(00:00:02):
My ex-partner knew I was about to leave,

(00:00:04):
but I still needed a couple of weeks to furnish my new apartment and move.

(00:00:08):
He seemed to accept it.

(00:00:09):
Then one night,

(00:00:10):
he provoked a fight with our three-year-old,

(00:00:13):
yelled at him until he cried,

(00:00:14):
and then locked him in his room.

(00:00:16):
I wanted to go to him, but it was a trap.

(00:00:18):
My ex blocked me and kicked me out of the apartment.

(00:00:22):
I called the police and they told me to do as he tells me or they cannot guarantee my safety.

(00:00:27):
Of course,

(00:00:28):
I don't get that in writing,

(00:00:29):
so the official version will be that I decided to leave our child out of my own

(00:00:33):
free will.

(00:00:34):
In the following days,

(00:00:35):
I went to the police,

(00:00:37):
the child protection services,

(00:00:39):
tried to get my empty place ready even though I had to leave all my belongings

(00:00:42):
behind,

(00:00:43):
struggled with chickenpox,

(00:00:44):
consulted with lawyers,

(00:00:45):
booked therapy sessions for me and my son,

(00:00:48):
and went on with my day job.

(00:00:50):
My ex sabotaged everything I did.

(00:00:53):
Even though I still did almost all childcare and he got to decide when he spends

(00:00:56):
time with our son.

(00:00:58):
I didn't get much help during this period.

(00:01:00):
I had to do whatever he wanted to avoid escalation.

(00:01:04):
A few months later,

(00:01:05):
my ex casually revealed that all he had to do was change his administrative status

(00:01:09):
to single and he was automatically assumed to be sole custodian with all the tax

(00:01:14):
and other benefits.

(00:01:16):
And on top of everything,

(00:01:17):
he was offered free consultations with a therapist to help him deal with the

(00:01:21):
separation.

(00:01:23):
Hi, I'm Zawn Villines and this is the Liberating Motherhood Podcast.

(00:01:27):
Today we are going to be talking about coercive control,

(00:01:30):
post separation abuse,

(00:01:31):
and what happens to women and children in the family courts.

(00:01:35):
Before we get started, as always, I have a couple of administrative reminders.

(00:01:40):
The Liberating Motherhood website has a cornucopia of information about my work and

(00:01:45):
this podcast,

(00:01:46):
including details on how to appear on the podcast,

(00:01:49):
how to submit a story for the podcast,

(00:01:51):
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how to contact me,

(00:01:54):
so much more.

(00:01:55):
Check it out at liberatingmotherhood.org.

(00:01:58):
And also,

(00:01:59):
as most of us know,

(00:02:00):
social media algorithms are actively working to suppress feminist voices.

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We've seen it in women being banned from Facebook,

(00:02:08):
and then being pushed down in the algorithms.

(00:02:10):
And this has a really significant speech effect because most people decide what

(00:02:16):
they're going to watch,

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what they're going to listen to,

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and what they're going to read based on what the algorithm serves up to them.

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So it's really important that we show these algorithms that we like and want feminist content.

(00:02:29):
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Likes, comments, shares, reposts.

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It also helps push back on what social media algorithms are doing to feminist and

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So that's a lot of stuff for basically the cost of a cup of coffee.

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You can also give gifts to people at that address if you're already a subscriber.

(00:03:28):
So I hope you'll consider it.

(00:03:31):
Today, my guest is Elizabeth Delgarno.

(00:03:34):
Elizabeth is a world-leading research and advocate in the field of abuse and

(00:03:37):
advocacy for women and children,

(00:03:39):
particularly identifying the effects of coercive control,

(00:03:42):
institutional abuse,

(00:03:44):
post-separation abuse,

(00:03:45):
and family court on families.

(00:03:47):
She has worked in public and private health and social care for over 20 years and

(00:03:51):
specializes in challenging inequalities and systemic challenges in health and

(00:03:55):
social care.

(00:03:57):
Her work centers always around vulnerable and or marginalized groups.

(00:04:01):
She is a staunch advocate of co-designed,

(00:04:03):
developed,

(00:04:04):
and conducted research,

(00:04:05):
where research is undertaken by and with the people it concerns,

(00:04:09):
rather than on them.

(00:04:11):
She teaches global women's health and health system challenges in low- and

(00:04:14):
middle-income countries through a complex adaptive system lens,

(00:04:18):
on the Masters in Public Health at the University of Manchester,

(00:04:21):
amongst other roles,

(00:04:23):
and has special interests in adult social care,

(00:04:26):
the health and trauma impacts and experiences of women and children who are victim

(00:04:29):
survivors of abuse,

(00:04:31):
Family Court Experiences and Health Impacts,

(00:04:34):
Gender-Based Violence,

(00:04:35):
Domestic Abuse and Violence,

(00:04:37):
Course of Control and Post-Separation Abuse.

(00:04:40):
She provides training and consultation to schools,

(00:04:43):
domestic abuse organizations,

(00:04:44):
local authorities,

(00:04:46):
health and social care services and other interested groups.

(00:04:50):
Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:04:52):
I'm so excited to talk to you.

(00:04:54):
Thank you so much for having me.

(00:04:56):
I'm so excited to be here.

(00:04:59):
So if you are new to Elizabeth and her work, she has an incredible substack.

(00:05:04):
And I'm just, I'm struck by how much you cover.

(00:05:08):
Your work is both broad and deep.

(00:05:11):
You've written extensively about post separation abuse,

(00:05:14):
the family court system,

(00:05:15):
course of control.

(00:05:17):
Yet so much of what you write about and so much of what is just common knowledge

(00:05:22):
and second nature to you and to me and probably a lot of the listeners continues to

(00:05:27):
not be well known in mainstream discourse.

(00:05:30):
For example,

(00:05:31):
when I tell people that men who have molested their children can still get custody,

(00:05:35):
they literally do not believe me.

