JustPearlyThings - The Ground-breaking Fight Against Domestic Abuse ｜ Erin Pizzey

00:00:00.000 what up guys welcome to the just pearly things youtube channel and welcome to the sit down

00:00:05.120 today i have a special guest on the show welcome aaron pizzi how are you okay thank you um okay

00:00:12.880 i have a question so you started the first men's rights or men's abuse shelter in england correct

00:00:20.080 i started to begin with in 71 i started a woman's shelter the first in the world really oh that was

00:00:25.600 the first women's shelter too i had no idea in london and uh and the shocking thing for me in 1971

00:00:34.240 is no literature i'm i started trying to look for help because no one as far as i couldn't find

00:00:39.680 anything there's nothing written no books nothing about domestic violence and of course it's been

00:00:44.240 with us since time immemorial it was never ever discussed anywhere wow um but i became aware

00:00:52.480 very early on partly because of my own family dynamics that women were just as violent as men 0.95

00:00:58.480 um and that's what caused the big split where because you identified as a feminist before that 1.00

00:01:03.120 right no i was feminist for about five minutes and that's actually what i saw because the first meeting 0.99

00:01:09.680 i ever went to uh and it was amazing i've been married for something like 10 years and i had never

00:01:15.760 gone out on my own so if you think about in 1970 women didn't you went out in couples and as i went

00:01:22.880 to this first meeting and as i was walking up the stairs there were these mail posters and i was

00:01:27.760 bitterly disappointed because i knew a lot about that subject because my parents my father was in the

00:01:32.640 old consular service and my parents were captured in tian sin by the communists under house arrest for

00:01:38.160 three and a half years we didn't see them and for a long time we didn't have any news we didn't know

00:01:42.400 whether they were alive or dead wait could you i'm sorry could you explain that actually that was in

00:01:48.320 my notes you were born in china born in china is born in singtao that's what it's called in the old days

00:01:54.400 okay and your why were your parents there because my father was in the old consular service what is that

00:02:00.320 a consul is represents the people uh uh of indian and the consul is his job is to take care of the

00:02:07.360 english contingent for instance in in shanghai okay and then you didn't see him for three years

00:02:13.440 because they took one you know what this is this is 1947 okay was i think it was 19 probably 49 was

00:02:20.720 when they my parents had been sent back to ginseng in china okay as a diplomat posting and the chinese

00:02:27.920 communists were taking over and they took over my parents home and other other british people and

00:02:35.360 they were all under house arrest for three and a half years so we were about 11 when i say we my

00:02:40.320 twin sister and myself were about 11 and a half when this happened and we were in boarding schools

00:02:47.760 and then in holiday homes wow so at 11 years old your parents were put on house arrest so you didn't

00:02:54.320 see your parents for three and a half years and you were in boarding school wow what was that like that

00:02:58.960 must have been so like were you scared you wouldn't see them again or like what did you even understand

00:03:04.160 what was going on well you know no but something i talked to my twin sister about because we're 84

00:03:08.560 now nobody sat us down and explained what was happening the nuns just went on with everyday life

00:03:15.120 we knew nothing about anything but eventually my mother managed to get some letters through to us

00:03:20.880 so we knew they were alive obviously she couldn't say anything because they were heavily censored but at

00:03:25.520 least we knew they were alive and they had my brother with them as well he was six years younger than we

00:03:30.000 were and so they were in china and you were in england yeah london well well no we're dorset and

00:03:35.760 and so in the in the term time we were not in a in a convent school and in the holidays we were at

00:03:41.600 a place called saint mary's which is a a lovely lovely old manor house with 240 acres of land and this

00:03:48.960 very eccentric woman called miss williams okay ran it and we were there the other children were all

00:03:54.160 whose parents were abroad so we went there for holidays wow so you you basically were in this

00:03:59.680 boarding school nobody told you where your parents were you haven't we knew they were in china but we

00:04:04.000 didn't know anything else until several years and then my mother i said she managed to get a letter

00:04:09.760 through to us so we knew that they were alive and then it says here you went to south africa that's

00:04:14.880 ages before when we wow we'd have to go right back to when we were born in in in china in xingtao my

00:04:22.000 parents were then moved to shanghai and then the japanese came in and so we were on the last boat

00:04:27.360 out of china and that's how we ended up in in south africa and we were refugees when i say we my

00:04:33.680 mother and my twin sister and myself we were refugees and we stayed in costa in south africa

00:04:39.680 and my father was posted up to beirut and eventually we joined him wow you've literally lived

00:04:44.640 everywhere you know it's funny when um my intern gave me like the notes that you were from china and

00:04:49.760 i told him i was like this has to be wrong she's not from china yeah my chinese name was jetta which

00:04:56.640 means eldest sister did you and my twin who's three years three minutes younger than i am

00:05:01.920 it's called mei mei means little sister did you speak chinese at all apparently fluently really

00:05:08.080 well yeah because we were with on with the with the servants most of the time my mother wasn't much 0.83

00:05:12.640 of a mother your mom wasn't in fact she was a crap mother really she was a it sounds like you were kind 0.93

00:05:17.600 of from like an upper class family it seems like no no i think that's let's call it aspiring middle 0.98

00:05:23.040 class oh aspire my father certainly wasn't and he made he was good you know he never made any bones

00:05:28.080 about it he never had h to his name very very brilliant eccentric emotionally completely unstable

00:05:34.480 but a very brilliant man and the misfortune that he married my mother because the two of them were

00:05:39.760 completely incompatible well when i think of boarding school in the u.s that's like kind of a rich person's

00:05:45.440 like thing that's that's kind of why yeah it's the same here but i would think what happened would

00:05:49.680 would be because they were under house arrest they had no choice right foreign office would have paid

00:05:54.080 the fees right so you and you said your mother was she wasn't much of a mother well she was she was a 0.81

00:06:01.200 very beautiful narcissist your mom was a narcissist oh yeah classic how and of course you see it goes back

00:06:08.240 to something i've always said it's generational domestic violence is generational and not only

00:06:14.800 generational but also the dysfunction is generational so when you looked by and this is why i first

00:06:19.680 started thinking about it because if you looked about my father's history and my mother's history

00:06:24.480 you would see that their strategy i call it strategies for survival because we all as children have to

00:06:29.440 develop strategies for survival sometimes you know it's fine because the family is warm and loving and

