"I wonder what it means when your grandson is more crotchety than you are." - Aaron McGruder

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Working with Violent Women

"Erin Pizzey was the founder of a women's shelter in Chiswick, England, the first modern battered women's shelter in the world. She found that of the first 100 women who came to her shelter, 62 were as or more violent than the partners they tried to escape from -- only to return to their partners time and again because of their addiction to pain and violence, violence that they persistently did their best to bring about...

There are women involved in emotionally and/or physically violent relationships who express and enact disturbance beyond the expected (and acceptable) scope of distress. Such individuals, spurred on by deep feelings of vengefulness, vindictiveness, and animosity, behave in a manner that is singularly destructive; destructive to themselves as well as to some or all of the other family members, making an already bad family situation worse. These women I have found it useful to describe as 'family terrorists.' In my experience, men also are capable of behaving as 'family terrorists' but male violence tends to be more physical and explosive. We have had thousands of international studies about male violence but there is very little about why or how women are violent. There seems to be a blanket of silence over the huge figures of violence expressed by women. Because 'family terrorism' is a tactic largely used by women and my work in the domestic violence field is largely with women, I address this problem discussing only my work with women...

The terrorist is the family member whose moods reign supreme in the family, whose whims and actions determine the emotional climate of the household. In this setting, the terrorist could be described as the family tyrant, for within the family, this individual maintains the control and power over the other members' emotions.

The family well may be characterised as violent, incestuous, dysfunctional, and unhappy, but it is the terrorist or tyrant who is primarily responsible for initiating conflict, imposing histrionic outbursts upon otherwise calm situations, or (more subtly and invisibly) quietly manipulating other family members into uproar through guilt, cunning taunts, and barely perceptive provocations. (The quiet manipulative terrorist usually is the most undetected terrorist. Through the subtle creation of perpetual turmoil, this terrorist may virtually drive other family members to alcoholism, to drug-addiction, to explosive behaviour, to suicide. The other family members, therefore, are often misperceived as the 'family problem' and the hidden terrorist as the saintly woman who 'puts up with it all.')

While the family remains together, however miserable that 'togetherness' might be, the terrorist maintains her power. However, it is often the separation of the family that promises to rend the terrorist's domain and consequently to lessen her power. Family dissolution, therefore, often is the time when the terrorist feels most threatened and most alone, and, because of that, most dangerous...

Invariably, the terrorist can be regarded as a 'violence prone' individual. I define a 'violence prone' woman as a woman who, while complaining that she is the innocent victim of the malice and aggression of all other relationships in her life, is in fact a victim of her own violence and aggression...

To the family terrorist, there is only one wronged, one sufferer, only one person in pain, and this person is the terrorist herself. The terrorist has no empathy and feels only her own pain. In this manner, the terrorist's capacity for feeling is narcissistic, solipsistic, and in fact pathological...

In my experience both men and women are equally guilty of the above behaviour, but on the whole, because it is men's dysfunctional behaviour that is studied and reported upon, people do not realise that to the same extent women are equally guilty of this type of violent behaviour...

Among true terrorists, however, threats of suicide can be seen to serve a largely manipulative role. In short, the terrorist says, 'If you can't do as I tell you, I will kill myself.' Whether suicide remains only a threat or is realised, the true terrorist uses suicide not so much as an expression of desperate grief but as a weapon to be wielded against others...

I must reiterate at this stage, that both men and women are capable of terrorist tactics but men tend to behave in a more physically violent manner within the family. Women, as I have shown use far more subtle tactics ie. that of the terrorist as opposed to outright war...

In a recent case, a Mr. Roberts described to me how, during his marriage, he and his children faced a daily onslaught of verbal abuse from his wife. Mrs. Roberts was also physically violent to the children. Now that he has asked for a divorce, she is making use of every weapon in her arsenal. In the children's presence, she has used drugs and drunk alcohol to the point of extreme intoxication. She has staged several unsuccessful suicide attempts in front of the children, threatened over the telephone to 'do something stupid,' promised to kill Mr. Roberts new partner, and assured Mr. Roberts that when she has finished with him he will not have a penny to his name...

To limit the terrorist's feelings of omnipotence, there are many effective measures. The guiding principle, as in the handling of political terrorists, must be 'There is no negotiating with terrorists.' Endless telephone calls, conversations, confrontation, trial 'get-back-togethers,' correspondence, visitations, gestures of appeasement, and efforts to placate the terrorist's demands, all serve to reinforce the terrorist's belief that she is accomplishing something. Only determined resolution in the face of terrorism shows the terrorist that her power is limited...

Mrs Roberts soon found for herself a feminist therapist staunchly supporting the erroneous belief 'All feelings (and therefore behaviours) are valid.' Mrs Roberts is told by this therapist that she has a right to feel and to behave in any manner she chooses, in callous disregard for the devastation inflicted upon the children. Such reassurances serve only to fortify the terrorist's already pathological, solipsistic, and eternally self-justifying perspective."


In the sidebar:

"The surprising thing is that the target of Erin Pizzey's fire is not men, but women, and, more particularly, what she calls "that whole coven of witches" -- the women's movement."

"[The publisher] got a phone call saying that if he put the book out, they'd smash the windows at the publisher's offices and they'd kill him."

"Her london hotel was picketed by 300 screaming, banner-waving protesters. "I went downstairs and said to one of the policemen,'Why don't you just get rid of them?' And he said "Because we're scared of them."""

"I had to have a police escort everywhere I went because there were threats on my life and bomb scares at my house."