(00:05:37):
So I thought maybe we could start by maybe you could share

(00:05:43):
What you would like people who are new to this knowledge base and this system to

(00:05:47):
know,

(00:05:48):
what is the sort of surprising information that you think might change people's

(00:05:52):
perspectives and orientations toward these issues?

(00:05:56):
Okay, so I guess if we start at a kind of socioeconomic level,

(00:06:06):
There is, I think, a misconception about who is coming to family court.

(00:06:16):
And most people think that this is just two warring parents who can't agree about

(00:06:27):
child arrangements.

(00:06:29):
So how much contact one parent should have with a child or where the child should live.

(00:06:35):
And actually,

(00:06:37):
globally,

(00:06:39):
in all family court systems,

(00:06:42):
what we know is that the majority of these cases are actually abuse cases.

(00:06:50):
So people have that misconception to begin with.

(00:06:55):
They think it's conflict.

(00:06:57):
And it's not conflict.

(00:06:58):
It's usually a victim and a perpetrator.

(00:07:05):
Now, it's not just the general public who have that misconception, it is the judiciary as well.

(00:07:13):
The judiciary generally,

(00:07:15):
not all of them,

(00:07:16):
but generally,

(00:07:17):
tend to look at this former couple in front of them and think,

(00:07:22):
this is two people who can't get on.

(00:07:26):
But, as well as that, we have, as you know very well in our society, very, very

(00:07:35):
Misogynistic, patriarchal structures.

(00:07:40):
And so all the tropes that women are subjected to in everyday life.

(00:07:48):
So for example,

(00:07:50):
we know that when a woman is raped,

(00:07:53):
one of the first questions usually that people say is,

(00:07:57):
well,

(00:07:58):
what were you wearing?

(00:07:59):
Or were you drunk?

(00:08:00):
Or what were you doing?

(00:08:01):
You know, they instantly victim blame the woman.

(00:08:05):
and they apply these misogynistic tropes to her.

(00:08:09):
That same kind of thing happens in the family courts.

(00:08:13):
So it's similar but slightly different.

(00:08:19):
Straight Away When A Mother Presents And It's Usually Mothers And Children Who Are

(00:08:26):
Reporting Abuse To The Court And They Say I Don't Want To Have Contact With This

(00:08:32):
Father Again Not Always Fathers But The Majority Of The Time I Don't Want To Have

(00:08:36):
Contact With This Father Because He's Abusive The Women Very Quickly Get Labeled As

(00:08:44):
Hysterical

(00:08:46):
overanxious, exaggerating, lying, manipulating.

(00:08:52):
And again, there's no evidence for this whatsoever.

(00:08:56):
This is all tropes that are applied to these women.

(00:09:02):
Another misconception that people have about family court, I think, is that it's wealthy people.

(00:09:10):
So a lot of people seem to think

(00:09:13):
This is always wealthy parents who've got more money than cents coming to court to

(00:09:20):
resolve their dispute.

(00:09:22):
Again, not true.

(00:09:24):
So the majority of people globally in the family courts actually live in some of

(00:09:33):
the most deprived areas in the country where they live.

(00:09:39):
So the other issue here is that

(00:09:43):
It's not, again, it's not just the abuse that needs to be considered.

(00:09:49):
It's the context around this family.

(00:09:53):
So,

(00:09:53):
you know,

(00:09:56):
when we look into an individual relationship,

(00:09:58):
so,

(00:10:00):
again,

(00:10:01):
usually,

(00:10:02):
not always,

(00:10:03):
but usually,

(00:10:04):
the sole...

(00:10:08):
Financial Lead If You Like In The Family Is Usually The Father So The Person Who

(00:10:17):
Has The Most Economic Power In These Relationships Is Usually The Father So Again

(00:10:25):
That Exacerbates The Issues Because So You've Got A Mum And A Child Presenting In

(00:10:32):
The Court Who Are Victims Of Abuse They Have Less Economic Power

(00:10:37):
They've often been advised,

(00:10:39):
as you described in the vignette,

(00:10:41):
they've often been advised by Child Protection Services to either just leave,

(00:10:49):
go and find somewhere else to live,

(00:10:51):
which they can't do because they don't have access to the economic means,

(00:10:55):
they don't have the money to just get up and leave,

(00:10:58):
or they're told

(00:11:04):
Stay with your partner,

(00:11:05):
I say partner in inverted commas,

(00:11:08):
stay with this man and you should be actively seeking ways to protect your child.

(00:11:15):
Now in the UK, what we call it is how the failure to protect is a failure to protect.

(00:11:24):
And what I mean by that is these systems say that to the mum,

(00:11:30):
You're failing to protect your child So they threaten child removal So if mum

(00:11:36):
doesn't just get up and leave Even though she's got possibly no money,

(00:11:40):
no access,

(00:11:41):
no support system Especially if she's being coercively controlled Which is the most

(00:11:47):
common type of abuse as well So if she's been isolated,

(00:11:50):
she's got no support network She can't just get up and leave

(00:11:55):
So at that point, what the system does, the child protection system, is threaten mum.

(00:12:02):
So if you stay with this man, I'm going to remove your child and place that child into care.

(00:12:08):
So what you will find is mums then do flee.

(00:12:12):
They find a way sometimes, usually by going to a refuge or by another means.

(00:12:20):
And then they find themselves in the private family courts.

(00:12:25):
and this is where fathers then the same fathers who the child protection system

(00:12:32):
have just said to the mum that dad is too unsafe to be around your child now the

(00:12:41):
same dad goes to the private court and says to the private judge I want access to

(00:12:49):
my child and because the private judge

(00:12:55):
lives by all these misconceptions and misogynistic views of mothers.

(00:13:01):
He tends to say, right, well, the dad seems fine to me.

(00:13:06):
You might have evidenced abuse, but it's historic.