00:06:34.800 and all the rest of it but for an awful lot of us it isn't like that and so my twin sister she she

00:06:41.200 hibernated really that's how she dealt with the stress uh you know and i i was just very violent uh the

00:06:46.560 first book i wrote was called infernal child because nobody knew what to do with me because i was so

00:06:51.040 violent yeah so my strategy was to fight really you don't come off you don't come off like that i've mellowed i'm 84

00:06:58.240 so your was your mom abusive towards your father they fought all the time my mom did a lot of crying 1.00

00:07:07.440 and took me till i was 16 to realize she set up an awful lot of the fighting and they were just

00:07:13.600 belligerent and they fought verbally but she beat me very badly because i often think it was because

00:07:18.720 i looked so much like my father and she really hated him well i've oh my gosh i and i am did a show

00:07:24.800 with i don't know if you've heard of jesse lee peterson um he's another youtuber but that's what

00:07:29.120 he said he said that mothers don't like kids that don't look like them yeah he's particularly if they 1.00

00:07:34.400 look like a man they dislike yeah that's what he said too and so that's what kind of got you interested

00:07:40.720 in the whole domestic violence stuff was because you saw growing up i mean maybe she wasn't she was 0.99

00:07:46.960 abusive towards you and your sister not towards my sister mind you i mean you know what nobody ever as

00:07:54.160 i kept saying you know there's one occasion when she lost it completely and she had an ironing cord

00:07:59.440 and she beat me with it and when i went to school the next day i said to the teacher because you could

00:08:03.680 see the welts on my legs with blood dripping scabs by then and uh the teacher said well no wonder she

00:08:09.760 beat you're such a horrible child but nobody ever stopped to think and they don't do it now hey hang

00:08:15.360 on a minute children aren't born back and so it's actually in my experience i think that mothers are 0.96

00:08:20.880 more abusive than fathers typically when it comes to children yeah like i don't and i get angry

00:08:27.280 because what tends to happen if you say that oh yes but that's because mothers are with the children

00:08:32.240 much more than that but it's not it's not that a normal woman does not beat a child 1.00

00:08:37.680 ever you might lose your temper and slap but usually a normal woman will apologize and no 1.00

00:08:42.960 slapping is not the answer right but where you get a violent woman like my mother do you think that 1.00

00:08:47.680 women are more nurturing than men different way i think i think women are actually physically more 1.00

00:08:52.560 nurturing emotionally more nurturing i've always think of women you know internalizing in the inside

00:08:58.000 the home with the children and the father's role which i think is quite healthy is he's the external

00:09:03.920 world he protects he looks after he takes care and they're different roles and how did you see those

00:09:11.200 roles change over time like you said you're 84 it's always interesting talking to people that have like

00:09:16.800 lived through a couple different generations because like growing up like most moms worked 1.00

00:09:23.920 you know what i mean like i didn't really see many stay-at-home moms in general i didn't really see

00:09:29.040 for me very few rich women worked because they had nannies really if they wanted to yeah their choice 1.00

00:09:34.320 yeah but but on the whole no i mean the homemaker was what you what you you in the condom i was in this

00:09:41.680 is an example we were taught to darn socks for our husbands and if you didn't darn it properly he might

00:09:48.880 get a blister so it was undarned and you have to get it i was not enamored of the idea of a husband

00:09:56.720 who was going to get blisters um so then you started the first domestic violence shelter by accident

00:10:05.120 i always said this if i don't what was going to happen i had to run away you would have run away yeah i

00:10:09.680 would yeah it's awful nobody ever they always see the glamorous side of it oh yeah you started the

00:10:15.040 nightmare when i opened a little community center i was thrown out of the feminist movement here in 1.00

00:10:19.840 england and i was banned from all the so-called collectives wait why because i told them that i

00:10:25.600 didn't want to be a communist our first meeting i told you with the chairman mouth yeah things and then

00:10:31.760 the first question i was asked was why was i there and i said primarily because i was lonely and isolated

00:10:38.160 because women in those days you what you were home with your children and you're the only only other 1.00

00:10:43.520 women you're likely to meet the the wives of your colleagues your husband's colleagues and my husband

00:10:49.760 was in television the kind of women i was likely to meet was other television wives and i wanted a much 1.00

00:10:56.480 bigger world than that i wanted to see i didn't see why because we had children we had to be excluded

00:11:02.880 which is what happened in the 71 and the 80s all of a sudden you had these children and then nobody

00:11:08.000 wanted to know you they weren't going to ask you anywhere it's particularly lonely at weekends because

00:11:12.000 that other women had their husbands home and didn't want you around there with their children when after 1.00

00:11:16.480 i'd been told that my problem wasn't that i was lonely and isolated my problem was that i was oppressed

00:11:22.720 by my house i thought i looked at it all and thought hang on a minute there's mail posters we're told that

00:11:27.360 we had to meet in collectives we were told to call each other comrades so i just well in that case if

00:11:33.520 you're serious and nothing to do it's not a women's movement and actually i don't know about the american 0.99

00:11:38.320 situation but certainly in england it was not anything to do the women's movement for women or for our

00:11:44.160 better it was actually a marxist movement and one of the things they've always said is that if you want

00:11:50.080 to destroy the family convert the women first so it was it was and i went on and actually this little

00:11:57.760 group that i had that we were all at home with children i remember us standing up on these state

00:12:02.640 on these platforms and saying look you know we love our husbands we're married we've got children

00:12:08.400 we're asking for a different alternative so we aren't isolated that's all and we got screamed at

00:12:14.640 so i got book i got a letter basically saying i was not allowed to go into any collective so you

00:12:20.400 still have the letter yep i've got it really liberation hand on it and everything and so i

00:12:27.280 and i budget hounslow council with my little group and they gave us a derelict tiny house

00:12:32.720 as a meeting place for women and children had two rooms upstairs two rooms downstairs an outside loo

00:12:38.480 and a kitchen and we were in business really for about six months lots of women came to us 1.00

00:12:44.000 who wouldn't go near social services or any of those kind of organizations and they'd come

00:12:50.160 before all sorts of problems and a lot of them just like me they were lonely and isolated and one

00:12:55.520 of the things any woman could do was to have a key so she had her place and she could come and go 1.00

00:13:00.320 she wanted to and we had an upstairs one of the problems was an upstairs office with a typewriter

