Erin Pizzey opened the world's first domestic violence refuge for women, exactly 50 years ago.

Looking back, her story is one of two halfs. The first is one of admiration, love, compassion and praise, and the other is one of vilification, fear, ostracization and violence.

It was Erin's brave advocacy for abused men that separated the two.

She refused to see domestic violence as a gendered crime, as her experience both personally and within the refuge taught her that men were equally affected by domestic abuse as women were.

It was at this point that the admiration stopped. And Erin was put in the firing line of public condemnation, outrage, harassment and ultimately, bomb threats.

But she's still here, 50 years on, with the same ideas, the same bravery and the same story.

So let's share it.

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Buy Erin's book here

Music: Art of Silence by Uniq

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