(00:13:10):
They love to focus on abuse as being in the past.

(00:13:15):
And you'll often hear a family court judge say, where's he at now?

(00:13:20):
Where are we at now?

(00:13:21):
Like there's some magic wand that's been waved and this man who's been abusive for

(00:13:26):
years and years and years has suddenly learned to not abuse overnight with no

(00:13:33):
support or intervention and the judge usually says the child can go and stay at

(00:13:42):
dad's two or three nights a week unsupervised

(00:13:48):
And if mum doesn't accept that,

(00:13:51):
in my research in England and in Brazil,

(00:13:55):
what then tends to happen is mum will get accused of alienation.

(00:14:01):
So if mum keeps advocating for her child and the child keeps saying,

(00:14:09):
my dad's hurting me,

(00:14:10):
I'm scared of him,

(00:14:11):
I don't want to go there,

(00:14:13):
the court will say,

(00:14:15):
it's parental alienation which essentially means the courts are saying mum's

(00:14:20):
manipulated the child into making this up and the abuse hasn't really happened.

(00:14:26):
Now if at this point mum keeps advocating for the child and the child keeps

(00:14:31):
speaking up then the private courts will threaten the mum and say if you don't let

(00:14:38):
this dad have contact with this child

(00:14:43):
We're going to take the child away from you and that child will either go into care

(00:14:48):
or the child will go and live with dad permanently.

(00:14:52):
So you've got one system,

(00:14:53):
the public system saying,

(00:14:55):
if you stay with this man,

(00:14:57):
I'm going to take your child away.

(00:14:59):
And you've got the private system saying,

(00:15:01):
if you don't maintain contact with this man,

(00:15:04):
I'm going to take your child away.

(00:15:06):
So mums and children are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

(00:15:11):
There's literally

(00:15:13):
Nothing They Can Do.

(00:15:17):
Sorry, I feel like I've gone off on a tangent there.

(00:15:21):
No, you haven't.

(00:15:23):
I want to talk a little bit more about this parental alienation thing.

(00:15:26):
And,

(00:15:27):
you know,

(00:15:27):
I'm a little embarrassed to admit that before I myself became a mother,

(00:15:32):
I was not really aware of all the misogyny that mothers face.

(00:15:37):
You know, I did know that dads typically don't do their fair share of parenting.

(00:15:42):
And, you know, I did identify as a feminist.

(00:15:44):
But I had this idea that,

(00:15:47):
well,

(00:15:48):
the really feminist thing is for parents to have joint custody because,

(00:15:53):
you know,

(00:15:54):
dads should be paid in parenting.

(00:15:57):
And I think a lot of people see this 50-50 custody,

(00:16:00):
joint custody thing as like a progressive thing.

(00:16:04):
as what's fair,

(00:16:05):
as what's right,

(00:16:06):
as what's just,

(00:16:07):
when the reality is that for a lot of these men,

(00:16:10):
having any custody at all puts the children in danger.

(00:16:14):
And in the majority of these families,

(00:16:16):
it's a huge disruption of the child's life because the dad has not even done 10% of

(00:16:21):
the parenting,

(00:16:21):
let alone 50%.

(00:16:24):
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about this joint custody presumption

(00:16:29):
why it's so harmful and like a false ideology that it's built on.

(00:16:35):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:16:36):
So I was exactly the same as you.

(00:16:41):
You know,

(00:16:41):
growing up,

(00:16:42):
I always believed that,

(00:16:45):
you know,

(00:16:46):
women and men,

(00:16:48):
moms and dads should share the load,

(00:16:51):
you know,

(00:16:51):
and that was the best thing for everyone.

(00:16:54):
However,

(00:16:55):
It goes back to the original point that I made The majority of these families are

(00:17:02):
victim and perpetrator families So in an ideal world if you've got a mum and dad

(00:17:12):
where there's no abuse then as long as the child would be thriving with 50-50

(00:17:20):
custody and as long as that's what the child was used to

(00:17:25):
as you say did they always have that 50-50 primary carer structure I would have no

(00:17:32):
issues with that the problem is the majority of these families and not always again

(00:17:40):
but the majority of the time there is a father who is a perpetrator of abuse who

(00:17:46):
was never the primary carer never showed any interest in the children other than to

(00:17:53):
abuse them

(00:17:55):
and the mother and now suddenly he wants 50-50 custody because it's a way for him

(00:18:04):
to further abuse and maintain control over the child and mother who have physically

(00:18:12):
left his grasp by separating from him.

(00:18:16):
So in a perfect world there's nothing wrong with 50-50 custody

(00:18:21):
The other thing is,

(00:18:22):
in the majority of countries that are advocating for 50-50 custody,

(00:18:29):
if you look at the history behind these legal statutes,

(00:18:35):
they're based on no evidence at all.

(00:18:38):
They tend to be based on lots of campaigns by fathers rights groups.

(00:18:46):
Majority of them far right fathers rights groups I should say right wing and very

(00:18:54):
outdated views that women and children belong to fathers or the property of men you

(00:19:02):
know that that is actually how the courts were founded so when the family courts

(00:19:06):
were founded women and children were deemed as the property of men and it was only

(00:19:13):
Fairly recently that that sort of view changed.

(00:19:18):
So the issue around shared custody is an issue because the majority of cases that

(00:19:26):
are in family court contain a victim of who's a mother and a perpetrator who's a

(00:19:32):
father.

(00:19:34):
And the core issue here is that

(00:19:39):
The research,

(00:19:40):
the actual evidence base,

(00:19:41):
if you look into the evidence base,

(00:19:43):
as I have for quite some time now,

(00:19:46):
what the evidence tells you is firstly,

(00:19:49):
what matters to a child is stability and the stability of their primary carer.

(00:19:55):
Okay,

(00:19:56):
so if a child has been used to being with mum the majority of the time and then

(00:20:03):
suddenly the child is torn away from mum

(00:20:09):
to be placed with father half of the week.