00:13:04.800 and a telephone and we began the business of sorting out what people needed in our area

00:13:10.000 and then the first woman kathy i'll never forget she came in and she was blue from her neck down to 1.00

00:13:15.440 her waist while he'd beaten her with a chair leg and carefully so that no one could see the bruises

00:13:20.560 and uh i took her home that night because there was nobody in the little house my husband came home

00:13:25.840 work and he said anything happened today i said no not very much there's a a lady in sleep upstairs on 0.98

00:13:32.480 amos my son amos's top bunk that was kathy and she was the first woman that came in and then 0.90

00:13:38.960 it was terrifying because the local newspaper got hold of the fact that something was happening

00:13:43.760 because it was quite near us and there was a trail of women turning up and they published a story and

00:13:50.080 women just it was terrifying i mean they were they were the door the door just never stopped and so 1.00

00:13:54.960 basically then that was how it started was then you started having women coming in that were being 1.00

00:14:00.960 pouring in yeah and then almost immediately council of council alderman king who was the alderman of uh

00:14:07.520 took out warrants for my arrest you got a warrant for your arrest for starting an abuse from the

00:14:12.320 very beginning yeah why because i was overcrowding what he didn't do was to say what can we do to

00:14:18.320 help and i would have said every borough needs to open a refuge which i tried saying but nobody wanted

00:14:23.600 to it was such a fight you've no idea so what's happened to the women's shelters um because i'm just

00:14:31.440 i have a question kind of from the point of view it seems like a lot of them now it's like a political

00:14:36.640 agenda it is and it's not but i knew that was going to happen because as you know i i was kicked

00:14:42.800 out of the women's movement right and i knew as soon as i got any funding and this is 1971 remember

00:14:49.120 that they would come because they the initial uh publications of of newspapers like the guardian for

00:14:56.240 instance it's it the guardian has always been slightly left uh uh i knew that once that happened

00:15:03.600 they they would come because they in the beginning it cost you three pounds ten shillings to join three

00:15:09.440 pounds ten shillings in those days was probably your whole budget for food for the week for you and your

00:15:13.920 family so it was a lot of money and that eventually ran out because it was no longer fashionable so

00:15:18.560 that's when i knew and of course very quickly we were supported by the public who were reading about

00:15:23.920 us the sending us money and almost overnight the next one to open and it was a feminist refuge now i don't

00:15:30.000 think you know or most people don't know i might have told you last time boys over 12 can't go into

00:15:35.360 refuges they can't go into refugees anywhere boys over 12. when what i've gathered from the women's

00:15:41.840 shelters today is that a lot of them advise women to falsely accuse their husbands of abuse in order

00:15:49.200 to get more funding and they have stories based on where the husband is from so like for example if he's

00:15:55.520 from nigeria you know they have one story he's overly controlling because of the culture and

00:16:00.640 they've basically expanded and like changed the definition of abuse where they've included like

00:16:05.360 emotional abuse where it used to just be physical yeah i'm shouting shouting's abuse why like how did that

00:16:12.800 happen like did you did you i know you said you predicted it but did you see the evolution

00:16:17.840 because it sounds like it started as like a good thing and now it's almost like being used to break up the

00:16:24.880 family which is what you said in the beginning well yes because the the the feminist movement is all

00:16:30.000 one of its its aims has always been to break up the family because the idea is this and it was in 1990

00:16:37.200 the women's minister here in england called harriet harman had a policy paper and the policy paper she 0.66

00:16:43.040 she she an anna coote who's another uh civil servant i think very very high up they what they were saying

00:16:49.440 is that the new model will be women and children wow who said that harriet harman harriet hartman yeah

00:16:57.520 said that there's a policy paper which you can't find now policy paper 1990 and she says that in it

00:17:03.600 she said men are not necessarily harmonious to family life wow and you're saying all of this has roots in

00:17:09.920 communism well yes because that that any whether it's russian communist or chinese communism it's always

00:17:15.840 been if you if you want to control men you have to get rid of the family right because a man will fight 0.97

00:17:22.240 for his family and his country but first of all if you want communist country of any sort a socialist

00:17:28.160 if you like then you get rid of the family first um what were what did you figure out when it came to

00:17:34.400 violence um i think you have a quote that you said women but women are as capable of violence as men to

00:17:41.760 think that women are gentle creatures and that men are violent is the wrong idea and i think i think

00:17:47.360 that that it's known because it's known physically that in an in a warring situation women often attack 1.00

00:17:54.080 first i think women are more violent than men um on the whole yes and certainly certainly psychologically 1.00

00:18:00.240 violent i think if we if women could like the difference is men their fists can literally kill 1.00

00:18:06.720 somebody women they can't but i think if women had equal strength to men i think they would be 1.00

00:18:11.680 just as just as well as a woman put it to like this to me sorry i'm you're getting uncomfortable

00:18:16.960 she said you know erin uh she said uh what is she said knives are a great leveler and indeed the

00:18:22.160 killing that i saw was usually a knife fight with where the woman kills the man certainly i've come

00:18:27.280 across women who were beaten to death did you see was that more common then did you say it was more

00:18:32.800 common than men beating women was women actually stabbing men no i think i think you can't say that

00:18:38.480 because it's not a numbers game right it depends entirely on what happened in the family then you

00:18:43.520 have to ask yourself why in if three children are born into violent families through no fault of their

00:18:50.160 own they're affected by the violence okay so two of them might grow up to be violent and the third

00:18:55.440 transcend what's the transcending in my case it was miss williams who ran the children's home she was 0.99

00:19:01.120 they by the time i was nine and i i was a very dangerous child i nearly drowned a little girl

00:19:06.560 and i i i always remember my parents had gone and we were doing our first holiday and with miss williams

00:19:13.840 in her holiday home miss williams was enormous she was about six foot seven she was huge and weighed 0.99

00:19:20.320 at god knows how much she had driven ambulances during the war she was a golf championship she's golf

00:19:27.280 she's brilliant and she was a magistrate and i took one look at this woman and it's the first time i

00:19:32.720 ever respected anybody and that she was my mentor so i've always known that what you need is a mentor

00:19:38.560 and in my time i've been mentor to an awful lot of children many of whom lived with me and so and

00:19:44.800 you said if you had to do it over again you wouldn't do any of it is that right and then you said that

