WBD681 Audio Transcription
Bitcoin as a Tool to Escape Abuse with Linda Parker & Maddison Clyne
Release date: Monday 10th July
Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Linda Parker & Maddison Clyne. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.
Linda Parker is CEO and Maddison Clyne is an Associate Director for Women in Distress. In this interview, we discuss their work aiding survivors of domestic violence and their interest in Bitcoin as a means of financial empowerment. They talk about the rise in domestic violence during the pandemic, the challenges faced by survivors, and the importance of education.
“The average person I would say doesn’t know about wallets or cold storage…but if we hit that in prevention and teach them, and empower them to own their money, control their lives; if you have that mindset, that’s hard to break.”
— Maddison Clyne
Interview Transcription
Peter McCormack: Good morning, Linda, good morning, Madison, how are you both?
Maddison Clyne: Good morning, doing well, thank you.
Linda Parker: Good, thank you for having us.
Peter McCormack: Yeah finally got to do this. How long ago was it you reached out to me?
Linda Parker: Probably back in January, I think.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so it's been a while, but I knew I wanted to do it in person. We prefer to do interviews in person --
Linda Parker: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Peter McCormack: -- because it's better to sit and have a closer relationship with somebody to understand things they're talking about. Over Zoom, we find it's a bit rubbish. But why did you reach out to me?
Maddison Clyne: I am a big fan of Bitcoin and I see the future that it holds and what it could do for everyone, but especially our survivors. And I'm trying to grow that part of our business so we can educate people on Bitcoin and how to use it and how to get financially ahead and empower yourself to have control over your financials, but also to raise money and just to create awareness.
Peter McCormack: And who orange-pilled you?
Maddison Clyne: My dad, Josh Fix, he works at River. But it was a few years ago where he was talking about it, talking about it, and then when I really bought in is he showed me one website where if I invested five years ago, where would it be now. And I was like, "Whoa!" So, that's when I bought in, and then I started educating myself, and then it kind of just naturally followed, and I'm in love with it. I think it's awesome.
Peter McCormack: Amazing. And one day you knocked on Linda's door and said, "I need to talk to you about this Bitcoin thing"?
Maddison Clyne: Yes.
Peter McCormack: And you were like, "What are you on about?"
Linda Parker: She came to me and ancillarily I'd heard, but I wasn't really involved. And certainly as a nonprofit, when it comes to donors and things, you want to diversify, right, you want to be able to give things for the long term. And she came to me and said, "So, what if we take in Bitcoin donations?" And I said, "How are we even going to do that? We're not set up to do any of this. I have no idea". And she's like, "Just trust me and I'll take care of it and we'll figure it out". And she's done a great job and really helped us understand the importance of it, but also maybe some long-term points for our survivors and helping them understand, because one of the things that we really want to focus on financial stability.
The market right now for anyone that is -- everyone really, it doesn't matter whether you have a social economic situation or not, is terrible. Finding money to buy a house, it's very much mired in a traditional system of you have credit, you have a percentage of dollars, and then you can buy into a life that everyone else has. And unfortunately, because of the nature of the survivors and what they've been through, it takes them much longer to buy into the life.
Peter McCormack: We will cover all of that. Did you go to the Bitcoin Nerdfest last week?
Linda Parker: I did not.
Peter McCormack: You did not?
Linda Parker: I did not. We had our major event last week.
Peter McCormack: You had yours?
Linda Parker: We had our major event last week.
Peter McCormack: Did it go well?
Linda Parker: It went very well. I think honestly, it was probably a record-breaking event for us.
Peter McCormack: Well, if it doesn't clash next year, we'll get you in Nerdfest, you can come and meet everybody. These are some of the most important shows we make. We make a lot of shows. Naturally people want to hear about the macro economy and how Bitcoin is going to go to the moon and sometimes some of the cool technology, but it's the cool technology which is available to survivors or people in the situations we're going to talk about today which may help them.
One of the things that's come up in the past is particularly in the Middle East, women in the Middle East have a very different situation with regards to banking and their finances and who has control of it, and Bitcoin has often been touted as a technology to help. But it's not just the Middle East where it can help people secure, hide funds and protect themselves. So we're going to get into all of that. Linda, I think it's probably a good starting point just to explain the charity, who it is and what you do.
Linda Parker: So, we are Women In Distress at Broward County, and we are the certified domestic violence centre for Broward. We serve between 3,000 to 6,000 survivors a year in a variety of services. We have a domestic violence shelter that has 136 beds. We have an outreach centre, therapy, we have a pet shelter, you know, we know that survivors won't leave without their pet, so we've created a system for that. So, we are kind of the wraparound service so that when folks are at their lowest in a domestic violence relationship, they can come to us. We have been around -- our 50th anniversary is coming up, so we've been around a long time. And I tell people, I wish I could work myself out of a job. Unfortunately, I just don't think that with human nature being what it is, that that's going to happen anytime soon, but we strive for it every day. And Madison, what's your role at the charity?
Maddison Clyne: The Associate Director of Development. So, I do the events, the annual funds, donor relations, and volunteer relations.