(00:20:12):
Well, there's multiple problems there.

(00:20:15):
You're tearing them away from the primary carer.

(00:20:17):
You're making their life unstable.

(00:20:20):
And the evidence shows us quite clearly and repeatedly what children need is at

(00:20:27):
least one loving,

(00:20:30):
nurturing,

(00:20:31):
stable parent.

(00:20:33):
OK, what they do not need and what is bad for children

(00:20:38):
is having two parents where one or more of them is abusive.

(00:20:44):
So all of the science tells us what children need, but the courts don't listen to science.

(00:20:52):
The courts rely on previous legal statutes.

(00:20:56):
So what did previous judgements say about how or where a child should live?

(00:21:05):
It's really interesting and really damaging because what we see in the courts is

(00:21:10):
basically decisions being made about children and their lives and how they're going

(00:21:18):
to be impacted.

(00:21:20):
All of that is based on opinion, essentially.

(00:21:24):
This is what a previous judge's opinion was, so this is how I'm going to now make my opinion.

(00:21:30):
It's not based on science.

(00:21:33):
I think that bit is so critical and you've articulated it so well that this is all

(00:21:39):
based on legal precedent which is a historical artifact and goes back to the time

(00:21:44):
again when women and children were viewed as property and then the little bits that

(00:21:49):
judges and that mediators and that other family court participants can fill in they

(00:21:54):
rely on stereotypes and the thing that we see so often

(00:22:01):
is the idea of the crazy woman.

(00:22:03):
And it's so pernicious and, you know, men use it constantly.

(00:22:08):
Oh, my ex was crazy.

(00:22:10):
And it's like this thought terminating cliche that as soon as you say that,

(00:22:14):
no further questioning is required.

(00:22:17):
Talk to me about,

(00:22:18):
I mean,

(00:22:19):
to me,

(00:22:20):
the idea that like women tend to be crazy is just absurd when we compare women's

(00:22:25):
behavior as a group to men's behavior as a group.

(00:22:29):
So how did this idea of the crazy woman take hold and how is it weaponized in family courts?

(00:22:38):
Well, oh gosh, how did it take hold?

(00:22:44):
I think it goes back as far as on as, you know, Burn the Witch days, doesn't it?

(00:22:50):
I don't think it ever went away from there, to be honest.

(00:22:54):
You know, there's...

(00:22:57):
If we really get into it here,

(00:22:59):
I think there has to be a level of honesty about perhaps men's fear or feeling

(00:23:14):
threatened by women's potential.

(00:23:19):
Women's potential, not just as mothers, but the fact that women can create life.

(00:23:27):
And that's where the witch trials started wasn't it because what the men saw was

(00:23:34):
these women who essentially were midwives as you know were saying okay look I've

(00:23:40):
got some ideas here about how I could help you with this birth and if anything went

(00:23:47):
remotely wrong they were considered a witch and they were burned at the stake and

(00:23:53):
so I think this sort of suspicious

(00:23:56):
Attitude towards women has never gone away.

(00:24:02):
And it's sort of still here now within the courts.

(00:24:07):
And the worst thing for me is that the framework of parental alienation is essentially founded

(00:24:17):
upon these misogynistic tropes.

(00:24:21):
So this idea that this woman's an evil witch who has manipulated her child against

(00:24:30):
this loving father.

(00:24:32):
And this is why I always write about how if a child is truly being abused by any

(00:24:39):
parent to a point where they are actively and wrongly

(00:24:46):
Manipulated And Turned Against A Loving Parent That Would Come Under Coercive

(00:24:52):
Control Okay So If A Child Is Being Made To Feel Over Time And Pressured And

(00:25:00):
Dominated And Made To Feel That Something Fearful Will Happen To Them Some

(00:25:06):
Punishment Will Happen To Them If They Go Against The Parent And

(00:25:14):
In that situation I would class that as coercive control but the difference between

(00:25:20):
coercive control and parental alienation is quite specific so if I give you some

(00:25:28):
examples so for example with parental alienation right they believe that those

(00:25:37):
advocates believe that this relationship

(00:25:43):
was originally wonderful between the child and the dad,

(00:25:47):
okay,

(00:25:47):
because it's generally used against mums.

(00:25:52):
So the alienationists believe the child had a wonderful loving relationship with

(00:25:58):
dad and all the issues only began after the parental separation.

(00:26:04):
Now what you will find

(00:26:07):
is when you look into that history,

(00:26:10):
the history of the family,

(00:26:11):
the mum can usually evidence that the child and mum have been abused for years and

(00:26:17):
years and years.

(00:26:18):
So it's not that they've just suddenly turned around for no reason and said to this

(00:26:23):
wonderful father,

(00:26:26):
we don't want to see you anymore.

(00:26:28):
There will be a deep history of abusive behaviour.

(00:26:33):
So while parental alienation alleges that

(00:26:38):
This sudden change in the child began at the point of separation.

(00:26:44):
Coercive control would acknowledge that if there was serious abuse going on,

(00:26:52):
it would have happened long before the relationship ended.

(00:26:58):
Another thing about parental alienation is it obscures and diminishes,

(00:27:03):
as I said at the beginning,

(00:27:06):
the historical events that lead to the child rejecting the parent.

(00:27:11):
So because it says this is sudden and it's post separation,

(00:27:17):
it's obscuring all that previous detail.

(00:27:23):
And CCB,

(00:27:24):
so Coercive Control Frameworks,

(00:27:27):
they centre what is both historical and present,

(00:27:31):
so what abuse is still happening now,

(00:27:35):
and

(00:27:36):
What risk might there be to the child if they maintain contact with this parent?

