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Erin Pizzey Puts Feminists On The Defensive
posted by Scott on Tuesday January 16, @07:09PM
from the domestic-violence dept.
Domestic Violence There was an interesting article from The Scotsman on the topic of domestic violence and Erin Pizzey. Pizzey was one of the first people to open battered women's shelters in the UK, and is an equity feminist as evidenced by her frequent criticisms of feminists who support the anti-male portrayal of domestic violence as one-sided. Apparently she has ruffled quite a few feathers, and this article sounds almost apologetic when discussing modern feminism. One thing is for certain - with more and more people challenging false information about domestic violence, radical feminists will be forced to go on the defensive in the near future.

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Biased Article (Score:1)
by Marc Angelucci on Wednesday January 17, @09:41AM EST (#1)
(User #61 Info)
This article is such an unfair attack on Pizzey. It misrepresents her (Pizzey never claims she owns the issue, just that a demagogue of liars shoved the sincere ones like her out to favor a political agenda). It leads into red herrings that miss the point. And it tells flat out distortions of reality: "She complains that when she was isolated by the feminist movement, she found herself unable to raise the funds for a hostel for abused men. This has nothing to do with women’s rights lobbyists ensuring that funds only go to personal projects - from what I have seen, feminists have little of the vast power which detractors constantly refer to."

What a load of crap. They had every bit of power because they were the only ones government officials were listening to regarding DV and they had therefor the ability to get help for all victims and redress the entire problem instead of half of it. They have fought tooth and nail the disclosure of the overwhelming data showing the violence to be occuring at about equal frequency, or any data at all showing a high frequency of male victims. They have played into anti-male stereotypes and even male chivalry to spread their hateful lies, and as a result the cycle is fueled even more while they pretentiously take credit for trying to stop it.

We need to constantly expose them without fear and at every level of the game, from coffeehouse chats to classrooms to the press and the courts. This fight has been going on for at least 30 years, and it isn't anywere near finished.
She completely missed the point... (Score:1)
by BusterB on Wednesday January 17, @05:24PM EST (#2)
(User #94 Info) http://themenscenter.com/busterb/
... but then she would, being a feminist.

The part of her article that really struck me as "not getting it" was the part that Marc quoted and a bit more:

"... from what I have seen, feminists have little of the vast power which detractors constantly refer to. If they had, surely a lot more would be happening to rid our screens of exploitative messages, to stop the abuse in our homes, to ban pornography from our retailers, and to provide effective, safe health services for all women?

It is here that she lays bare two of her basic assumptions; it is on one of these that the entire remainder of the article rests. She is assuming that if feminists had "vast power" then they would use that power to do good. Since these good things are still difficult to do and meet with resistance, it must surely follow that feminists do not have vast power. If you go back and read the whole article, it is this basic assumption that is the genesis of the whole thing.

In several instances she even goes so far as to redefine people who profess to be feminists, whom we too would define as feminists, as not being feminists at all because they are not good women. This closes the circle of argument: it cannot be that feminists have "vast power" because if they did then doing good would be easy; those women who claim to be feminists and use whatever influence they may have to do evil are no longer feminists by definition.

The final conclusion? There can be no evil feminists. Very tidy, but also very clumsy for those of us who see through the original statement.

P.S.: I said above that the part I quoted contains two basic assumptions. The other basic assumption, which really doesn't matter as much, is that people in power could in fact solve problems such as "abuse in our homes" and "expoitative messages" on television. Her assumption is that the only reason these problems have not disappeared is that there is a lack of will on the part of those with power. Of course, the reason that they haven't disappeared is that it is very difficult to solve them without creating a fascist state, which is exactly what feminism is working toward. (Oh, except for the last one: safe and effective health services for all women... we already have that; she just hasn't noticed yet.)
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