A vision that turned into a nightmare

Only now after some twenty-five years are we beginning to see some accurate figures about domestic violence. I was aware of this great fraud being perpetrated in the west by the women's movement greedy for money. Others, like Strauss, Gelles, Steinmetz in America and Senator Ann Cools in Canada, warned the general public of the danger of this evil movement. Millions of men and children have suffered. Family life has almost been destroyed as these women moved into positions of power in the justice system, in social services, in the media - anywhere where they could pervert the course of justice to their cause. Their cause had no substance in fact. Their aim was to collect and to squander hard earned taxpayers money to fund their devient and pathological abnormal behaviour. These women can only be described as the 'Terrorists In The Family.' The question is this? Do those of us who know the truth, sit back and allow further millions of funding to go into these women's hands? Or do we begin to indentify those women who have deliberately and knowingly lied and cheated, altered figures and statistics to justify their lies and lived off the money that should have been given to victims of domestic violence? I said twenty-five years ago and I still say: Of the first hundred women coming into the first battered women's refuge in the world in Chiswick, London 62 were as violent as the partner they left. I expect, once true figures can be correlated to find that figure reproduced as a true and accurate figure. What we all have to face is that domestic violence is a learned pattern of behaviour and when small children are exposed to physical and emotional violence, these are the strategies for survival they will bring into their adult life.

Women are as violent as men, and are more likely to use violence in personal relationships. The reason why their violence has been hidden is because it is hidden violence - behind the closed front door of the home. Women intimidate the family because of their strong central position in the family and are now able to blackmail men, thanks to the bias against men that has been prevalent in the last twenty-five years. For me, the effect on the children of this nightmare cannot be undone. But I do hope that somehow this whole lie can be exposed, justice can be seen to be done and those fathers that I have known who have been destroyed, lost their homes, their reputations, their jobs and their children, can somehow feel that all the suffering was not in vain? Will we see, this year, another tranche of money being poured into the hands of the women's movement so they can hold their endless conferences? Probably, unless a few good people are willing to take on the job of exposing them?

- Erin Pizzey; founder of the first domestic violence shelters, a vision that turned into a nightmare. March 2000