At A Voice for Men’s conference yesterday, antifeminist crusader Erin Pizzey was given “a special award for her tireless work with ALL the victims of domestic violence.” Due to the amazing public relations work of AVFM’s spokeswoman for the conference, I don’t know what the award was called, so let’s just assume it was the World’s Greatest Erin Pizzey Award.
Whatever the award was called, the notion that Pizzey works, tirelessly or otherwise, on behalf of “ALL the victims of domestic violence” is demonstrably false. Indeed, she has argued vociferously against extending DV protection to all victims.
In an op-ed she wrote for The Daily Mail in 2011, Pizzey declared herself “horrified” that the British government would consider extending domestic violence protection to those subjected to “emotional bullying and ‘coercive control’” as well as actual physical abuse.
Her “argument” may be triggering for abuse survivors, so I’m putting all of her quotes below the jump.
Pizzey wrote:
In other words, if you stop your wife using the phone, you could be bracketed with a man who has knocked his wife’s teeth out in a rage.
In the future, couples who row, smashing precious belongings in a fit of anger perhaps, could seek to have their other half charged under domestic violence laws. Thus, too, wives who, for whatever reason, destroy their husband’s fine wine collection, or cut the sleeve off his suits in an act of revenge for some betrayal or slight, may find themselves charged with this most serious of crimes.
Domineering, bullying husbands who shout at their wives but never lift a finger to hurt them would find themselves in court.
Let me tell you: this is not domestic violence. It is an absurd idea to define such acts in that way, and worse, it serves to trivialise genuine cases of domestic abuse.
The new definition, which the government did indeed put in place in 2013, extended domestic violence and abuse to include
Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality.
The government spelled out clearly what they meant by “controlling” and “coercive” behavior.
Controlling behaviour is: a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour.
Coercive behaviour is: an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.”*
*This definition includes so called ‘honour’ based violence, female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage, and is clear that victims are not confined to one gender or ethnic group.
There is no question, at least not to anyone who is serious about ending domestic violence and abuse, that “controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour” is abuse.
Why shouldn’t “domineering, bullying husbands who shout at their wives” in an attempt to control and coerce them be prosecuted for abuse? Why shouldn’t wives who do the same be prosecuted?
Pizzey not only argued against prosecuting those who bully their partners into submission through emotional, psychological, sexual or financial abuse. She also argued that most victims of domestic violence aren’t really legitimate victims either:
To me, the definition of domestic violence is quite clear: if you are not in fear of your life, you are not suffering it.
That’s right, the woman AVFM just honored as an advocate for “ALL victims of domestic violence” only considers actual physical violence to be domestic violence if the victim is literally afraid that they will be killed.
She continues:
In all other cases, where the aggression takes only an emotional form, or a few coffee cups have been chucked around, women in modern Britain thankfully have the option of finding a lawyer and choosing to separate from their husbands if they wish to do so.
The obvious point is that there is almost always clear evidence in domestic violence cases — bruises, cuts, internal organ damage or scars. Unless you have seen real, shocking abuse as I have, it is difficult to imagine some of the awful violence that people can inflict on each other in the home. And that’s why I’m convinced that bringing other, lesser, wrongs under this same legal umbrella does a great disservice to the women who really suffer.
How does protecting all victims of abuse do a disservice to those suffering the worst abuse? The police arrest people who assault as well as people who murder; this is hardly a “great disservice” to victims of murder.
Pizzey warns that the expanded definition “will turn millions of us into criminals.” She then makes a startling confession:
[A]fter all, I’ve been known in my time to lob the odd glass of wine in the heat of the moment. Indeed, there is something frightfully satisfying about chucking wine at somebody.
Yep. The woman who is A Voice for Men’s guru on domestic violence likes to chuck wine glasses at people. And apparently thinks this is a perfectly fine way to handle domestic disputes.
At this rate, we’ll all end up under arrest, and that is not a situation that’s going to help the police tackle the cases of true physical violence which must be stamped out.
Needless to say, the new definition, in place since April of last year, has not led to mass arrests of everyone in the U.K. If the new definition has put some wine-glass chuckers in jail, I can’t say I think this is a great injustice.
