Just a Nte for emphasis

These references came to me in a Comment, but I thought they deserved better exposure.

Erin Pizzey has written about women who like to and live to create relationship 'drama' (to draw attention to themselves) and are equal - or more than equal - perpetrators of relationship and family abuse and violence.

http://www.bennett.com/ptv/
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~kbirks/gender/viol/ptv/ptv.htm

We don't like to think that modern free societies suppress books, but Ms Pizzey's books were suppressed in Britain. Her conclusions below are very similar to my thoughts from a walk on the beach yesterday.

Eventually we will have to concentrate on an alternative strategy of love and hope for these problem families. Eventually we will have to abandon the model of idealizing the "victim", demonizing the "perpetrator" and politicizing the issues. Eventually we will have to explore an alternative strategy which is pragmatic, personal, and treats the whole family. -- from "The emotional terrorist & the violence-prone" by Erin Pizzey

Watching the water wash away lines in the sand, you begin to philosophize and wonder if the expanded definitions of "family violence" aren't atttempts to legislate morality. Isn't there a better way for leaders to offer moral guidance?
And if the law must delve into moral issues, then when does the law include love, loyalty and all the other emotions of human nature?
Demonizing is moralizing, after all. It's just a matter of definition.

Perverting the definition of a "discriminated ethnic group" to include women is not the way to equality before the law; unless there are going to be many more thick volumes of laws. That's already happening.
If women are an "ethnic group", then is any role in society -- father, man, child, worker, etc. -- also to be defined as an ethnic group?
Ms Pizzey's words again echo my own errant thoughts:

In this important book, suppressed in England, Pizzey argues that not every battered woman is simply a victim. To successfully reduce violence, Pizzy convincingly shows, workers must distinguish between the emotional terrorist, addicted to pain and provoking violence, and those truly seeking escape from violence.

I would say that Ms Pizzey is an example of a valuable thinker. I only hope that her work won't be suppressed any longer. The fact that it was makes me shudder with regret.

Paul