00:19:49.920 earlier what i said is if i'd known what was coming i'd run away oh sorry it's not about the same thing

00:19:57.280 but is there a difference sorry i don't remember it's funny because and also you know people would

00:20:02.480 come up and they touch my clothes and and and they'd say oh you're so like mother theresa do

00:20:08.560 you know mother theresa yeah okay and i'd say yes but she didn't have a drink problem and they get 1.00

00:20:13.600 terrified offended but why is that you got a lot of pushback like were the feminists just basically 1.00

00:20:19.440 trying to destroy what you'd built yes that yeah well yes because they they immediately you can

00:20:25.360 imagine they immediately saw is a funding prospect and of course here in england refuge is is the uh

00:20:31.280 is has is the refuge that i created there's also the national federation of refuges which is another

00:20:37.680 organization but the two are feminist organizations and i think between the two of them they get 1.00

00:20:42.480 something like 300 million a year wait and so the organization that you started got taken over by

00:20:49.440 feminists no was that hard to watch like i know i know how i left england i left england that broke 1.00

00:20:56.640 my heart but i knew look i was so in that the only way i could rehouse mothers and children was to become 0.86

00:21:03.920 the biggest squatting agency in england so you can imagine the the establishment hated me and i didn't

00:21:10.160 debate judges orders if i thought they were wrong and there was a case where i had to i had to hide a

00:21:15.520 mother and three children out against judges orders in a country that had no uh extradition at that

00:21:21.840 point it was southern ireland southern ireland didn't have extradition i i hid her out there that lawlessness 1.00

00:21:27.920 obviously made me hated yeah well and i'm thinking like that's just got to be so sad to watch like

00:21:33.600 your life's work be taken by an organization that you don't agree with it is well particularly i think

00:21:40.960 the thing that's the biggest stumbling box i've got is that the boys over 13 the women either have to 0.99

00:21:46.720 make other arrangements for him or they have to stay in the violent relationship and leave the boy

00:21:51.920 if they leave the boy has to usually stay in the violent relationship but if you can't do that you

00:21:57.440 simply can't it's to me it's immoral you know the new thing that's kind of coming about because i'd

00:22:02.960 imagine they don't let the men into the women's shelter because there's some accusation like i'm just

00:22:09.280 guessing no no no men can work in the women's shelter right any women's shelter it's completely 1.00

00:22:14.960 completely forbidden and in our shelter the mothers and i all agreed that we needed men

00:22:20.800 and always half the staff and volunteers were always men right how else are children going to know good

00:22:26.880 kind gentle men right well i was even thinking like um you're seeing all these stories coming out

00:22:32.800 now because they would always say that men were like the perverts or whatever but now you're seeing

00:22:37.920 all these stories of women coming out where they were the ones being perverts to young boys yeah and 0.96

00:22:43.280 it's actually so common like i know just from doing um interviewing so many people you you just start

00:22:50.080 to hear the same stories and like so many guys first sexual experiences with with like a friend's mother

00:22:56.640 or like a teacher or something and they're not really punished for it so it's like they'll kind of

00:23:02.560 say that the women the men can't be in these women's shelters because they're so creepy or whatever 0.98

00:23:07.120 but if the roles are reversed like people don't really care people do care the children care well

00:23:12.640 you know the idea the idea that you're you know there is this idea and it it's certainly you know it's

00:23:20.080 for a child who that is actually molested by an older adult is somehow particularly if it's a woman

00:23:26.480 molesting a son somebody else's son or even their own no not their own so much but it's considered

00:23:32.640 well he's lucky it's a good experience you know he's been initiated all this kind of thing we know

00:23:38.320 it's it's there there is no difference between molesting as a boy or a girl it's molestation what i

00:23:45.040 what you do looking at the face of a six-year-old boy who has been molested and you look into his eyes

00:23:50.960 innocence is gone that's the worst part of it it destroys the child's ability to be

00:23:56.240 innocent and that's why i may it makes me sick it's so awful to do that to a child what did you

00:24:01.920 find when it came to men's abuse victims well that's why i tried to open a men's house but i

00:24:07.280 keep saying this that this is the thing that bothers me hugely that the men the millionaires

00:24:11.920 who are willing to put their hands in their pockets for mothers and children weren't willing 0.98

00:24:15.920 to give me a penny for a men's house men do not take care of each other i've noticed that too

00:24:21.600 whenever i talk about like men's issues some of like the rudest people to me are other men

00:24:27.360 yeah calling them like babies or like oh they're just louses yeah or they just say they're not like

00:24:33.280 manly enough or like they they how you know and they like i even i did an interview once where i i told

00:24:40.000 a guy a story about um how a man basically was falsely accused by his wife kicked out of his hat like the

00:24:48.080 kind of the textbook playbook a lot of women do here where they call the cops on him kick him out 1.00

00:24:53.040 of his own house put him on child support it takes him two years to even get to court by the time he

00:24:57.600 gets to court he hasn't seen his kid in two years or a year because kovid kind of backed it up and this

00:25:02.400 guy just said if he was really leading his household that never would have happened and i'm thinking but

00:25:07.200 that's why that's that's because men i keep saying they don't defend each other i've always

00:25:13.120 thought men are scared of women anyway men are scared of women because women have so much power 1.00

00:25:20.080 not in all right not in the outside world you can say the ceo of a huge company when he goes home

00:25:24.800 at night he's not a ceo of anything it depends what mood she's in it depends whether she's been

00:25:29.440 fighting with the children it depends on all these things was it always like that yes probably but then

00:25:34.400 there's a huge difference again between women and girls and boys born into warm loving happy families

00:25:41.520 largely will go on to marry warm loving happy wives and husbands that's the normal but some of us who

00:25:49.040 came from toxic family backgrounds like i did you have to have help to transcend and with the women

00:25:54.880 coming into the refuge of the first hundred sixty two were as violent as the men they left and those 0.96

00:26:00.240 are the ones that i most had to care for because i had to design a therapeutic community and to

00:26:06.080 offering to say to her you go straight from frustration and rage go to rage so as soon as

00:26:11.680 you're upset or you're cross there's no middle ground you declare war on whoever's upset you there are

00:26:16.640 other ways to handle frustration and you need to learn them and that's what we did in the refuge

00:26:21.520 what would you teach them the funny thing to teach them actually to be vulnerable you don't think

