Happy . . . Thursday!

I’m out and about tomorrow, so your regular Friday Bluestocking is arriving a day early. Here is my pick of the week’s best reads, plus (as ever) some shameless self-promotion.

It’s my 150th edition next time, so I want to address an issue which shouldn’t preoccupy me, but does. When Twitter is so awful, why can’t I quit it cold turkey? If you have thoughts, hit “reply”.

Helen

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What About The Domestic Violence Victims Who Won’t Leave (Atlantic, by me)

These efforts are based around the same assumption: that victims leave. But only 30 percent of domestic-violence survivors who seek help use a refuge, according to the Labour lawmaker Jess Phillips, drawing on figures from the charity SafeLives. “Most women don’t think their partners are beyond redemption,” she told me. But those who stay—the majority—get very little support, as do their partners. Britain’s biggest charity working with perpetrators, Respect, has an annual income of £1.5 million, a tenth of the income of the biggest women’s charity in the sector, Refuge. In most cases of domestic violence, the state offers victims a menu with only one option. If they don’t take it, they’re on their own.

This week, I revisited a question that has fascinated me since writing the Erin Pizzey chapter of Difficult Women: can violent men be changed? One of my interviewees, Emily Alison, is doing exciting work on perpetrator programmes, and on helping women keep custody of their children (which they might lose if they expose the kids to a dangerous environment, ie their partners).

Domestic violence is a murkier topic than we might like to admit: it would be easier if every abused woman (and man) upped and left at the first sign of coercive control or the first slap or punch. They don’t. So what then?

The Donald Trump Interview

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See you next time!