Showing posts with label Erin Pizzey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Erin Pizzey. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Michael Coren: Feminism revisited

My letter to the editor with respect to the column:

Editor - National Post

Mr. Coren's column was very accurate. I had read Erin Pizzey's family history article in the Mail Online last Wednesday, 23/9/09 and was profoundly touched by her childhood tribulations. She is an extraordinary woman whose career and strength is inspiring to both men and women

Mr. Coren's understanding of the systemic problems many men face is helpful and his commentary very accurate. The ecosystem that caters to female victimization has made eunuchs of many men, especially those of the political, legal and judicial classes.

One dad spent 47 days in jail for throwing a sock at his wife while she was berating him. He, while throwing this harmful item said metaphorically "put a sock in it." Now to test the lethality of your sock, take it off and throw it at something, even your computer screen, with normal velocity. (Do not throw it if you have been jogging in the rain for 10K it will get the item wet). She called the police and got away with verbal abuse but he was arrested for assault. Where did our judgment go with mandatory arrest policies?


This is just one of hundreds upon hundreds of stories, in many cases, based on false allegations, where husbands and dads are criminalized and vilified by the feminist mantra we are all abusers.

Remember Tom' Cruises' so called sci-fi movie "Minority Report" about stopping a crime that hasn't yet occurred. With men we are already convicted in certain quarters, especially those mentioned above, well before anything happens.

Its got to stop.

Mike Murphy











Posted: September 29, 2009, 1:00 PM by NP Editor




Growing up in Britain in the 1970s it was impossible not to be awareof Erin Pizzey. She was the iconic face of feminism, as she appeared ontelevision seemingly every other night to expose what she saw as theoppression of women. She also founded of one of the first domesticviolence shelters in the world. They were known as battered women’shomes in those days but the nomenclature, as well as the politics, haschanged over the years. So, it seems, has Erin Pizzey.

“I would go so far as to say,” she wrote last week, “that themovement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists andbatterers, was based on a lie that, if allowed to flourish, wouldresult in the complete destruction of family life ... Feminism, Irealized, was a lie. Women and men are both capable of extraordinarycruelty. Indeed, the only thing a child really needs — two biologicalparents under one roof — was being undermined by the very ideologywhich claimed to speak up for women’s rights.”

Pizzey seems to have arrived views which run delightfully,diametrically against the very core of contemporary feminism. And it’sdifficult to know which claim will cause the most offence to thewomen’s movement. The battle of assumptions — that all women are merelya step away from abuse — was actually won some time ago. As early asthe 1980s we were told that 50% of all women had been abused by theirmale partners at some point, and to question the statistic implied thatthe critic had something to hide.

The figures are largely inflated, heavily politicized and includewomen who during an argument with their husbands or lovers have beenshouted at. When, by the way, sociologists tried to research the ratesof lesbian abuse and indicated that they appeared to be extremely highthey were told that such work was redundant and the results far toosubjective to be reliable. What is beyond dispute is that women aresometimes abused, that they are seldom as physically strong as men andthat there was far greater acceptance of such base behaviour 40 yearsago than there is now.

It’s a crime. But one that is treated with a particular aggressionand activism by police, lawyers and judges. The mere claim of domesticviolence invariably leads to a man being removed from his home, oftenaway from his children. He is presumed guilty until he can proveotherwise, and if the incident occurs during a break-up or divorce it’sunlikely his spouse is going to suddenly admit that it was a mutualargument and that she called the police out of spite.

A very different scenario from that of a man who is, perhaps,repeatedly slapped, punched or emotionally abused by his wife. It’slikely that he will be too embarrassed to call for help and, even if hedoes, he will not be taken seriously. If the marriage ends he will belucky to see his children one day a week and perhaps every secondweekend. If, though, he misses his sometimes exorbitant supportpayments he will be called a deadbeat by allegedly responsiblepoliticians and probably treated like a career criminal.

