Erin Pizzey

Erin Pizzey, 2016

Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey née Carney (born February 19, 1939 in Tsingtao , China ) is a British author of non-fiction books on domestic violence , family and women's issues. She became internationally known in 1971 as the founder of the first women's shelter for beaten women in Great Britain . Later she increasingly took the position that the problem of violence spreads in both sexes.

Life and work

youth

Erin Pizzey grew up as the daughter of a diplomat in China, South Africa, Beirut, the USA and Iran until her parents sent her to a monastery school in Dorset . In 1961 she married the radio operator Jack Pizzey.

First women's shelters

Pizzey began working in a house in Chiswick , a borough of London , where she initially advised women who were victims of domestic violence. The result was the first women's refuge in Great Britain, which offered beaten and abused women and their children a temporary refuge ( Battered Wives' Refuge ). She later opened other women's shelters. Pizzey's pioneering work and determined public relations initially received a lot of approval. In 1975 MP Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, stated in the UK House of Commons :

“Mrs. Pizzey's work was first class pioneering. She was the first to name the problem, the first to see the gravity of the situation, and the first to do something by setting up the Chiswick Relief Center. As a result, the entire nation has now recognized the importance of this problem. "

In her book "Prone to Violence" (German: "Violence Declined" ) from 1982 Pizzey described her own story and put forward the theory that many of the women in the shelter sought refuge, were received because of their personality "abusive" relationships. The book described numerous examples of disturbed families and discussed reasons why modern government care facilities are largely ineffective.

“Of the first hundred women to walk through our doors, 62 were just as violent as the men who left them. I had to face the fact that men would always be blamed for violence in a family, that false accusations would be made against them, and that women alone would always be believed. "

The psychotherapist Jochen Peichl criticized, however, that Pizzey's descriptions were individual cases of women with severe childhood traumatization that could not be generalized.

Pizzey said that the problem of violence was gender-specific and that men who, incidentally, had been demonized by the women's movement for too long, could also be victims of violent women. In doing so, she incurred the anger of many radical feminists, claimed to have received death threats and emigrated from London to the USA. She returned to London in the 1990s.

Pizzey actively supports victims of domestic violence up to the present day and is the patron of the “Mankind Initiative” organization, which advises male victims. Although the women's refuge organization "Refuge" was founded by Pizzey, her name is nowhere to be found on the extensive "Refuge" website.

Libel suit

Pizzey successfully sued Macmillan Publishers in 2009 for defamation in the book A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr. The book falsely claimed she was a member of the left-wing terrorist group Angry Brigade , which carried out bombings in the 1970s. The publisher recalled the corresponding edition of the book and published a corrected version. Earlier, in an interview with The Guardian , Pizzey had said that she had left this movement because of fundamental differences:

"I said that if you go on with this - they were discussing bombing Biba the legendary department store in Kensington - I'm going to call the police in, because I really don't believe in this."

"I said if you keep planning this - there was a discussion about a bomb attack on Biba, the legendary department store in Kensington - I'll call the police because I really don't believe in this."

- The Guardian , November 26, 2001

Whiteribbon.org

Since 2014 Erin Pizzey has been in charge of the whiteribbon.org platform, which is committed to combating and informing about domestic violence.

Publications

Non-fiction

• Scream Quietly or the Neighbors Will Hear , Penguin Books Ltd 1974, ISBN 978-0-14-052311-9 .
  • Shout softly, otherwise the neighbors will hear you. Abuse in the family , Fischer TB, Frankfurt 1989, ISBN 3-596-23404-2 . (First edition 1976)
• Infernal Child , Futura Publications 1980, ISBN 978-0-7088-1735-3
• Sluts' Cookbook , Futura Publications 1982, ISBN 978-0708822142
• Erin Pizzey Collects , Hamlyn 1983, ISBN 978-0-600-20686-6
• Prone to violence (full text available) , Hamlyn 1982, ISBN 978-0-600-20551-7
• Wild Child: An Autobiography , self-published 1995, ISBN 978-88-900096-0-0
• The Emotional Terrorist and The Violence-prone (extract available) , Commoners' Publishing, Ottawa 1998, ISBN 0-88970-103-2
• Men or Women: Who are the Victims? (with JR Shackleton and Peter Urwin) (full text available) (PDF; 128 kB), Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London, 2000, ISBN 978-1903386095

Fictional works

• The Watershed , H. Hamilton 1983, ISBN 978-0-241-11136-9
• In the Shadow of the Castle , Corgi 1985, ISBN 978-0-552-12689-2
• First Lady , Collins 1987, ISBN 978-0-00-223134-3
• Counsul General's Daughter , Fontana 1989, ISBN 978-0-00-617642-8
• The Snow Leopard of Shanghai , Fontana 1990, ISBN 978-0-00-617707-4
• Other Lovers , Fontana 1991, ISBN 978-0-00-617882-8
• Swimming with Dolphins , HarperCollins 1995, ISBN 978-0-06-100558-9
• For the Love of a Stranger , HarperCollins 1994, ISBN 978-0-00-223946-2
• Kisses , HarperCollins 1996, ISBN 978-0-00-647719-8
• The Wicked World of Women , HarperCollins 1996, ISBN 978-0-00-225244-7

Awards

• International Order of Volunteers For Peace, Diploma Of Honor (Italy) 1981.
• Nancy Astor Award for Journalism 1983.
• World Congress of Victimology (San Francisco) 1897 - Distinguished Leadership Award.
• St. Valentino Palm d'Oro International Award for Literature, February 14th, 1994, Italy.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Helen Rappaport: Encyclopedia of women social reformers. 1. A-L , ABC-CLIO, 2001, ISBN 978-1576071014 , p. 549
2. ↑ Transcript of Jack Ashley's speech
3. ↑ "Prone to Violence" by Erin Pizzey
4. ^ [1] der Freitag: Founder of the women's shelter movement writes a harrowing biography
5. ↑ ^{a b} Jochen Peichl: Destructive couple relationships: The trauma of intimate violence , Klett-Cotta 2008, ISBN 978-3-608-89074-7 , p. 93
6. ↑ Initiative ManKind ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. with indication of the national patronage Erin Pizzeys  
7. ^ Refuge website
8. ↑ Campaigner accepts libel damages at BBC, April 1, 2009
9. ↑ Andrew Marr's publisher pays 'significant' damages to women's campaigner at Telegraph.co.uk, April 1, 2009
10. ↑ Dina Rabinovitch: Domestic violence can't be a gender issue. The Guardian , November 26, 2001, accessed April 27, 2014 . 
11. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. whiteribbon.org 

Web links

• Erin Pizzey's "Blog"
• "This Way To The Revolution" by Erin Pizzey
• The Planned Destruction of The Family by Erin Pizzey
• Why I loathe feminism ... and believe it will ultimately destroy the family by Erin Pizzey, Daily Mail, September 24, 2009.
• Erin Pizzey, crusader for battered women by Brian Deer
• Why Did My Grandson Die? by Erin Pizzey