Erin Pizzey
'Men and boys are being given the message that they are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened to women and girls. What are we doing to our children when we do this AND we rip loving fathers from them?'
When I was 13-years-old, in 1966, I asked my father what ‘sexually assaulted’ meant. Normally he was the person I could talk to and ask about anything and everything, but even knowing I’d had the ‘birds and bees’ talks at various intervals as my curiosity and maturity grew, he still blushed furiously. Uncharacteristically terse, if not brusque, he muttered:
‘You really don’t need to know about that yet. Ask me again when you’re a bit older.’
Bear in mind that this was ‘the swinging ‘60’s’, with free love and all that abounding, and that no topic had been off limits for me until then.
With hindsight, I’ve realised that my father’s reaction to the mere thought of sexual assault was typical of most if not all good men. The very idea of it was abhorrent to him; abhorrent to the point that he couldn’t actually articulate his thoughts on it to his daughter.
It’s unlikely that much has changed in the last 50+ years in the respect of men being good, even though sex and sexuality is now visible in almost every aspect of our lives every day. The good in humanity is a constant in society, as are good men, much as some would deny that. That said, I had a childhood denied to many children today. I was protected from much, subjected to some things I’d have been better protected from, and, all in all, it was probably pretty typical. No life is ‘perfect’ and it would probably be damaging if it was. ‘Helicopter parenting’ has its detractors for a reason.
So what happens when good (innocent) men are accused of bad things such as sexual assault or even rape; crimes that strike at the very heart of their masculinity, even their souls? Only the least empathic will fail to understand that it is one of the most emotionally damaging things that can happen to a man. Of course, it happens to boys and women too, but it is only men who are fathers and therein lies another set of issues.
Much has been written about the effects of false accusations on men and the women in their lives, even their extended families and friends, but what about their children? What happens to them when their innocent fathers are accused of a crime they have not committed, and the police and Social Services come bursting into their lives? It will surprise no-one to learn that the results are broadly exactly the same as if the innocent were guilty and arguably much, much worse. Dad disappears in an instant, loving relationships are severed and it seems that the whole world is saying that ‘Daddy is a bad man’. Fathers who have never laid a finger on or hurt their children in any way, fathers whose only ‘crime’ may have been to separate from their mother, or not even that, but are victim of an accusation coming literally come out of nowhere, are painted as demons and banned from being near not only their own, but often any children. Sometimes, worst case scenario, those children are ripped from their mother too, placed into foster care or even adopted. Could anything be worse for a loving family unit?
But I rush ahead – how have we got from an uninformed early-teen of the 1960’s to the present day, when even primary school children if not preschoolers are being taught about sexual abuse and its attendant topics? I’m not suggesting for a moment that children have not been sexually abused in all that time, children who need and deserve protection from predatory adults. But, and it’s a big but, how did we get to damaging children who have never been in any danger at all? How did we come to be giving all children information that they generally only need as adults, regardless of need and regardless of risk, in a way that saturates and damages them, often by removing them from a loving and caring parent? How did we stop protecting children from information that they DON’T need and start ‘protecting’ them from relationships that they DO need?
Not long after my conversation with my father in the grand scheme of things, in 1971, Erin Pizzey opened the first refuge for women fleeing abusive husbands. A husband getting drunk on a Friday night when he got his wages and battering his wife on his return home was an old trope and propped up many a stand-up-comic. It happened and does happen, far too often. In my own experience even 25 years later than that, a neighbour was regularly ‘given a good going-over’ by her husband, and got told by the police that he was a really nice guy and she needed to be nicer to him. Things needed to change.
Between 1972 and 1988, the year of my meeting that neighbour, Ms Pizzey identified that interpersonal violence was not gendered, that women often encouraged if not instigated the violence, that to her dismay, no-one seemed interested in looking at why violent people behave the way they do to each other. Far from being acknowledged as a groundbreaking and visionary activist, by 1981 she was hounded out of Britain and threatened with death for daring to suggest any of the above and her organisation, initially lauded by MPs and welcomed by so many, was taken over by feminists with a very specific ideology and agenda – men are the root of all evil and women are always the victims.
In 1986, the CPS was formed, the sole purpose of which was to approve and bring prosecutions, under the guise of providing a counterbalance to the police after the PACE Act of 1984 when they were given increased powers. Until then, the police themselves had taken the decisions to prosecute or not, though in cases of domestic violence, they often put that responsibility on the shoulders of a terrified victim. (My neighbour was told that she could prosecute if she wanted to but they wouldn’t advise it. She knew what would be provoked if she took that decision, so the beatings continued). Touted as being independent, some would say it is anything but, given that the CPS advise the police and they work hand in hand to present and prosecute cases.
As of late, the CPS and police have worked hard and long, with special sexual crime units, and a stated aim to increase convictions, (some would say regardless of actual and real evidence), and the law has gradually chipped away at protections for the accused and built services for the victims. Additionally, feminist organisations like Erin Pizzey’s hijacked efforts, rebranded as Women’s Aid and Refuge, have failed to acknowledge Ms Pizzey in any way shape or form. Their sole focus is women and children, painting them as perpetual victims, and ousting boys from their services when they are barely in their teens. It’s no secret that the vast majority of the funding goes to women’s organisations, with barely pennies allocated to men’s. More and more punitive measures are taken to stamp out the scourge of sexual ‘misbehaviour’ and arguably to criminalise things that are at best poor manners or even merely misunderstandings, to the point that men are now often frightened to be alone with women, young men don’t know how best to approach girls and men are shouldered with all the responsibility for every interaction.
