Life and Soul of the Party?

Dave Coull · Life and Soul of the Party?

McDougall regularly posts stuff here about how all women are bad and all men are saints. Which isn't true. Only some women are bad, and only some men are saints. Anyway, while I was in a cafe the other day, and reading a paper provided for customers, a paper which I wouldn't normally read, mind you, I saw an interesting article which gives an alternative perspective from MacDougall's. Me posting this article here does not mean that I am in full agreement with everything it says, just that I think it's interesting and could be worth discussing.

********************************************************

I can spot the men who abuse women ... they're the life and soul of the party

By SHARON HENDRY

Published in the Sun, Monday 17 Nov 2008

SANDRA HORLEY has an unusual dinner party trick – it can save lives.
As chief executive of the charity Refuge, she has campaigned against domestic violence for 30 years.

So it is no surprise the mother-of-one has learned a thing or two.

And Sandra, 56, reckons she can spot a male abuser within seconds.

She said: “After leaving a party, I sometimes reflect on the people and tell my husband if I think there was an abuser in our midst.

“Every time I’ve been proved right.”

This month Sandra will receive the Ultimate Woman’s Woman award at the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women Of The Year Awards 2008.

But how can she be so sure she has a monster in her sights?

She said: “Men with a tendency to abuse women are usually the life and soul of the party — the outgoing man who loves to be the centre of attention.

“Often their partner will change their behaviour in front of them and become submissive and timid.

“These are early warning signs. Men who abuse women can alternate quickly between rage and charm.

“Domestic violence has a pattern — it’s purposeful behaviour designed to control women. Abusers are jealous and possessive and systematically isolate and humiliate women.

“Domestic violence isn’t always about physical abuse. Emotional abuse can be just as devastating.

“It isn’t an individual problem, it is a major social problem and against the law. Violence is a learned behaviour pattern and the good news is what is learned can be unlearned.

“Men who abuse women can change but they have to want to change.”

Sandra, originally from Ontario, began her crusade on behalf of Britain’s battered women after winning a scholarship at Oxford.

She said: “I wanted to do something worthwhile when I wasn’t studying, so I applied for a job as director at a project in Wolverhampton for the homeless and for abused women. I stayed for five years.

“My mother had suffered from severe post-natal depression and couldn’t cope with the strain of raising children, so I had to leave home at 15 and I knew how it felt to be alone and poor.”

Sandra’s desire to improve women’s lives eventually led her to a groundbreaking women’s project in London called Chiswick Family Rescue.

It was in a house which she describes as “straight out of Dickens”.

She recalled: “It was desperately squalid and overcrowded and 150 abused women and children were sleeping head-to-toe.

“There were just two paid workers, including myself, and we were patching up horrific wounds every day.

“But in spite of all that, the women preferred to stay there rather than be beaten. In those days the police weren’t providing protection — it’s ‘just a domestic’ they would say — so for many it was their only escape.”

It was a letter to Princess Diana in 1993 which took Sandra’s work to another level.

She says: “Someone suggested I write to her about the plight of abused women and almost immediately she pledged her help. Because of that, I was able to launch Refuge.

“We now have 41 refuges where women and children can live safely while fleeing a violent man.

“We also provide court-based advocates for women who find the courage to prosecute their partners.

“We offer services for black and minority women and psychological support for traumatised women and kids.”

Sandra is responsible for raising the staggering £10,000 a day which keeps Refuge afloat. But she says it is the courage of the women she has met which keeps her focused.

“You never ever forget the women in this,” she said.

"Two a week are killed by a violent partner and ten commit suicide every week because of domestic violence.”

Sandra said many of the cases were almost unbearable.

She said: “There was the gentle, wheelchair-bound lady whose husband beat her to a pulp.

“Then there was the midwife who was breast-feeding her baby when her husband flew into a rage demanding she leave the baby and get his dinner. She put her hand up to defend their child and he broke her arm in three places.

“And there was the woman who needed 250 stitches in her face after her husband attacked her with a hammer and chisel.

“I couldn’t have done the work for all these years without the support of my husband, Julian Nieman, and my lovely daughter Sam.”

Sandra’s work led her to form a working friendship with Sheryl Gascoigne, after she left her violent relationship with footballing legend Paul.

Sandra said: “Sheryl wanted to know how she could help and I gave her some personal support. With hindsight, the early warning signs were there.

“Like many abusers, he was the life and soul of the party. He was also a romantic, putting Sheryl on a pedestal.