The other aspect of Pizzey’s new analysis of feminism will probablycause even more outrage, even though it seems axiomatic and harmless:“two biological parents under one roof.” This is a philosophical warcrime for the new moralists. If we were force-fed the notion that womenwere perennial victims, we were given intravenous doses of the ideathat single-parent families were equal to the traditional variety. It’sjust not true. No child needs a bad father or dysfunctional parents butthis should not be — but frequently is — considered the conventionalnorm to which any alternative is compared.

The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption,between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home. Honestresearch constantly shows that we should aspire to both genders as rolemodels, male and female, to show different but equally valid forms oflove and care, the safety and certainty that there is a physical linkbetween parent and child and the stability, if at all possible, ofbeing raised in a permanent home with mum and dad rather than a daycare with someone else’s mum and dad.

Erin Pizzey has discovered a great deal over the years. Some wouldargue that her conclusions were always obvious, if only we were willingto look.
National Post

Michael Coren is a TV host and author. His website is www.michaelcoren.com.




by WhiteRabbit Sep 29 2009 1:31 PM
Many feminists would have it that men are responsible for almost all domestic abuse. Such a fiction is propagated at the expense of the children.
by Mel from Calgary
Sep 29 2009
2:09 PM
"The genuine choice is, with the exception of orthodox adoption, between two good natural parents and, yes, a broken home."
There are only so many "orthodox adoption" parents out there and with "natural parents" being human we need plan "B" for when this doesn't happen.
I love Michael Coren clumsy use of code words.
by Sassylassie
Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM
Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66
Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM
In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer
Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM
The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan
Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM
“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif
Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM
Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.

Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.

Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/09/29/330834.aspx#comments#ixzz0SW60aJ71



by Sassylassie
Sep 29 2009
2:25 PM
Feminism is no longer a relevant cause, the political left cling to their lies and propaganda for government grants and to achieve special status in Academia. Personally I believe it was never about gender equality but gender supremacy by assigning victim status to all women.
Harper drastically cut funding to the mother of all feminist groups SOW and then in the next budget he returned funding to it's orginal levels. Sickening really, millions going to women to do studies on stupid subjects that have no relevance for real women.
by Anonymous66
Sep 29 2009
2:49 PM
In my opinion, Ms. Pizzey should have been challenged a lot more harshly about forgetting that "exception of adoption".
by Dirt farmer
Sep 29 2009
2:54 PM
The left likes to keep the lies going in order to destroy the family and lay the ground work to create the new "Soviet" man. It should be more important for society to work on and fix the dysfunctional characteristics of both men and women.
by rossbcan
Sep 29 2009
3:01 PM
“that the movement, which proclaimed that all men are potential rapists and batterers, was based on a lie..."
Yes, but the lie is far more pervasive and deadly than this narrow issue.
Easily refuted:
We live in an action precedes consequence reality. Nothing is REAL until an action occurs, spawning a consequence according to the laws of physical reality. This means, that all allegations of fixed "nature" implying "potential to X" to an individual or group is sheer speculation and slander, at a minimum.
This particular lie is a product of a provoked gender war between men and women, initiated by the legal "profession", aided by their partners in crime, the equally corrupt psychiatric and social "science" "professions". They feed and prosper from divorce court conflict, a protection racket by threatening the survival of BOTH spouses. The children are caught in the crossfire, abused collateral damage. When the litigants are impoverished, the legal "profession" loses all interest.
This in turn is a particular aspect of the general methodology of WAR (used most recently against Iraq, Iran now in the target sights):
1) Demonize target group (enemy) using false allegations, speculation regarding "potentialities" equated to reality by fake "experts"
2) Watch public response. When "idea" takes hold that enemy is a threat, get real and initiate aggression, with public "tolerance". Alternatively, aggress in a more subtle manner, evoking a defensive response from the enemy, which is spun as the enemy "initiating aggression"
3) Duke it out. Economic interests profit by feeding BOTH sides of the conflict and prepare to profit by rebuilding.
4) Once force has prevailed and enemy is incapable of organized defense, prey by stealing resources and enslaving the people. Demonize any dissidents as terrorists.
5) Provoke new enemy, start again at (1)
Our far wiser ancestors once stopped this madness and placed us on the path to civilization with the "rule of law" which is:
Sanction those who initiate aggression (and compensate victims) and OBEY:
http://www.cli.gs/RuleOfLaw
How do I know this? Our corrupt divorce courts taught me. A fatal tactical error, to attack an enemy while ignorant of their capabilities. What you do not know WILL kill you.
by Rectificatif
Sep 29 2009
3:03 PM
Michael, this is an excellent and important article.
BUT: You should have referenced your quotes from Mrs Pizzey. Was this the source? www.celticsurf.net/.../pizzey.html
Stats now tell us that an entire generation of young men are being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in various ways. The fabric of society, men and women together, is undermined, as natural male roles and masculine postures are ridiculued and stigmatised. Example: Rona Hardware, which has run the most virulent anti-male TV advertising we've ever seen, over and over for the past 6 months. You know the one: the husband who builds a deck inside his living room to avoid talking to his wife.
Canadian men are eunuchs; if they weren't, they'd have closed down Rona inside a month by boycotting it. But no, anti-male theology is undisputed.
Mrs Pizzey helped found the true women's movement in the UK. I hope she can reclaim that movement and help it recover from the lesbian putsch.
by MikeMurphy
Sep 29 2009
5:10 PM
I am a researcher and activist dealing with the current flavour of 3rd wave feminism (call it Victim, Lifeboat, or Gender if you like, they are all the same). Mr. Coren has apparently seen the light and had an epiphany which I salute.