(00:27:46):
The other thing to consider within all of this is that when a mum and a child say

(00:27:54):
to the court,

(00:27:55):
my child is being abused,

(00:27:58):
legally it's on the mother's

(00:28:01):
to prove that abuse so whoever raises the abuse it's on them to prove that abuse is

(00:28:07):
happening now when they can't prove and we know how hard it is unless you've been

(00:28:15):
diarising and monitoring and writing down or every bit of your abuse for the last

(00:28:22):
10 to 15 years well how do most how can you go about demonstrating that you've been

(00:28:27):
coercively controlled it's extremely difficult to do

(00:28:32):
Which is why we advise people, you know, keep diaries.

(00:28:34):
But again, can you do that safely?

(00:28:36):
How do you do that safely?

(00:28:39):
But the point I'm getting at is when a mother and a child cannot prove that they've

(00:28:50):
been abused,

(00:28:52):
the court then turns the fact that they even reported abuse...

(00:28:59):
into an indicator of harm.

(00:29:02):
So they badge the mum and child's disclosure as harmful, as emotional harm.

(00:29:11):
That is a huge leap to take,

(00:29:14):
you know,

(00:29:15):
and that is when you see the courts turn and they start going down the road of

(00:29:19):
false allegations and these false allegations,

(00:29:23):
which,

(00:29:23):
which

(00:29:24):
Again,

(00:29:25):
it's fed into by,

(00:29:26):
oh gosh,

(00:29:27):
there's such a huge history here,

(00:29:28):
Zorn,

(00:29:29):
which I'm sure you're very familiar with.

(00:29:30):
But if we talk some more about the history and where did all this come from,

(00:29:36):
it came from the false memory movement.

(00:29:39):
So the false memory movement,

(00:29:42):
I don't want to talk in too much depth,

(00:29:45):
but in a very brief nutshell,

(00:29:49):
there is a wonderful story.

(00:29:51):
Professor, who I'm sure you've heard of, called Jennifer Freed.

(00:29:56):
And she's written about this publicly, so I'm not breaching any confidence.

(00:30:01):
She was abused by her parents.

(00:30:04):
And when she reported that,

(00:30:06):
so she was abused as a child,

(00:30:08):
and when she reported that,

(00:30:11):
her mum and dad founded,

(00:30:13):
in response,

(00:30:14):
the false memory movement.

(00:30:19):
Okay?

(00:30:20):
So essentially, to deny their child's allegations, they said, oh, she's got false memories.

(00:30:28):
Now,

(00:30:30):
the false memory movement has been harnessed by Jeffrey Epstein,

(00:30:34):
and in fact,

(00:30:35):
one of the most prolific false memory activists,

(00:30:42):
advocates,

(00:30:43):
whatever you wish to call them,

(00:30:46):
was called upon in Epstein's original...

(00:30:50):
trial by Ghislaine Maxwell's team.

(00:30:55):
So this is massive.

(00:30:58):
The tentacles of this awful, awful movement are huge.

(00:31:03):
From the false memory movement came Dr Richard Gardner and he then developed

(00:31:10):
parental alienation syndrome.

(00:31:12):
So the idea that, again,

(00:31:15):
Mums Planted These False Memories Into The Child's Mind Or Otherwise Convince The

(00:31:21):
Child That They've Been Abused When They Haven't Been So It All Comes From The Same

(00:31:26):
Extremely Murky Background And If You Look Deep Into Richard Gardner's Work If You

(00:31:33):
Can Stomach It He Writes In His Books About How Children Seduce Their Fathers From

(00:31:45):
Zawn Villines

(00:32:15):
to say mum is crazy the child's been brainwashed and you know the tentacles to this

(00:32:24):
are so far itching it is so dark but another tentacle of this is Richard Gardner

(00:32:33):
was the psychiatrist called into Mia Farrow her private law case so

(00:32:43):
Mia Farrow is Woody Allen's ex-wife as you may well know and their daughter

(00:32:51):
reported that her dad Woody Allen was sexually abusing her so he got in Richard

(00:32:58):
Gardner to defend her dad and say that Mia Farrow had brainwashed her daughter

(00:33:06):
Mia Farrow's daughter stands by those claims to this day and she's an adult woman

(00:33:10):
and you can google all of this and you can watch some fantastic videos Richard

(00:33:16):
Gardner also testified for Michael Jackson against the children who disclosed about

(00:33:24):
Michael Jackson so it's not just that these myths and tropes in society have been

(00:33:30):
harnessed the theories that

(00:33:36):
have been built on these myths and tropes and they feed back into the myths and tropes.

(00:33:45):
And until we get rid of these myths and tropes and these misogynistic and pseudo

(00:33:52):
scientific fake science theories,

(00:33:55):
we're going to keep seeing this happen to women because they are the ultimate

(00:33:59):
weapons of the patriarchy.

(00:34:02):
She's mad, bad, crazy.

(00:34:05):
She's making it up.

(00:34:06):
She's manipulative.

(00:34:08):
You know, it's so easy for people to buy into because they're so used to hearing those tropes.

(00:34:15):
It's awful.

(00:34:16):
Yeah,

(00:34:17):
I think that's a really important point is that this isn't an accident that these

(00:34:22):
ideas were invented for a reason and the deliberate purpose is oppressing and

(00:34:26):
controlling women and by extension children.

(00:34:29):
So I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about something that you've written

(00:34:34):
and talked about a little bit and that I have too,

(00:34:37):
that I think can be challenging to talk about in advocacy spaces,

(00:34:41):
which is that abused women do not typically act like perfect victims.

(00:34:47):
And they often do not act like what we think they should act like.

(00:34:53):
When I first started working with victim survivors,

(00:34:57):
you know,

(00:34:57):
I'm ashamed to admit now,

(00:34:59):
but I think it's also important to admit so that other people can kind of

(00:35:02):
understand how these things go.

(00:35:05):
I would get really frustrated and angry with them because what would happen is they

(00:35:11):
would not be able to give,

(00:35:14):
I'll give some examples,

(00:35:14):
they would not be able to give a succinct statement about the abuse.