“Then, when she made a commitment to him, the systematic abuse began.

“The only predictable thing about abusers is their unpredictability. Like so many abused women, Sheryl was walking on eggshells for years.”

Sandra believes one of the biggest breakthroughs has been the change in police attitudes. “I first approached the Metropolitan Police in 1985 and succeeded in encouraging them to adopt a rigorous arrest-and-charge policy.

“In 1987, the Home Office issued a directive advising police to treat domestic violence as seriously as any other violent crime.”

In 2004, the Domestic Violence, Crime And Victims Act was passed, strengthening protection for abused partners and children.

Sandra is as committed to changing attitudes today as she was 30 years ago.

She insisted: “Domestic violence is a serious crime at the root of many social problems. It is about control.

“Refuges are only a partial solution — we need to prevent the problem through education and training.”

(If you would like to support Refuge, donate online at refuge.org.uk)

Dave Coull · Re: Life and Soul of the Party?

What, no comment from anybody? Not even from McDougall? Oh, okay, then, I'll start. It may be true that Sandra Horley saves lives, but I'm not sure about the claim that "she can spot a male abuser within seconds" just because he is "the life and soul of the party".

Now, I don't think I've ever been the life and soul of any party, but my father was. Or rather, he and my mother jointly were. The reason was quite simple. My father played the piano. He never learned to read a single note of music, he played by ear, and his playing was entirely self-taught. But he could play any traditional Scottish tune, or any tune in the hit parade of the day, in fact, he could play any tune at all, in a jangly, pub-piano sort of way. And if somebody asked him to play a tune he didn't know, he would say "just start singing it, and I'll join in". And he did. He would listen to the tune, and join in, accompanying the singer on a tune he had never heard before. As for my mother, while dad was sitting at the piano, she would be encouraging potential singers not to be bashful about coming forward. She had her own speciality which consisted of her singing "I Belang Tae Glesga", not just the song itself but the complete Will Fyffe monologue, and she did the actions too, staggering around with a bottle in her hand while she recited and sang. They did this sort of thing virtually every Saturday night at our local pub. Dad didn't get paid for playing, but folk did buy him nips. And towards the end of most Saturday evenings somebody would suggest getting a kerry-oot and going round to the Coull household to continue the party. Dad had a piano at home.

Now, the point is, although my dad was in one sense the life and soul of the party, I know for certain he didn't abuse mum. And the worst abuse us kids had to put up with was a party at our house most Saturday nights. I can feel very nostalgic about that, but one thing I do NOT miss is the cigarette smoke. People just took the cigarette smoke for granted in those days.

So, I think it could be dangerous to generalise about anybody who is the-life-and-soul-of-the-party automatically being an abuser. Apart from anything else, it could mean that there would never BE any parties, because everybody would be being really reserved, because they would be thinking "I mustn't look like the life and soul of the party or folk will think I'm an abuser"!

Having said that, it is possible that Sharon Hendry could have a point about a certain WAY of being the-life-and-soul-of-the-party. My father played the piano because folk asked him to. And even when my mother was staggering around with her bottle, bumping into people, doing her "I Belang Tae Glasga" routine, she wasn't aggressive, it was just a laugh. But there are folk whose style of being the life-and-soul-of-the-party is different. When I was in England, at one time there was a guy called Derek who worked on a building site with us, and everybody said that he was a real life-and-soul-of-the-party type. He was always laughing, always taking the mickey, always clowning around at work, and he would be the first to suggest heading for the pub, and he would be the centre of attention in the pub, and at any party after the pub. He seemed like a fun guy. Then, without any indication that anything was wrong, as far as his workmates were concerned, one morning his sixteen year old daughter found him hanging from the ceiling at home with a noose around his neck. Now, I am not going to speculate about what led up to this, but it seems clear that, while Derek may have been the life and soul of the party, things were not right in his home life.

So while saying that it is dangerous to generalise too much, it's possible there could also be cases where Sandra Horley's observation holds true.

Holebender

You have to bear in mind that this is a newspaper report, and newspaper reports tend to generalise. I'm sure Sandra Horley uses far more subtle indicators than simply being the life and sole of a party to decide whether or not a man is an abuser, but newspapers won't go into them all.

azzuri

....does seem a bit like a strong view. Sounds very nazi-esque, being able to profile people based on them being; a) Male, and b) the center of attention.

Life and Soul of the Party?

Re: Life and Soul of the Party?