00:26:25.920 about this but if you come from a violent family where you never know where you are you never know

00:26:30.560 when violence is going to erupt or you're going to get yelled at or screamed at or whatever or hit

00:26:35.120 then you're always in a state of hyper vigilance and what the refuge had to teach as soon as you are

00:26:40.400 frustrated there are other strategies for survival and those are ones where you learn to trust people

00:26:45.760 if an awful lot of women coming in they never trusted anybody in their lives because they were born into 1.00

00:26:50.640 these very dysfunctional violent families because they couldn't trust the first people that they were

00:26:55.520 supposed to be able to trust i'm guessing like their parents yeah because that's their parents

00:27:00.000 who are violent and dysfunctional and you said 62 out of 100 of the women that came to you were equally

00:27:05.760 as violent as the men so why is this narrative pushed so much that men are the abusers if because

00:27:11.840 there's money if and i've talked to some of these who have feminist women running refuges and they just 1.00

00:27:16.800 said we're not sharing the pot they know perfectly well some of the women coming in are violent and they 1.00

00:27:21.360 victim first sign that she's violent and they're out on the streets with the children and you've

00:27:26.320 spoken to some of these women like behind the scenes and that's what they'll tell you we just don't

00:27:30.160 want to share the funding and it's become so mainstream in the media now like even i don't know

00:27:35.040 if you saw that clip a couple of years ago of the women saying that the man deserved to have his like 0.68

00:27:40.240 genitals cut off because he cheated and that was like mainstream everybody was laughing but i'm like if 0.97

00:27:45.680 the rules were reversed nobody would be laughing if a guy did that to a woman absolutely and and 0.62

00:27:51.440 think of the horror you know when a genital mutilation of women in africa right absolute horror but you

00:27:57.200 couldn't you can say what you like about men because in a way we've decimated the whole idea of

00:28:01.680 masculinity we we we we will the claim that you know masculinity is toxic it's not femininity isn't

00:28:08.720 toxic it was always part of the women's movement in those early days and i'm talking in the early 70s 1.00

00:28:14.480 that the part of the push was that women would force men to become more like women which to a 0.95

00:28:20.000 large extent has happened oh it totally has happened so what you've got is feminized men

00:28:25.200 who are very confused yeah and then masculine women it's like it's weird when you look at the young

00:28:30.240 couples it's like the guys are dressed a little more feminine and the girls are dressed a little 0.97

00:28:35.120 more masculine yeah was that an odd what go ahead sorry okay i was just going to say one of the

00:28:40.720 arguments was that that went very badly wrong i'm just trying to betty free down came to the american

00:28:45.760 embassy in the in the time i was in the refuge and she stood up and said very bravely he said you

00:28:51.600 know we as feminists went very badly wrong she said one of the things we did was to to reach and that 0.83

00:28:58.000 isn't what we should have been reaching for we have our own power as women and i think that's very true

00:29:02.640 has it been weird to watch the change in culture over the last 80 years terribly sad you know and this is

00:29:09.440 going to sound very weird probably to you but i regret that my granddaughter who's now in her 40s

00:29:15.600 never knew in that when i was in the 50s and i was a teenager in the 50s about 40 50. in those days

00:29:21.520 a young boy would have to ask your father if he could take you out young boy would bring flowers or box

00:29:27.680 of chocolates and it was very very innocent boys knew if they got a girl pregnant they would have to 0.91

00:29:33.280 marry both sides of the family would accept that would expect it there's a very different time and i

00:29:38.880 regret that it's gone and what it's been replaced with is hookup and it's starting even like younger

00:29:44.640 and younger now too like you have kids that are sexually active at like 13 14 like it's so young

00:29:52.720 i know um and a lot of times it's not even from the crazy backgrounds like because social media is so big

00:30:00.400 it's almost a bigger influence on the kids than their own family unit especially i think that's true

00:30:05.600 yeah especially if the dad's not in the home because normally my time usually i mean you you

00:30:10.720 the idea being that you didn't have any sex till you got married but realistically it was probably 18

00:30:17.040 before you had sex so it's a hell of a jump from 18 down to 14. and 14 you know a 14 year old girl

00:30:23.600 is still a baby and the saddest thing i've talked to midwives about this is when you've got 14 year old

00:30:29.120 girls or younger having babies because their bodies aren't ready for it and neither are they emotionally

00:30:34.160 either because it had to have been such a like i always think about what the world was like before

00:30:39.440 like social media tv phones because my basically my whole existence we've always had it um i think i

00:30:47.200 remember getting a smartphone when i was like 12. so i mean how much i don't know about you i don't

00:30:52.480 remember a ton before i was 12. like before i was 10. you know you remember bits but it was so long ago

00:30:59.440 but yeah i remember um at the holiday home miss williams would take us to see a film uh we weren't

00:31:05.600 allowed to go see films on our own even teenagers so there she'd she'd sit there and if any man 0.95

00:31:11.680 in the film kissed a woman she'd stand up screaming disgusting before march us after the cinema 0.97

00:31:19.280 very humiliating it's weird to hear you say that you started the shelters because of um loneliness

00:31:25.440 almost because i don't i'd imagined in that time there was more community than there is today not

00:31:31.280 in london there probably would be in the country but not in a city like london not in the city and

00:31:36.880 also particularly because my husband's job was in television he was away a lot so it isn't as though

00:31:42.720 i had anybody to come back to at night you know for him to come back to it you know there were weeks

00:31:47.920 when he wasn't around so that was part of my isolation and a lot of other women were that were

00:31:53.760 alone in isolated party because for instance all these women and there are hundreds of them whose 1.00

00:31:59.200 other children whose fathers are in prison women love criminals you know they do bad boys yeah 1.00

00:32:05.840 even then yeah always they say i'm they all say i'm lying when i say that that women love 0.98

00:32:13.440 criminals no no no no it's absolutely true

00:32:17.760 why do you think that's more common from like the backgrounds you were saying or do you think that's

00:32:21.840 just innate i just think it's innate there's something it's anarchy in the man yeah and and

00:32:27.360 along with a criminal behavior or anti-social behavior of all sorts actually yeah there's also

00:32:33.280 that anarchic side of it which is very attractive to women i mean what i've always said to women look

00:32:39.200 you make a choice you look at a man he's marriage material you look at a man and he's nothing of the