(00:35:18):
They'd talk around the issue, you know, rather than saying,

(00:35:21):
My Husband Punched Me In The Face, they'd say, I got hurt during an argument.

(00:35:25):
You know,

(00:35:26):
rather than saying their husband was a child molester,

(00:35:29):
they'd say,

(00:35:29):
well,

(00:35:29):
some bad things happened.

(00:35:32):
They'd also often look for reasons that their husband meant well.

(00:35:37):
You know, it was just an accident.

(00:35:39):
He's so nice.

(00:35:40):
Not because they wanted to be abused or they wanted their children to be abused,

(00:35:43):
but because accepting that this person doesn't love you and wants to hurt you

(00:35:49):
is incredibly hard and painful.

(00:35:52):
You know, they would often make decisions that undermined them in court.

(00:35:57):
They'd go back to their abuser or they would, you know, give an excuse for the abuser.

(00:36:02):
They'd bake an excuse for the abuser into what they said to the court.

(00:36:06):
Like, well, you know, our child is really difficult.

(00:36:09):
And I found this so, so frustrating.

(00:36:13):
And what I realized over time is that these behaviors

(00:36:17):
are actually symptoms of the abuse.

(00:36:19):
But in court, we treat them as evidence that the abuse is not happening.

(00:36:24):
Can you talk a little about that?

(00:36:27):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:36:29):
So I'm rereading Don Hennessy at the moment.

(00:36:34):
I don't know if you've read his work.

(00:36:37):
He's absolutely wonderful.

(00:36:40):
And he's worked with

(00:36:42):
Perpetrators and Victim Survivors for many many years and what he talks about is

(00:36:51):
about how these perpetrators get into the minds of victims so one thing he says

(00:36:59):
quite prominently all the time is that the reason we can't stop abuse is because

(00:37:08):
the language of abuse is

(00:37:11):
is controlled and dominated by the perpetrator so as you've just said Zawn you know

(00:37:18):
these women have been controlled and manipulated for so many years into not just

(00:37:29):
being abused but into questioning their own behaviour you know controlled into

(00:37:36):
believing that he only was violent because he was drunk

(00:37:41):
Or because she didn't make the tea on time These are all reasons and language that

(00:37:49):
the perpetrator has given to her And she's got so used to embedding that into her

(00:37:58):
own narrative Her own internal narrative of herself and the relationship And also,

(00:38:04):
as I've written about

(00:38:07):
Most victims believe they are in a genuinely loving relationship and most victims

(00:38:15):
don't know they're being abused especially for women who got into an abusive

(00:38:25):
relationship when they were younger if you haven't known any other type of

(00:38:30):
relationship how do you know that you're being abused?

(00:38:35):
How do you have the language to describe that?

(00:38:40):
And it's really,

(00:38:41):
really important that you don't disempower women and tell them how to feel about

(00:38:52):
things that have happened or tell them what they should believe.

(00:38:57):
But at the same time, as long as we keep using the language of the perpetrators...

(00:39:05):
And focusing on how abuse is described by perpetrators and by proxy victim

(00:39:13):
survivors who have used that language because that's what they're used to.

(00:39:18):
We'll never get to be able to challenge it.

(00:39:22):
So it's really, really difficult.

(00:39:27):
Something else Don Hennessy talks about a lot is...

(00:39:33):
again these ideas of myths and tropes and I want to take a slightly different angle

(00:39:39):
here to what I was saying before so it's not just negative tropes about women it's

(00:39:47):
the positives as well so I say positive tropes but okay less negative tropes if you

(00:39:54):
like so gendered expectations so in one of his chapters he talks about

(00:40:01):
how a father justified to the family court judge that he hit his wife because he'd

(00:40:10):
been to work for 12 hours and when he got home his supper wasn't on the table and

(00:40:18):
that was her role that's what he told the court my role is to work hers is to make

(00:40:23):
sure that the tea's on the table and she didn't do that that won him custody of the

(00:40:29):
children

(00:40:31):
Because the judge thought, well, that's a reasonable expectation by the father.

(00:40:37):
So this gendered expectation of the mother lost her children.

(00:40:44):
So this is what I talk about when I say anything a woman does is used against her.

(00:40:50):
There is no perfect victim.

(00:40:53):
You're either too fat, too thin, too ugly, too intelligent, you know...

(00:40:59):
Too White Too Brown There is always a reason for people to hate on women and this

(00:41:08):
might be uncomfortable for a lot of people but some of the most misogynistic people

(00:41:13):
I've ever met have been women and this is the grand trap isn't it the grand trap of

(00:41:21):
the patriarchy that they've managed to play us all off against each other

(00:41:26):
out of self-protection out of competition out of safety whatever the reasons

(00:41:33):
they've managed to pause players all off against each other and some of the worst

(00:41:38):
judges I've come across have been female judges as well and I always quote this

(00:41:46):
study called the Gender Social Norm Index right and this is a global study and it's

(00:41:52):
done every few years on

(00:41:55):
HUNDREDS OF COUNTRIES ACROSS THE WORLD AND EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY DO THIS STUDY

(00:42:00):
THEY FIND THE SAME THING FROM THOUSANDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD

(00:42:05):
THAT NINE OUT OF EVERY TEN MEN AND WOMEN ARE BIASED AGAINST WOMEN THAT IS MISOGYNY

(00:42:16):
AT A GLOBAL SCALE HOW DO WE GET TO GRIPS WITH THAT AND UNTIL WE DO GET TO GRIPS

(00:42:21):
WITH THAT HOW ARE WE GOING TO

(00:42:25):
Let Women Speak And More Importantly Hear Them When They Do Speak Without Judging

(00:42:31):
Them Yeah Absolutely So Something I Was Digging Through Your Substack Today And I

(00:42:39):
Was Heartened To See That You're Writing A Lot About Child Sexual Abuse And You

(00:42:45):
Know I Think Probably Like Most People For Most Of My Life I Knew That Rape Was

(00:42:51):
Common And That Sexual Violence Was Common

(00:42:54):
But I thought that pedophilia was fairly uncommon,

(00:42:57):
you know,

(00:42:58):
more common than people are willing to admit.

