

School leaving age was raised to 15 in 1944.

I have great respect for Ms Pizzey. The article was fabulous. It raised some points about violence that no one dares say out loud. To understand DV, it's necessary to take a wide look at all of the factors and not always just see woman as helpless victims.

That last sentence will get me flamed, I know. But it needs to be said.

Baby P is a good example of what I mean.

And children who grow up in households where domestic violence is a common occurrence will see it as normal.