I will be launching a HRC against Deb Matthews, Chris Bentley, Premier McQuinty and the local DV shelter in the coming months based on gender discrimination as they offer no services for Battered men. This has changed in Australia, the UK and in California. Its time has come in Ontario and the rest of Canada.

My goal has been for several years to find an equivalent service for men that provides tax supported emergency and reasonable term housing, food, and counselling for an abused man and his children. There is none in Sault Ste. Marie today as I experienced in 2006 when I first called local agencies.

This is unfortunate as I could have used this counselling a very long time ago. Had it been available perhaps it could have saved my marriage and my children a great deal of grief. I will re-commence the completion of my Human Rights Complaint once the decision on my custody battle with the ex is known.

Keep in mind an equal or greater proportion of DV related to sexual assault, robbery, bodily harm, discharging a firearm with intent, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, criminal harassment, and uttering threats, occurs after separation/divorce, not during the marriage. Eight (8)% of major assault and 40% of common assault also occurs after separation. (Stats Canada, 2008 report on Family Violence in Canada).

But look at this chart from a Stats Can Social Survey in 2005 looking at the trends to 2004. (Go here to see chart - parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html) It clearly shows the rates of spousal violence after separation, shown in blue, are higher by a wide margin.

The social surveys draw information from a much broader sample than police reports and so I would conclude these DV shelters may well be part of a bigger problem that causes a greater degree of conflict after separation. This is not rocket science and it will not be one source but can I point you in a direction. DV shelters, family court judges ( a 9-1 ratio in awarding physical custody to moms), marginalizing men and using them as revenue spigots. An ecosystem designed to feed the female appetite for victimization.

Feminists or their sympathizers working in agencies like the CAS who don't solve problems and purport to know the right "maternal" way to do things, feminist sympathizers at other agencies who receive tax dollars for supervised access and who ostensibly deal with the mental health of children but would rather spend money on lawyers to try and intimidate dads who seek information on their children.

Did I mention many lawyers who say they only have the best interest of children in mind but as soon as your money runs out they are gone. The best interest of the Lawyer and the revenue lining their pockets is all that matters to most of them. Did I also mention that 75% of divorces in Canada are initiated by women! Do you start to get a better image of the deck and how it is stacked.