(00:43:00):
But, you know, like if I went out in a day, I was unlikely to encounter a pedophile.

(00:43:06):
But what I've encountered in recent years in my work with women is a stunning

(00:43:12):
number who married men who are,

(00:43:15):
in fact,

(00:43:16):
pedophiles,

(00:43:16):
who are caught looking at child sexual assault material,

(00:43:19):
who molest their children,

(00:43:20):
who admit to pedophiliic beliefs.

(00:43:24):
And the research supports that, you know, these women aren't outliers.

(00:43:29):
There was a study that just came out that found that one in six Australian men are

(00:43:34):
being attracted to children.

(00:43:36):
And, you know, you've been writing about and doing the research on this.

(00:43:40):
And I just wonder if you could speak a little bit about how common that really is

(00:43:47):
and the myth that it's,

(00:43:48):
you know,

(00:43:48):
deranged lunatics that we would just immediately notice.

(00:43:52):
Yeah, it's really, really common.

(00:43:55):
And so,

(00:43:56):
for example,

(00:43:56):
if we think about the UK,

(00:43:59):
right,

(00:43:59):
so in that study you've just referenced,

(00:44:04):
they estimated that 840,000 predominantly males pose some degree of sexual risk to

(00:44:16):
children just in the UK.

(00:44:20):
So that's nearly, you know,

(00:44:22):
A Million Male Predators Child Predators Walking Amongst Us Now Again In The UK

(00:44:35):
Children Make Up 20% Of The Population But They're Actually 40% 40% Of All Victims

(00:44:46):
Of Sexual Offences Now Something Else That's Happening Zawn

(00:44:51):
which we can't ignore and we mustn't is children are themselves becoming child sex

(00:45:00):
abusers and that is because in part of the internet but it's because of toxic

(00:45:11):
masculinity in the manosphere so

(00:45:15):
You'll get teachers,

(00:45:16):
countless reports of teachers now,

(00:45:19):
droves and droves of women teachers leaving the profession all over the world

(00:45:24):
saying,

(00:45:24):
I can't cope anymore.

(00:45:26):
You know,

(00:45:26):
I've got boys at school mimicking,

(00:45:31):
raping me,

(00:45:33):
creating nudes,

(00:45:35):
you know,

(00:45:35):
CSAM,

(00:45:36):
downloading child sexual abuse material.

(00:45:39):
It's out of control.

(00:45:42):
And...

(00:45:44):
The fact that 840,000 men will admit that they've got a sexual interest in

(00:45:52):
children,

(00:45:53):
doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?

(00:45:56):
That they know there's no punishment.

(00:46:00):
If you look through,

(00:46:01):
if you look through any of the criminal justice proceedings in terms of child

(00:46:10):
sexual abuse,

(00:46:11):
right,

(00:46:12):
at the moment,

(00:46:14):
Globally,

(00:46:15):
you'll see that these child sexual abuse offenders,

(00:46:22):
they get like nine months to one year's maximum for downloading millions of images

(00:46:29):
of children,

(00:46:29):
babies,

(00:46:31):
you know,

(00:46:31):
heinous sexual abuse acts towards children.

(00:46:35):
So what message is that sending these perpetrators?

(00:46:39):
It sends the message, it's fine, we're not really bothered.

(00:46:43):
Zna Zna Zna Zna

(00:47:14):
where does that leave us as women mothers children where does that leave us if

(00:47:21):
child sexual abuse is so prevalent now it's so life that we just simply do not have

(00:47:29):
the space to lock everybody up well we need different solutions don't we and I

(00:47:34):
think for me one of the core solutions is which people have been trying to do for

(00:47:39):
years and years and years we also have the

(00:47:44):
Rising Online Exploitation Of Children Getting Children To Take Pictures Of

(00:47:51):
Themselves And Then Blackmailing Them Those I Mean Goodness Me The Website That Was

(00:47:58):
Uncovered Recently That I Know Was On CNN In The US And It Was Also On Channel 4

(00:48:03):
News About The Millions Of Men Going To The Website Where Men Are Drugging Their

(00:48:11):
Wives And Raping Them While They're Asleep

(00:48:14):
Okay,

(00:48:14):
so as we're kind of like wrapping things up,

(00:48:18):
you know,

(00:48:19):
I believe,

(00:48:20):
and I know you believe,

(00:48:21):
that there are not really individual solutions to political problems,

(00:48:25):
and we have to make a lot of systemic changes for women and children to be safe.

(00:48:30):
But at the same time,

(00:48:32):
you know,

(00:48:32):
I know we all have this impulse to look into,

(00:48:35):
okay,

(00:48:36):
but what can people as individuals do to protect themselves?

(00:48:40):
So-

(00:48:41):
I mean, personally...

(00:49:12):
What I would say is,

(00:49:14):
which I say to everybody who asks me,

(00:49:19):
if you can keep your child to a level of safety that you do not need to go anywhere

(00:49:29):
near the family courts,

(00:49:32):
I would absolutely advise that.

(00:49:35):
The family courts is not a place of safety or protection.

(00:49:40):
It just is not.