Pizzey declares that
People behave badly in relationships because we have human frailties. This is not an area in which the State should meddle; leave it to relationship counsellors and divorce lawyers.
Why shouldn’t the state “meddle” in cases of domestic abuse? The law doesn’t end at your door.
Pizzey winds up her op-ed by accusing those working against domestic violence – presumably she excludes herself – of being in it for money and power.
Over the past ten years, domestic violence has become a huge feminist industry. …
This is girls-only empire building, and it is highly lucrative at that. Men are not allowed to be employed at these organisations. Boys over the age of 12 are not allowed into safe houses where their mothers are staying, which I think is scandalous. …
Who benefits from this industry? Refuge has an annual income of more than £10 million from both public and private donations. Cherie Booth is a patron. The heads of these organisations are on very generous salaries.
And they are on a feminist mission to demonise men — even those who never have and never will hit a woman.
It’s appalling that this woman has gotten any kind of award.
I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would come to a misogyny mockery site to find info on Irish legal procedures regarding emotional abuse.
@Argenti – a heaping helping of thanks for going out of your way to find something!
Because reading law books is hard?
I understand law librarians and sarcastic anti-misogynists are essentially the exact same.
Alternative explanation: Mysterious Russian Soul.
I really hope that the noodle-troll did not choose his screen-name as a physical description, because it’s left me with some truly awful mental images.
Argenti: Fist bumps to my psych-sister! (Or brother, or whichever gender you prefer. It gets hard to remember who identifies how sometimes, with nothing but kitty pics to go by…)
@puddleglum: I can work out the Irish system myself thru personal connections but I was asking about international systems here. I had a suspicion which, after some pages of suspicion about my motives, was unfortunately directly confirmed.
@amused: thanks a lot! This was *exactly* the stuff I was looking for. Unfortunately your observations confirm my initial suspicion that it’s all too easy to interpret psychological abuse subjectively and too much depends on the individual judge. This is exactly the problem I was worried about. I believe that clear definitions are needed so that less room remains for biased judges/enforcers.
Some laws do have, or attempt to have, such definitions, others don’t. For example, NZ (linked here) has the strange wording “threat of … psychological abuse” which seems pretty meaningless, as one already perpetrates psychological abuse by threatening it.
The problem of incomplete definitions seems typical if a legislative trend is comparatively recent. For example, in another debate I found that some radfems love to pick holes in definitions of “gender identity” (the California one does not seem to have the holes).
@Winter Walker: you know the funniest part? It’s my real last name. Yup. And yes I know it sounds like that to some English speakers (not that I give a certain act about it).
There’s a Pierre comic in there somewhere.
I still think the noodle-penis version is likely accurate. And I couldn’t give a flying sex act about what you think.
Now, you see, if you’d admitted that was your motive earlier we might actually have been able to have a discussion. Instead you tried to bury your true goal (and biases – we can still see them in this more honest statement, btw) in a bunch of obsfucating word vomit, thus ensuring that the discussion you wanted would never happen. Not too smart, are you?
However, since we’ve now openly established that a. you think nagging is emotional abuse and b. you also think that “lashing out”, ie. physical abuse, is a result of the nagging and therefore not really the poor dude who just punched his wife in the face’s fault, I personally don’t feel all that inclined to humor you any further. The fact that this was the perspective you were coming from was clear to me at least quite a while back (and I bet I’m not the only one), and I think we’ve already had enough rounds of “but she made him hit her” on this blog.
– I do not think nagging alone is emotional abuse, but it can be a part of an emotionally abusive pattern when it concentrates on the person as opposed to specific valid concerns. This is consistent with all definitions that I have seen, except definitions that openly claim abuse is only ever man-on-woman.
– Emotional abuse can contribute to a physical response but does *not* absolve one from responsibility. And, in fact, I was not even thinking of any physical actions until someone else raised the matter. Physical attack is not the typical response, as many men are taught not to hit a woman; it is not the big reason emotional abuse is harmful anyway. I basically was just not very interested in that particular direction, because I don’t see physical violence as an acceptable response to pretty much anything that is not physical (among adults, at least).