Also in the report and in my letter to Matthews is the 2006 table 4.1, page 43, from the same Stats Can 2008 report on the most recent spousal homicide numbers for 2006.
Male deaths 22 up from 12 in 2005, 56 Female deaths down 6 from 2005 and the rate per million spouses of 2.6 for men and 6.3 for women.

Turn those numbers around because they are based on 1,000,000 spouses, and as Dr. Don Dutton, PhD, UBC points out, you get 999,997.4 women do not kill their partners and 999,993.7 men do not kill their female partners. Does this warrant $208,000,000.00 for women's issues and not a cent for men.

It is pretty clear what the value of the gender of men is to the Liberal Government of Ontario and they will not even fund prostate cancer tests for men unless he already has symptoms. Women, on the other hand, can get all kinds of tests done free of charge including breast xrays. The patriarchy and feminists in government obviously like "boobs."

As these data include common law spouses where a greater degree of DV and homicide occur. All data available clearly point to the safest place for men, women and children is in a marriage. Yet these shelters are doing exactly the opposite and counselling women to "empower" themselves into single motherhood with all its attendant negative social outcomes, especially for children.

A new paradigm for DV is needed that involves all parties who are affected by it in the family.
Matthews recently decided to maintain the current gender paradigm (ie men are abusers and women victims) and she did this by having some feminist ideologues at the University of Ontario Institutue of Technology write a report confirming this should be government policy. I have asked if this contract was soul sourced in order to determine if the terms of reference were stacked to get the result Matthews want before the report was written. You can read my letter to the Matthews here if you so choose and a tiny part of my research parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/.../deb-matthews-feminist-minister-for.html
I am told it has the bureaucrats in a tizzy with lots of electronic messaging going on within the "Sisterhood" including the above mentioned academics at UOIT. Many of these self same bureaucrats are "Sisterhood" ideologues as well.
by Denis Pakkala
Sep 29 2009
5:17 PM
Thank You Michael Coren for speaking the truth, rather than the politically correct feminist mythology that has slowly destroyed families and eroded the rights of men to being second class citizens.

The left and the right are scared of feminist backlash and have quietly played along with the feminist agenda of blaming men and helping women.
Excellent comments above. Canadian men are eunuchs, especially politicians.
by Rectificatif
Sep 29 2009
5:27 PM
Mike Murphy, God bless you.
by teatime25
Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM
Take Back the Night marches are a bunch of phoney-victim-BS too. Interesting note about lesbian abuse Mr. Coren. Of course the feminazi's protect their own and don't want those statistics to be known.

Bigger question: where are all the so-called feminists while women in Islamic countries suffer daily under the oppression of sharia law? That is true subjugation, not the loser-mentality they teach at women's studies courses at universities.
by Rhino Party Whip
Sep 29 2009
5:32 PM
Go Mike Murphy!

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Feminists Deny Truth on Domestic Violence

FOXNews.com


Tuesday , May 30, 2006

By Wendy McElroy

In the last three decades, feminism has revolutionized daily life from the legal system and social mores down to the story books children use in kindergarten. Feminist discussion seems to be 'always' and 'everywhere'.

But I believe the contrary is true. Genuine discussion of feminist issues ended in the 1970s when one school came to dominate and moved to silence competing views both within the movement and outside.

Politically correct feminists maintain that women as a class are politically oppressed by men as a class, which means that every woman is oppressed by every man. Class oppression is the ideological lens through which PC feminism views all issues.

Tammy Bruce's book "The New Thought Police" (2001) received media buzz as a former insider's expose of how PC feminists smear their intellectual opponents in an attempt to silence and discredit them. For example, Bruce described how PC feminists led a campaign of defamation against the conservative Dr. Laura Schlessinger by misrepresenting her as homophobic.

Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was quoted as saying, "If she can't be controlled, she must be stopped."

The PC treatment of heretics within feminism has been no less brutal. Indeed, heretics are commonly reviled more than infidels.

Consider Erin Pizzey.