00:32:44.320 sort if you try and reform him you're wasting your time yeah but there's this instinct in women 1.00

00:32:50.240 to reform what were feminists like back then i remember staying because i i had time on my hands 0.99

00:32:55.920 because both my kids were at school so i would go up to they had a um an office in poland street off

00:33:01.920 shaftesbury avenue and so i i was a trained secretary and so i'd offered to go up and work and answer all

00:33:07.360 the letters and do all the things so some of the administration that needed doing uh so i went up you

00:33:12.800 know expecting it to be fairly organized but it wasn't at all i i just remember being shocked by the

00:33:18.320 whole thing particularly as what happened tend to happen is that as the letters came in and

00:33:23.760 desperate women from across the country were sending in three pounds ten shillings in in cash 1.00

00:33:29.600 three pounds ten shillings and some of the women in the office would just rip the envelopes open and 1.00

00:33:34.160 pocket the money and go off oh they would just keep the money what assholes 0.99

00:33:40.000 you know they just ripped everybody off wow and would you say feminism is stronger today or back then 1.00

00:33:46.160 i think feminists is probably stronger today it's not you know uh no longer sort of the fashionable 1.00

00:33:51.760 thing in in the newspapers every day but it's stronger in terms that they have now and this was

00:33:57.040 i could see this happening from the very beginning they borrowed it really into the whole of the

00:34:01.520 establishment so majority of lawyers are now uh women most of them feminists they're the ones that 1.00

00:34:07.680 will advise women to claim um domestic violence and they call it the it's called the silver bullet if you

00:34:14.080 don't get your divorce fast enough because you claim he beat you you then say he's molested the

00:34:18.640 children and that that'll do it he will never be allowed to see his kids again only has to be an

00:34:22.720 allegation no proof no proof needed wow and that's called a silver bullet and when did you see that pop

00:34:29.120 up like when did you see it switch the most probably by the early 90s that's when i was born if you're

00:34:34.480 wondering wait so how have women changed over time for a long time women would say to me i don't do 1.00

00:34:42.080 housework i don't do cooking and it was this this you know repudiation and then i think in the first

00:34:48.320 flush then as women raced up to get themselves jobs they began to recognize that they would that that 1.00

00:34:54.160 women had two jobs women had two jobs because they had to look after the children and work and isn't 1.00

00:34:58.880 as though husbands suddenly doing half the housework they weren't so very women found themselves exhausted

00:35:05.520 and i think they're exhausted now i almost find that men know how to do more housework than women these 0.91

00:35:11.120 days so like i would say if i talked to 10 women and 10 men in my age group i almost think that

00:35:18.080 more men would know how to cook than women cooking yes probably but they don't cook every day and it's 1.00

00:35:23.120 not always baked beans and fish fingers is it no i i think that most of them do like take out now like

00:35:32.320 um so you said i have spent my life trying to help victims of domestic violence and i've seen the pain

00:35:37.920 and suffering that it causes it's not a gender issue it's a human issue it really is can you tell

00:35:42.720 me more about that first of all i think you'll find all the academic figures show that both men and

00:35:47.760 women are virtually equally liable to be violent if they're raised in violent generations of violence 1.00

00:35:53.520 not many will transcend without intervention that's really what i feel and uh we don't intervene we don't

00:36:00.000 we in children in school who are showing very obvious side of science of domestic violence in their

00:36:06.560 background it's ignored nobody it's still nobody really wants to talk about it and you said the

00:36:12.400 myth of the weak woman who has been beaten down by a powerful man is a myth that keeps women weak well 1.00

00:36:18.000 and also this myth and it does bother me that women need protecting by men because they're because yes

00:36:24.320 i do think that the the the fragile thing i think is trying to balance what men want and women need

00:36:32.240 because in the childbearing years you are needy as a woman you do need protecting it's ridiculous to

00:36:38.480 pretend you don't you do and and for men i think one of the difficulties now is that women have been 0.99

00:36:43.680 so hostile to men well for nearly 50 years there's been this hostility it's made men very afraid of

00:36:50.240 having anything to do with women i was at a conference a men's conference last week was held here in

00:36:57.760 england and uh peter jordan jordan peterson was there but also warren farrell he wrote the book

00:37:03.840 i don't know if you've ever heard of him have you i've heard the name he wrote the book about boys the

00:37:07.760 very famous book about boys he is an amazing man and it was just so interesting to me to just to be among

00:37:15.840 so many highly qualified mature adult men and to listen really again you know to this this feeling that

00:37:24.160 they're living in a hostile world and that that the western world is hostile to what they call

00:37:29.360 pale stale pale white stale males or something like that and it it upset me actually quite a lot

00:37:35.920 because as women we need those men to be adults and mature so they can father children and many of

00:37:43.040 these men one particular one that i was very fond of he hasn't been able to see his daughter

00:37:48.080 since his ex-wife was pregnant she's never allowed him and he says and i i said to him well

00:37:53.200 you know you couldn't there's no no good me saying you know you can go to law and get access to your

00:37:58.960 child he can't afford to get to but he's american he can't afford that and and that's why it goes so

00:38:04.640 very badly wrong except in the case of physical violence and emotional violence that both parents

00:38:10.640 should have 50 50 custody of children well and it's so common to like the man that can't see his

00:38:17.440 children i really think that a dead the deadbeat dad is a myth um i do too i don't very rarely yeah

00:38:23.760 most men that i know that don't have access to their children want access and i don't understand

00:38:29.360 why men don't get custody if they tend to raise better children like all of the data says that single 0.98

00:38:35.680 father homes turn out significantly better than single mother homes so absolutely does so then why 1.00

00:38:41.920 isn't the bias given to the men remember who us who are the majority of solicitors and they're

00:38:48.240 feminists and how many judges um 50 50 we have a huge amount of feminist judges it's like 50 50 with 1.00

00:38:55.040 male and female is it not i could be wrong but in family courts you see because majority of an awful lot 0.87

00:39:00.080 of male judges don't do family court they see it as something that women do oh so judges it's more even 1.00

00:39:07.840 but i bet if i looked up family court numbers it would probably be disproportionately women it would 1.00

00:39:13.200 be yeah wow you've seen recently there's um some judges that have been getting shot in the news because

00:39:20.720 the guys just like and that's kind of one thing they don't really talk about is a lot of these like

