[Dean's World] Trudy W. Schuett: Pioneers Faced a Hostile Landscape

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Posted by Trudy W. Schuett:
Pioneers Faced a Hostile Landscape
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1165147194.shtml


   [1]Erin Pizzey is the widely-recognized founder of the movement to set
   up shelter for victims of domestic abuse. In 1971, in Chiswick, a
   suburb of London, England, she established a shelter for battered
   women.

   The shelter she initiated bears little resemblance to the programs we
   know today. Her shelter's location was widely-publicized, and clients
   were expected to pay for services rendered. Every attempt was made to
   ensure that those requesting help were not abusers themselves, as
   these women caused major problems for the others in the shelter.

   Services at the Chiswick refuge were not apportioned on arbitrary
   terms. The program itself was administered on a case-by-case basis.

   Early on, she recognized both that there were a significant number of
   female batterers, and that some women appeared to be addicted to
   violence. She began adjusting her program accordingly, and that's
   where she ran into trouble. By 1984, she'd been forced out of her own
   program, due to her practices of allowing help for men, and beginning
   to look into long-term treatment solutions for women with an addiction
   to violence.

   She was also the author of several books, and a publicity tour of the
   UK at the time was conducted under police escort, due to the number of
   threats against herself and her family. Her dog was killed, apparently
   as a message from a feminist zealot. She fled the country, seeking
   refuge of her own in New Mexico, and lived there for several years
   before returning to England.

   Almost every advocate for a holistic approach to the issue,
   particularly those in the 1970s and 1980s, has experienced some degree
   of backlash. [2]Suzanne Steinmetz, [3]Richard Gelles, and [4]Murray
   Strauss, authors of Behind Closed Doors and other works noting that
   domestic violence was not a gender issue, suffered numerous threats of
   violence to themselves and their property and serious problems in
   their careers as they are academic researchers.

   I've often wondered why it is that if women are all supposed to be so
   peace-loving and passive, that so much of this antagonistic behavior
   by women seems to have gone unnoticed?

   It would seem to me that these demonstrations of aggression would
   belie any claims of universal serenity among women, but there is very
   little about this subject and the history of society's attempts to
   tackle it that makes any logical sense.

References

   1. http://www.fathersforlife.org/pizzey/pizzey.htm
   2. http://newsinfo.iu.edu/sb/page/normal/519.html
   3. http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/
   4. http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/people/faculty/gelles/