In 1971, Pizzey opened the first battered wives shelter in England, which she ran until 1982. Arguably, the Chiswick Family Rescue was the second domestic violence shelter in the world. Pizzey's book "Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear" (1974, out of print) was one of the first to explore and expose wife battering.

Today, the shelter Pizzey founded denies her entry; her name does not appear in its official history.

Pizzey's 'mistake' was to diverge from the theory of domestic violence that feminists at the time insisted dominate all discussion. She believed that men could also be the victims of domestic violence, and that women could be as violent toward their partners as men.

Pizzey's views put her on a collision course with PC feminists who, according to Pizzey's own published account of events, initiated a campaign of harassment and violence against her.

Pizzey described this harassment in an article she published in the Scotsman in 1999.

"Because of my opposition to the hijacking of the refuge movement, I was a target for abuse. Anywhere I spoke there was a contingent of screaming, heckling feminists waiting for me," Pizzey wrote. "Abusive telephone calls to my home, death threats and bomb scares, became a way of living for me and for my family. Finally, the bomb squad, asked me to have all my mail delivered to their head quarters."

One night, the family dog was killed.

Eventually, "exhausted and disillusioned," Pizzey said she went into "exile with her children and grandchildren," leaving England in 1982 to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Pizzey returned to England that same year for the book tour of her next book, "Prone to Violence," which once again ignited a violent reaction among feminists. Pizzey wrote that when she arrived in England for her book tour, she was "met with a solid wall of feminist demonstrators" carrying signs that read "ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS, ALL MEN ARE BATTERERS."

"The police insisted that I have an escort all round England for my book tour," Pizzey wrote in the Scotsman.

There is some reason to believe that "Prone to Violence" has been the target of a campaign of suppression by PC feminists. According to the web site Wikepedia, in 1996 an internet search of the world libraries that can be accessed through the Library of Congress uncovered only 13 listings for the book: an astonishingly low number for a pioneering work that caused a sensation.

Why would PC feminists nearly riot over a book and, then, ignore it?

Because Pizzey advanced a competing theory of domestic violence.

When viewed through the PC lens of class oppression, domestic violence is not an act of violence committed by one individual against another. It is an act committed by men that must be correctly understood within the larger context of women's class oppression.

"Prone to Violence" spelled out some of Pizzey's disagreements with that view.

Disagreement #1: Of the first 100 women who entered Chiswick, Pizzey found that over 60 percent were as violent or more violent than the men they were fleeing. In short, a significant percentage of the women were also batterers or otherwise active participants in the violence.

Disagreement #2: Pizzey developed the theory that many battered women were psychologically drawn to abusive relationships and they sought them out. To PC feminists, such analysis was tantamount to 'blaming the victim.'

Disagreement #3: She explained why the existing model of domestic violence shelters was ineffective. PC feminists were attempting then (and now) to secure ever greater financing for these operations. Sandra Horley, director of Chiswick in 1992, reportedly complained, "if we put across this idea that the abuse of men is as great as the abuse of women, then it could seriously affect our funding."

Pizzey may or may not have been correct; I believe she was and is.

Neverthless, her book drew upon over 10 years at the Chiswick shelter during which time Pizzey dealt with some 5,000 women and children.

"Prone to Violence" is an extremely early and honest overview of domestic violence from a woman with extensive experience of its daily realities. The book cried out to be taken seriously. At minimum, it deserved a thorough rebuttal from its PC feminist critics--not death threats directed at its author nor the ultimate silence it received.

Pizzey is not alone. In America, Suzanne Steinmetz -- author of the book "The Battered Husband" and a co-author of the much-cited "First National Family Violence Survey" -- experienced a similar drama. She and her children received death threats; an ACLU meeting at which she spoke received a bomb threat.

The reason: her research indicated that the rate at which men were victimized by domestic violence was similar to the rate for women.

In large and small ways -- from shrill protests to the tearing down of announcements, from blocking university promotions to threats and defamation -- PC feminism has attempted to stop voices it could not control.

Feminism is dying not from a backlash but from an orthodoxy that cannot tolerate real discussion...and never could.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

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