Erin Pizzey

Erin Pizzey

Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey (born 19 February 1939) is an English family care activist and a novelist. She is known for having started the first domestic violence shelter in the modern world, Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971, the organization known today as Refuge. Haven House is often cited as the first women's refuge (called women's shelters in Canada and the U.S.), but at the time of their founding they only worked to help the mentally ill transition from committed life in a hospital to life in the outside world. By contrast the refuge started by Erin Pizzey was focused on removing victims of domestic abuse from their abusers, in an attempt to break the cycle. Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her research into the claim that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally capable of violence as men. Pizzey has said that the threats were from militant feminists. She has also said that she is banned from the refuge she started.