What I am really interested in is the kind of change of expected actions, ultimately a cultural change, that correctly crafted legislation and procedures could bring – whether it’s use of recording equipment or anything else. And also the kind of subjective judgement that unclear legal formulas encourage (that part was actually confirmed).
Too late, buddy, the game is up.
(Also, the obsession with recording equipment is odd. Maybe that can be part of his troll challenge.)
The “obsession with recording equipment” is caused by the fact that the objective side of narrowly-defined emotional abuse (that is, when physical violence or threat of such is completely excluded) is solely in words. Therefore I just see no other way of capturing the act itself.
References to doctors/counsellors still do not capture the act, they analyze the consequences. A court order has to deal with the act itself (especially when it is not about moving out/limitation of contact).
I’m just going to highlight this again. This is what he’s been going for all along. This model of domestic violence is incredibly harmful, especially when it’s framed as being the pattern for cases where a woman is saying hurtful things to a man and the man is then beating the shit out of her.
I’ve noticed a few of our trolls here seem to be obsessed with recording devices. For some reason, they seem to be against the idea of eyewitness testimony in cases of abuse or sexual assault.
Well, Sir, Bodsworth, obviously any eyewitnesses testifying about emotional abuse in court must automatically be part of the Misandry Conspiracy.
Obviously.
Side note: It always cracks me up when my spellcheck program fails to recognize the word “misandry”. Almost as if it’s not even a real thing.
They’re also obsessed with making very sure that no court ever takes a woman seriously when she described something that a man did to her. Since we can already assume that women are lying liars who lie, the only possible way to determine guilt is male witnesses or a video recording to prove that the lying bitch isn’t just making shit up.
Eyewitness testimony excludes anything that happens in private. It is well known that abusers – in fact, especially male abusers – can be very gentle and charming in public. So someone being abused in private needs some means to prove the fact (unless one follows the rule “always take the woman’s/man’s word”, which fails with same-sex couples anyway). With physical violence. there can be bruises etc.
@cassandrakitty I do not appreciate tearing quotes out of context. I will not restate what I already stated. And at this point I am starting to suspect *your* motives. Are you trying to posit that woman-on-man emotional abuse simply does not exist, because any acknowledgment of it existing might be used to justify some men’s physical attacks? Of course, if abuse is only ever man-on-woman, one does not need any objective standards and courts should always take the woman’s word in any conflicting descriptions in an opposite-sex couple – is THIS the standard you want? I am sure that was not the OP’s intention; but I’m not so sure about you.
I don’t need your permission to quote you, dude, nor will “I know you are but what am I” work in this venue or with this audience.
This was the best part of your pissy little rant, btw. You really are incapable of understanding the fact that most decent people don’t believe that emotional abuse justifies physical abuse, are you? Most people grasp the “no, you aren’t allowed to hit people no matter how cruel the things they say to you are” lesson by the end of kindergarten.
@ ramendik – “eyewitness testimony excludes anything that happens in private’
No. Totally doesn’t.
@cassandrakitty: that is exactly what I said – “Emotional abuse can contribute to a physical response but does *not* absolve one from responsibility.” Though I now see that the word “one” might be unclear here. Let me restate – “Emotional abuse can contribute to a physical response but does *not* absolve the physically violent person from responsibility or even diminish it.” Works now?
@Sir Bodsworth: so what kind of eyewitness can be present when words happen between two persons in private?
@ ramendik — either of the two persons?
@Sir Bodsworth: they are the accuser and accused, or mutual accusers as the case may be, not just “eyewitnesses”.
Of course, certain information can be gleaned from interrogating them and see whose story is coherent. But there will always be a degree of subjectivity of the enforcer/judge in this option. Notably, an abused person can have issues presenting their side coherently, while an abuser might be an expert liar.
In the case of a mutual accusation, there is an additional hurdle, though I’m not sure if it applies outside of criminal law. A person can not be compelled to witness against themselves.
Note: this is a thread about emotional abuse. This is not a commentary on sexual abuse cases.
I see this troll’s getting worse. Anyone seconding the request for moderation? Troll challenge?