00:39:26.000 crazy men or like these abusive terrible men are actually men that have been going through the ringer

00:39:31.360 in family court and then one day they just like snap and go crazy um like one case that i heard

00:39:38.560 of was in the thing his name was chris so it was in the midwest this guy that like freaked out killed

00:39:43.360 his whole family which obviously that's like a crazy thing to do but reasoning behind it was she

00:39:49.040 i guess was taking him through the ringer in family court she was saying she was going to call him an

00:39:53.120 abusive like monster like she was saying she was going to basically destroy his life and he just

00:39:57.920 like snapped and killed everybody now obviously that's like awful and i'm not trying to discount 0.94

00:40:03.680 it but they never talk about what led up to it it's always just he was an abusive monster i know and

00:40:09.680 and again they don't really talk about um male suicide even though it's four times more likely uh for a

00:40:17.120 man to kill himself here in this country than than women and nobody ever talks about the fact that these 1.00

00:40:23.120 are men who are largely from their children as you say can't see their children lost their 0.79

00:40:27.840 homes lost their jobs and have fallen really into a terrible state of depression and they kill

00:40:35.040 themselves four to one and we don't talk about men suicide when you ever hear about male suicide you

00:40:41.520 don't women if the figure was for women boy would there be a but the other thing too i have to say

00:40:47.040 is that if that was a women killing themselves there'd be huge women's movement to stop it yeah where 1.00

00:40:52.160 the men's movement stop it there aren't there isn't one well and whenever you talk about men's issues

00:40:56.800 they always find a way to make it about women well yeah yes men are expendable yeah anytime society

00:41:02.800 really wants men around is if there's a war because then they can die even i was thinking about how

00:41:08.240 um if you say men are more likely to commit suicide that you know what the response the response i'm

00:41:14.160 sure you get this is always well women try more women manipulate more and to be honest with you 0.99

00:41:20.640 you know i used to keep these big you know questionnaires in the refuge and one of the

00:41:27.040 questionnaires is have you ever tried to commit suicide virtually every single woman would say yes 0.99

00:41:32.560 but and it because those days the doctors used to hand out pills to women you go to the doctor you

00:41:38.240 say my husband beats me he gives you valium they all came into the refuge with masses of valium

00:41:45.120 because that was the the the it didn't date long actually but it's highly addictive along with all

00:41:50.080 the other problems they had they're addicted to valium and um the difficulty with with all that is yes

00:41:55.600 women were more likely to attempt suicide but men killed themselves and it's still the same with 0.96

00:42:00.880 women it's a cry for help men don't cry for help unfortunately they would they the figures wouldn't

00:42:05.920 be as bad as they are yeah and i think men are more pragmatic about it like um even the guys that i've

00:42:12.880 interviewed that i wouldn't be surprised if they killed themselves it's kind of because they look

00:42:18.480 at their situation and they think my reputation's destroyed i've been fired from my job i can't see

00:42:24.800 my children what is there where women a lot of times i sometimes i think it's more attention based 1.00

00:42:30.880 where they yeah where they want attention but it can be a cry for help yeah you know but it just kind

00:42:36.320 of goes to show that whenever you talk about a men's issue they always make it about women yeah and

00:42:40.800 it doesn't really matter what it is like if i say women are like met when women are more likely to 0.94

00:42:46.480 leave um and divorce their husbands and break up the home it's always like well why did they leave

00:42:52.160 they must have been an abusive cheating monster and then i found out that women are actually more 1.00

00:42:56.640 likely to stay with the abusers yeah this is a whole different we might do this some other time 0.95

00:43:01.840 because it's a completely different discussion addictive relationships why did one of the most beautiful

00:43:06.320 women i've ever known who came into my early refuge said to me erin if i hear his voice i'll be like

00:43:12.560 the pied piper and i'll go back i didn't know how to help her and i was away on holiday and she left

00:43:17.520 me a letter so when i came back when she was dead she did go back and she did die wow and having said

00:43:23.760 that i used to have a picture of a man and he was in his coffin and when i was working with men i'd often

00:43:28.720 just show them that picture and say and where do you think you're going to be if you don't get out and

00:43:32.720 they'd say yeah that she'll kill them yeah either that or she'll push him to where he kills himself 1.00

00:43:37.680 the response is always well men are stronger couldn't couldn't he just but they're not stronger 0.98

00:43:42.880 physically emotionally they're certainly not we're far stronger yeah i wouldn't even say stronger i think

00:43:48.080 we're almost more manipulative but that makes you stronger you have you you you can maneuver your way

00:43:53.360 around all sorts of situations yeah in a way i've always found men to be fairly straightforward

00:43:58.640 but that's why i like working with women they're much more interesting what do you think could be 1.00

00:44:03.200 done to improve the situation for male abuse victims refuges for a start there aren't any there's one

00:44:10.080 i think that i saw and it was brilliant and i just i thought so i think it was in denmark and it worked

00:44:18.560 very very well they could take 10 men with their children that's the only one i've ever really known

00:44:22.720 but but as a whole if the government's prepared to supply this enormous amounts of money for female 1.00

00:44:27.520 refuges why won't they do it for male refuges well partly because there's no male organization 1.00

00:44:32.800 trying to get refuges for men do you think there's any stopping feminism at this point i think younger 0.89

00:44:38.320 women have recognized the hostility that is created and the majority of young people that i know women

00:44:43.360 don't call themselves feminists do you think and if it does it means what we were all fooled because we

00:44:48.240 were told this was going to be equity feminism equal feminism for instance people didn't know if you

00:44:54.640 wanted contraception you had to prove to the doctor that you were going to get married 0.65

00:44:58.880 otherwise and then you'd have to usually what they did that sounds like a good thing

00:45:04.320 i mean it's better than the only fans we got now you know what i mean

00:45:09.120 so the other thing was that if you wanted for instance if you had money of your own

00:45:13.200 and you wanted a mortgage you had to get your father or your husband to sign for you with you

00:45:17.840 i'll tell you what i'll tell you what all these women with 100k of student debt for the rest of 1.00

00:45:24.160 their lives yeah they probably could have benefited from that you know for a while i used to think

00:45:30.080 this stuff sounded crazy but the older i get the more i think maybe there's a reason they did that

00:45:36.320 stuff that way you know what way um so where you had to ask get married in order to get birth control

