Women's Aid

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Women's Aid is a group of feminist charities across the United Kingdom. There are four main Women's Aid Federations, one for each country. Its aim is to end domestic violence against women and children. The charity provides advocacy for abused women and children and aims to ensure their safety by working locally and nationally in the UK. Women's Aid provides a network of over 500 women's refuges and promotes policies and practices to prevent domestic violence against women from occurring.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Activities 3 Services to Men 4 Supporters 5 Controversies 5.1 Whether representative 5.2 Domestic Violence and the Status of Women 6 Policy Statements 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Origins

The first branch of Women's Aid was formed in Chiswick, London in Autumn 1971 by Erin Pizzey. It was first domestic violence shelter to be opened in Europe.

[edit] Activities

The charity, registered in 1996, claims that in 2001/2 it supported a total of 143,337 women and 114,489 children (with over 40,000 women and children staying in their refuges). It says that 35,000 other individuals called their 24-hour helpline for information. In its financial year 2003–04, it received £2,052,814 gross income of which it spent £1,561,916. This compares to an income of £560,113 and expenditure of £565,050 in 1997–98.^[1]

Women's Aid was set up and is run by women, although it has obtained a dispensation from the Charity Commission not to publish the names of its trustees, and states that:

Domestic violence against women is a violation of women and children's human rights, that it is the result of an abuse of power and control, and that it is rooted in the historical status of women in the family and in society. Women and children have a right to live their lives free from all forms of violence and abuse, and society has a duty to recognise and defend this right.

[edit] Services to Men

A few Women's Aid charities offer support services to men, including advice and information centres. Their policies relate not only to violence against women by men, but also to violence against women by same-sex partners. The Women's Aid website www.womensaid.org.uk also lists help services for men^[2] and they look forward to working more closely with organisations who also wish to tackle the problem of domestic violence.

Women's Aid representatives currently work on a number of national policies which benefit men, women and child victims of domestic violence, and work with the other agencies, departments and charities that support male victims such as Social Services, the Police, the Government, housing associations, councils, helplines and national domestic violence services which point male, female and child victims to the correct services. Men can and do additionally run their own services for male victims of domestic violence such as those listed on the BBC Hitting Home pages.^[3]

[edit] Supporters

• Jenni Murray, broadcaster
• Lesley Gibson, Chair, Women's Aid Council of Management
• Will Young, performer
• Nicola Harwin CBE, Women's Aid Chief Executive
• Gordon Ramsay, celebrity chef

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Whether representative

Women's Aid labels itself as "the national domestic violence charity",^[4] yet they themselves admit to being a "feminist organisation"^[5] which totally excludes male victims of domestic violence in all of their work and mission statements. Given that a home office study found that 4.2% of men and 4.2% of women had been victims of domestic violence^[6] then it is clear that they only represent just half of the UK population, but also half of domestic violence victims too. Thus their self appointed title as "the national domestic violence charity" is clearly something of a misnomer.

[edit] Domestic Violence and the Status of Women

Rather than viewing domestic violence as something complex that can be perpetrated by anyone, regardless of gender, and for a variety of reasons, Women's Aid prefers to take a more narrow minded and outdated view of the issue. They believe that domestic violence is "fundamentally rooted in the historical status of women in the family and in society".^[7] In fact, they go even further, suggesting that "all forms of violence against women results from discrimination against women in society".^[8]

[edit] Policy Statements

Although a charity, Women's Aid are occasionally called upon to make political statements about gender, and have been quoted as defending UK family law, which is widely accepted, even by judges on the family law circuit, as being grossly prejudiced against fathers and wholly unfair to children in its pursuit of a woman's rights to the exclusion of men's.

They also receive a substantial proportion of their funding from the Government. Critics, such as Erin Pizzey, the founder of battered women's refuges in the UK, say such organisations' persistent presentation of women as victims of men is dishonest and deliberately inaccurate, as well as patronising and insulting to both genders.

There is also concern in the extremely broad and ambiguous definitions of domestic violence endorsed by Women's Aid and now by the government. For example, the British Government defines domestic violence to include "posturing" and "financial violence"; just two of many sub-definitions which critics say are patently absurd. Critics accuse Women's Aid of redefining a meaningful word - "violence" - until it has no meaning. Meanwhile in the short term, the politically motivated re-definition of "domestic violence" to include such a wide range of activities encourages women to split from their partners.

People such as Erin Pizzey claim that far from defending women's rights against historical patriarchy, Women's Aid further seek to deprive men of their equal rights. Ultimately, they propose, the feminism typified by bodies such as Women's Aid is a politic that has gone full circle from a liberation movement to a tyrannical establishment dogma, used to excuse social, economic and political persecution of men.

[edit] See also

• Erin Pizzey

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Women's Aid website
• Men's Aid Website