Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey
27 June 2014.
Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey (/ˈpɪtsi/;[2] born 19 February 1939) is a British ex-feminist, Men's rights activist and advocate against domestic violence, and novelist.[3][4][5][6][7] She is known for having started the first and currently the largest domestic violence shelter in the modern world, Refuge, then known as Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971.[8][1][9]
Pizzey has been the subject of bomb threats and boycotts because her experience and research into the issue led her to conclude that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are as capable of violence as men. These threats eventually led to her exile from the UK.[10][11] Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists.[12][13][14] She has also stated that she is banned from the refuge she started.[15][16]
External links
- ErinPizzey.com, personal website, last updated March 2012]
Mrs Pizzey set up a women's refuge in Belmont Terrace, Chiswick, London in 1971. She later opened a number of additional shelters, despite hostility from the authorities. She gained notoriety and publicity for setting up refuges by squatting, most notably in 1975 at the Palm Court Hotel in Richmond. Pizzey's work was widely praised at the time. In 1975, MP Jack Ashley stated in the House of Commons that "The work of Mrs. Pizzey was pioneering work of the first order. It was she who first identified the problem, who first recognised the seriousness of the situation and who first did something practical by establishing the Chiswick aid centre. As a result of that magnificent pioneering work, the whole nation has now come to appreciate the significance of the problem". Whilst being prosecuted by local authorities and appealing matters to the House of Lords, she was recognised for her work.
Chiswick Women's Aid was renamed Chiswick Family Rescue on March 31,1979) and then Refuge on March 5, 1993. Although Refuge traces its existence back to Chiswick Women's Aid, Erin Pizzey's name could not be found anywhere on the Refuge website for many decades. It was not until November 2, 2020 that Sandra Horley, the chief executive of Refuge since 1983, mentioned Erin Pizzey for the first time on the Refuge website in a press release on her retirement.
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