00:45:43.760 where you had to you couldn't um you just said you couldn't get a loan or something you need to

00:45:48.800 get that's right or a mortgage or a mortgage and the older i get the more i think maybe there was a

00:45:54.480 reason they had these things in place it was because it was almost for our own good i'm not saying you go

00:46:00.800 back to that or anything but you know now it's like i look at the average 30 year old woman she usually 1.00

00:46:07.280 has a lot of debt she's usually not married um no children no children um not typically a great

00:46:14.400 relationship with her family um and so i kind of think like what maybe but but but look at the forces

00:46:21.440 and look at the hostility that women showed towards even the profession of being married and and the idea

00:46:27.840 that you know we were and i remember that those early days you have no idea what it was like because

00:46:32.640 they had these huge meetings you know in claxton hall and you'd have a thousand women in there 1.00

00:46:38.080 screaming and ranting about women's lot and all the rest of it and i'd stand on the stage with my

00:46:43.520 tiny little group and we we try and reason but there was no reason it was women can have everything 0.95

00:46:49.920 women are exactly like men i said i said i always said scratch a woman and you'll find a three-piece 1.00

00:46:56.480 suite most women want to get married most women want to have children and most people men and women

00:47:01.920 really at the end of the day want to love and be loved it's really that simple but look what we're

00:47:06.480 done with it i would pay to watch that a thousand women i go you know sometimes i'll go to those 1.00

00:47:14.320 organizations like the feminist meetups yeah i went to one the other day i just thought it was funny 0.95

00:47:19.520 and there was like an abortion one these women want to kill their kids so bad i'm like this is so crazy

00:47:24.880 and they're taking questions so i just like i had a question and i and i asked them i'm like why do you 0.94

00:47:29.360 guys want to kill your kids so bad and they all just looked at me like i was crazy i'm like what 0.98

00:47:35.120 like this just seems and i told them i'm like this just seems like a lot i'm like maybe don't have sex 1.00

00:47:40.720 with someone you don't want to have a kid with they thought i was nuts i was like i have a solution

00:47:45.280 for everybody but you're not allowed to do that you're not allowed to say that these are the unsayable

00:47:50.320 things aren't they for women is the one that i think so interesting is why aren't you taking

00:47:55.200 responsibility for yourself try saying that you nearly get murdered well yeah and then i they said

00:48:00.400 they were like well women don't get abortions for no reason and i'm like well they get abortions 0.90

00:48:04.640 for a lot of stupid reasons i'm like but the problem is we've been using abortion as a form of 0.57

00:48:10.400 contraception i know someone that had seven i know i've talked to women who had four or five yeah 0.99

00:48:16.720 i'm like you guys didn't learn your lesson the first second third fourth fifth

00:48:21.600 yeah and and now with proper contraception there's no excuse no you know it was different when i was

00:48:29.200 young because there wasn't any contraception and again and then finally when that when it did come

00:48:33.680 into into uh you see as as i've said you know the doctors made the decisions about who could have it

00:48:39.280 and how and when um my feeling is there needs that there needs to be a real shaker of relationships and

00:48:47.120 the trouble is you can't say oh well we'll have to go back you can't put the genie back in

00:48:51.440 the book we have to spiral into an alternative way of looking at relationships with each other

00:48:56.560 you know what i think's gonna happen i think women are gonna start paying for men i i think that

00:49:01.520 surprised me i think you're gonna start seeing men that are young realize that they're basically

00:49:07.680 being discriminated against for jobs they're being discriminated against in school there's these women 1.00

00:49:13.200 really i would argue with a lot of useless jobs getting paid a lot so like example in tech they just

00:49:19.920 hire you because you're a woman and give you six figures high paying human resources jobs all of 1.00

00:49:25.360 these jobs where women just think they're so much more special and important than we really are in 1.00

00:49:30.880 the workforce my opinion and i think there's some guys that are gonna look at the market realize they

00:49:36.960 can just get jacked learn how to cook and date a woman 10 years older than them yeah men are kind of

00:49:44.640 logical and you have all these women that didn't have kids and i'm like they're the guys are gonna

00:49:49.600 think well if i have a kid with somebody then you know she can take all of my stuff it might just be 1.00

00:49:56.000 easier to be a stay at home daddy yeah i think it's gonna be a new dynamic and i'm seeing it more and

00:50:04.000 more like we had a lawyer come on the show her husband's a musician obviously who's making the money

00:50:09.280 you know what i mean like yeah and i i think it's gonna be a dynamic and then the women will complain 1.00

00:50:14.640 about that too they'll be like we wanted to work and then they did and then they'll cry what a world

00:50:20.240 right aaron it was it was entirely unfortunately predictable i have huge hope in the new young

00:50:26.480 women and it's not going to be the same have to be honest i don't okay well pendulum swings as the 1.00

00:50:33.920 pendulum does i hope i hope you're right though i think i've just interviewed one too many only

00:50:39.200 fans models to really to be hopeful do you know what i mean but thank you so much for coming on

00:50:45.760 aaron um it's a pleasure it's always a pleasure having you here and look forward to talking to you

00:50:51.520 later on at some time um when i'm 100 that's when you're 100 yeah i actually i want to interview

00:50:58.960 um a couple that's been married for over 50 years i don't know if you know any

00:51:03.520 i'm just trying to think i will think and i'll get in touch with you if i can think of anybody

00:51:07.440 yeah also but i want to do it as well yeah because i i think it would be good you know we don't really

00:51:12.240 see that much anymore those are the models that you want yeah um do you want to tell the people do

00:51:17.520 you have youtube are you on anything no i was like i don't know at 84 if you do that i mean i'm i use

00:51:24.000 youtube i'm not on anything actually i know i um yeah i mean i i've never really been i'm just me

00:51:30.480 okay well thank you for coming on aaron um all right guys um make sure you like the video on

00:51:37.440 your way out and subscribe to the channel and ring that notification bell um also get yourself

00:51:43.120 a women shouldn't vote t-shirt you know i know there's these feminists that say women should vote 1.00

00:51:48.080 i'm of the opinion that they should not vote and we should take it away so get yourself a t-shirt

00:51:54.000 we'll talk to you next time

JustPearlyThings - November 25, 2023

The Ground-breaking Fight Against Domestic Abuse ｜ Erin Pizzey

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