‘Jake was drunk. Josie was drunk. Jake and Josie hooked up. Josie could NOT consent. The next day Jake was charged with rape.’
Remember that advert from 2015-ish doing the rounds on social media? The ad was short-lived and the American University pulled it with egg on its face, but the damage was done and the point clear. Jake is responsible for Jodie’s actions, but Jodie has no responsibility for either of them. Jake couldn’t consent either, but no-one ever talks about that.
Things were worse by 2019, when Jamie Griffiths, who struggled to make friends and arguably simply made a botch of it, was convicted. Is he a sexual criminal or an awkward teenager? How did his ‘victim’ come to be so scared of an unexpected touch? They were worse still by 2021 when boys in a high school in Australia were made to give an impromptu apology to all the girls in assembly, causing confusion and upset to all. Men and boys are being given the message that they are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened to women and girls.
What are we doing to our children when we do this AND we rip loving fathers from them? Men who have been accused, falsely or otherwise of inappropriate behaviour with adults, are not, by default, a danger to children, but such is the gross exaggeration of ‘danger’, the children can be left bereft, losing a parent at a moment’s notice and not knowing when or if they may see them again. Could anything be more traumatic to a child? Parental death, I would argue is less traumatic, given that it has a beginning and an end if not always an explanation.
Even so, we know that parental death can cause tremendous emotional damage to child - feelings of abandonment, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, feelings of lack of control to name but a few. This of course is in addition to all the aspects of ‘normal’ grief such as sleeplessness, changes in memory and brain function, the ability to function generally, stress-induced health issues. How DARE we visit this on children when it’s not absolutely necessary for their well-being?
How DARE we have a situation whereby, Social Services, with their lower bar for proof, can refuse children the right to an unrestricted relationship with their father? They can and sometimes do this, even when the police have closed a case with NFA (No Further action) and there is even compelling evidence to demonstrate manipulation and lies by the complainant. What useful purpose does this POSSIBLY serve? The abundance of ‘caution’ (and arguably, abuse of power), causes untold and unremitting damage.
Then of course, there is the situation in the Family Court, where a mother can and many do, manufacture allegations of abuse in order to secure Legal Aid, (and who can blame them when money is tight and lawyers tell them it’s the only way to get financial help?), and the automatic reaction of the court is to ban the child from seeing the other parent. Given that cases can now take years to resolve, the results for the children is catastrophic, never mind the financial burden on the father, who in addition to providing a home for himself, is expected to pay child support AND whatever legal bills he requires to fight the allegations. It’s no wonder that parents, overwhelmingly fathers, commit suicide given the emotional and financial pain they are suffering. What could be more catastrophic to a child to not only have their father removed from them forcefully by a false accusation, but to then lose that father to death?
In 2023, fathers can effectively be removed from the family on the simple say-so of the mother. It happens to mothers though much less frequently as they are overwhelmingly the resident parent, but that is somewhat irrelevant when the child suffers irreparable damage at the loss of either parent.
Children can also be removed from the family if the father is accused by anyone else and the mother supports her children’s father, believing in his innocence, so distorted has the task of protecting the children become.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, the balance of almost everything has been skewed in the favour of girls, which is not good for them either. It begins at birth when they are dressed in onesies that proclaim ‘Mummy’s (or Daddy’s) Little Princess’ and it continues through to the other end of the educational system when children have been taught almost exclusively by women (75%+ of teachers are women), treated by women if they are sick enough to be hospitalised (almost 90% of nurses are women and 47% of doctors are women), they outnumber boys in higher education (56%+) and more will get a 1st at university. There are single sex professional spaces for women, affirmative action programmes for women and if they need residential care in later life, they will be cared for by women (80% of all jobs, 85%+ of direct care jobs).
Where are the men in a boy’s life? Where can he find a father figure if his father is missing? Or a girl’s for that matter? I cannot imagine having lived a life without my father.
I don’t deny that things were weighted too much in the other direction. Balance needed to be brought, and women deserved to have a place in the working world if they wanted it. I suggest, though, that the pendulum has swung too far and we need to take a long hard look at ourselves and the world we have created for our children.
Women have never been absent from children’s lives. A mother was either at home or she outsourced mothering to another woman. Men are often absent but not by their own behest. Children need balance and it’s arguable that too much mothering is as bad as no fathering.
We are in danger of creating a self fulfilling prophecy – by claiming that all men and therefore boys are potentially dangerous and ignoring the vast amount of good men do in the world, we are creating young men with no sense of purpose, belonging or value; angry men who have no real idea of why they are angry, but nonetheless desperately looking for an outlet for that anger which is dangerous and damaging to themselves and others.
Conversely, we are creating young women with an over inflated sense of importance, value and victimhood, with all the privileges of life and none of the responsibilities. They THINK they have all the responsibilities because so many of them are choosing to be sole parents, by accident or design, but they are often failing in the responsibility to allow their children to have a loving relationship with their fathers and even the rest of their extended family.
The authorities THINK they are doing right by women by allowing affirmative action and giving them places in the world wherever they want. What started as a genuinely needed quest for equality and balance has become a train wreck on and of our society.
Again I ask, what have we done to our children?
By Felicity Stryjak
Felicity Stryjak is retired having worn many hats in her life so far, teacher and paralegal among them. She was born in Torquay in 1953 and has lived in a variety of interesting places both in the UK and abroad. She intends Scotland to be her final place of abode.
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