(00:49:42):
and I'm not going to lie to people and say oh you might be okay if you do this or

(00:49:49):
these systems were built by men for men they're not trauma informed they're not

(00:49:55):
abuse informed and finding a lawyer and a gal a guardian ad litem or a custody

(00:50:05):
evaluator finding people who understand abuse and trauma is like looking for a

(00:50:10):
needle in a haystack

(00:50:12):
That is slightly changing through training Very good training that's happening

(00:50:18):
Especially via groups like National Safe Parents And Professor Joan Mayer's group

(00:50:26):
at George Washington So that's my first advice If you can stay away from the family

(00:50:34):
courts Stay the hell away from them

(00:50:38):
If you have to go to the family courts if you really feel you have to go to the

(00:50:44):
family courts be prepared with everything that I've told you today be prepared to

(00:50:53):
be cast as a crazy hysterical lunatic and the way you can counter that and this is

(00:51:02):
not legal advice because I'm not a lawyer but the way you can best counter that

(00:51:08):
is to make sure there is as much of a support network around you as is humanly possible.

(00:51:16):
When I say support network,

(00:51:20):
having a family court case is akin to having an extra full-time job and I've

(00:51:27):
written about this in one of my substacks about the invisible labour of family

(00:51:32):
court.

(00:51:33):
It is a whole job in itself.

(00:51:36):
and the reason I'm doing more research on this is because so many mums talk to me

(00:51:41):
about it so get yourself a strong support network or tap into one that exists

(00:51:49):
around these groups so peer support groups if you can there are lots popping up all

(00:51:57):
over the place now lots of fantastic ones I can certainly share some with you tap

(00:52:02):
into those support networks to allow yourself

(00:52:06):
The Time To Rest The Time To Prepare And The Time To Enable You To Get To A Point

(00:52:14):
Where You Can Flick To Whatever Evidence You Need Exactly When You Need It Be As

(00:52:21):
Organised As You Possibly Can Record Everything Try And Keep Communication

(00:52:29):
As Minimal With An Abuser As Possible Keep It Direct Keep It Short Do Not Engage In

(00:52:36):
Emotional Wars Or You Know If You Can Possibly Limit Contact As Much As You Can If

(00:52:51):
You Do Have The Money If You Have The Money

(00:52:55):
Get Representation But when I say Representation Please,

(00:53:00):
please Do your research Via Google Or whatever means you have Do not Make the

(00:53:07):
mistake Of thinking Every single lawyer Understands abuse And understands trauma

(00:53:12):
Because they don't Even if it says on their website I'm 100% abuse informed You

(00:53:19):
want to see references You want to speak to other people Who've had this person as

(00:53:24):
a lawyer

(00:53:25):
You need to be sure that this person really understands what they're doing If you

(00:53:32):
can't afford a lawyer it might be that you go to a family court strategist So a

(00:53:42):
super one I know is called Caitlin Jorgensen or Jorgensen

(00:53:49):
and I can send you her details.

(00:53:52):
She's a family court strategist.

(00:53:54):
Yeah, I love Caitlin.

(00:53:55):
I had her on the post about two years ago.

(00:53:57):
Oh, wow!

(00:53:59):
She's fantastic.

(00:54:00):
She's really great.

(00:54:02):
So she teaches people how to reframe statements you make when you're in court.

(00:54:10):
So she makes statements less emotionally charged.

(00:54:15):
And she makes it so that the statements are more about emphasising the

(00:54:23):
perpetrator's behaviour than about the harm that's done to you because I hate to

(00:54:27):
say this but I need to be blunt the courts do not care about the harm caused to you

(00:54:32):
as a mum and a lot of the time they don't care about the harm caused to the child

(00:54:39):
what they do care about is

(00:54:43):
The Evidence In Front Of Them And If You Can Show Them Look Every Time I Try To

(00:54:51):
Make An Arrangement With This Person This Is What They Do So Caitlin Is Fantastic

(00:54:57):
At That Helping You To Strategize And Organize How You Speak In A Court How You

(00:55:03):
Present In A Court Again If You Can't Afford A Strategist

(00:55:10):
There are new people,

(00:55:11):
a wonderful woman called Jenny Loner,

(00:55:14):
who I presented with at the International Conference of Coercive Control a couple

(00:55:18):
of weeks ago.

(00:55:20):
Now what she does is just organise all your paperwork for you.

(00:55:25):
So if you can,

(00:55:27):
again,

(00:55:28):
if you can't pay someone to do that,

(00:55:31):
can you get a friend to help you with that?

(00:55:34):
This is really highly charged information.

(00:55:37):
It's about your child and it's going to be extremely triggering because you're

(00:55:42):
reliving all your abusive circumstances and situations every time you go and speak

(00:55:49):
to a new professional or every time you go to the courtroom.

(00:55:53):
So can you get someone to help you with the paperwork?

(00:55:57):
Get organised.

(00:55:59):
And I think the best advice I could give

(00:56:06):
is just keep reminding yourself every single day what an amazing mother you are and

(00:56:14):
what you've come through to get this far and look how well your child is doing how

(00:56:21):
safe they are and be proud of yourself you know because every mum that I speak to

(00:56:28):
in my research studies

(00:56:30):
There's so much self blame there and so whenever I interview mums I always make

(00:56:35):
sure I finish the interviews by getting them to tell me about wonderful things

(00:56:40):
they've done about things that they're proud of because there's so much for them to

(00:56:45):
be proud of Zawn and I have to hold my hands up and say I know a lot of what I've

(00:56:50):
written at the moment is about criticising the systems and that's what I do I'm a

(00:56:55):
critical researcher but I will be writing more

(00:56:59):
I love that, that's wonderful advice and that's a great place to leave it.

(00:57:03):
Elizabeth thank you so much for coming on the podcast you're doing such incredible

(00:57:06):
work and I'm just grateful to see you out in the world.

(00:57:28):
Thank you so much and your work is amazing Zawn and that it's actually been such a

(00:57:34):
huge honour for me I'm so so grateful to be here so thank you so much Well it's

(00:57:39):
just been wonderful and thank you again listeners I will be back next week and I

(00:57:44):
will put all of Elizabeth's information in the show notes so please check her out

(00:57:48):
check out herSubstack and you'll hear from me again soon