Peter McCormack: Okay, great. Well, hopefully we'll be sending people your direction as well.
Maddison Clyne: I would love that.
Peter McCormack: The work you do, how big an issue is this that we're talking about, specifically here in the county? And then please try to help me understand nationwide how big an issue this is.
Linda Parker: So, I will tell you that one in three women, it used to be one in four, one in three women and one in five men have been in a domestic violence relationship, or they know someone who has been, or their family member was in a domestic violence relationship. For Broward County specifically, we've seen a 22% increase in domestic violence since prior to the pandemic, and it's just increasing.
Peter McCormack: What was that number?
Linda Parker: The 22% increase. I think it's related to a multitude of issues, but COVID really did a number on the psyche of people, and I don't think that we are quite quantifying that in the way we should. I also think that being stuck in one certain area and being unable to escape that area has an impact on the breadth of domestic violence in Broward County. Worldwide, domestic violence has increased to about the same amount 15% to 20% percent. I think some of the scarier things that we're seeing are an increase in the high lethality cases, so cases where we identify it's likely to indicate a death if someone doesn't intervene soon. We've seen an increase in deaths here in Broward County, across the nation. I get a lot of phone calls from press about this situation, this person did something, you know, and killed their spouse, their family member. And we get those much more than we used to. Our crisis line takes about 15,000 calls a year, and now we're taking a call every two minutes.
We also cover this -- Women in Distress is also the holder of the hotline for the state of Florida. So, in addition to our own internal hotline, we also answer the hotline for the entire state of Florida and we're getting bombarded. The problem is growing and we can't seem to get a handle on lowering the numbers, so we're just doing everything we can in terms of prevention, making sure that people know we're here, so when it happens, but also making sure that when we do get folks into a situation, into the shelter, that they have the tools they need to be sustainable.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so one in three women, one in five men. We did have the question on men because we wanted to understand the disparity. That's a lot higher than I expected. Can these situations be mutually abusive?
Linda Parker: They can be.
Peter McCormack: They can be?
Linda Parker: And I tend to look at domestic violence on a spectrum. So not every person is the same type of batterer, and that goes for women and men. And I think that maybe given time, that number is probably more equal than we realise. I think that we often socialise men that domestic violence is something they should internalise and that coming out and speaking out about it makes you weak, and that's not the case at all. And so I think that men are less likely to report or come forward, so I think that number may be higher than even than one in five.
We do see couples that will occasionally have an altercation. For me, that is a lot different than the person who goes from person to person and batters every and every relationship that they're currently in, and we see a lot more of those cases than you might think, because it's a result of something that is not related to a scuffle. If we're married and we have a moment and we're pulled back and forth, that's a domestic issue, but that doesn't mean that necessarily that I'm a domestic abuser long term; we just are in a relationship.
Peter McCormack: Right, it could have been a toxic situation, whereas somebody, it's a personality trait of theirs that they're an abusive person.
Linda Parker: Right, and those folks also tend to have other charges. So, for folks that are multiple batterers, that you might also see other types of assaults, robbery charges, gun charges, drug charges, so things that accompany just negative behaviours in general.
Peter McCormack: Has online dating changed the patterns of this as well because it's potentially made it easier for -- online dating, let's be honest, it's made it easier for men to meet women, because historically it's us who usually want to chat a lady up and it's quite a nerve-wracking thing to do in a bar, but to swipe on a phone is quite easy. Has that contributed to an increase of the problem at all?
Linda Parker: I think so and I think part of that is, even though it's online dating and you know that there's some inherent risk at meeting someone on a swipe, right, I think that we don't do enough to maybe know who we're meeting or where we're meeting, and it's part of what we talk about is, it revolves around dating rules, right? So, meet at a public place, meet here, meet there, but you don't really know enough about a person. And unfortunately or fortunately, that's the direction of dating, , that's where we're going. I don't think it necessarily has to be bad, but I do think that folks need to be cautious and really follow some of the early rules like the meeting in public, not going back to someone's house, not engaging in behaviours that would be considered risky. Not that I would ever blame a victim, but just making safety precautions, just like we safety plan with survivors for their own safety.
Peter McCormack: And that's a that's a problem of imminent danger for somebody maybe who's immediately targeting somebody, but you also have perhaps narcissistic people who over a certain period of time will reel somebody in, and then the pattern of abuse will start.
Linda Parker: Yeah, and that happens much more frequently than the attacks. Florida is a transient state, so we often see folks come down here with a partner and they're following them down here for whatever reason. And then once they get them isolated and away from their family, then the abuse starts. So, we really work very hard, if you come here and this is not your home place. And it's hard to live here because it's expensive, and so you get down here and you don't have something that you're passionate about, you may not have a career, and so you're making $15 an hour, $16 an hour, how do you live in South Florida for that kind of money with a family, with kids?
So, we will send you back to your support system. I would much rather send someone on a plane back to North Carolina, Iowa, New York, wherever, and be surrounded by that support as opposed to staying here and flounder around and try to figure out how to make it work. And additionally, the emotional support is something that they need as well.
Peter McCormack: So, is there a potential that you have people who are in a stressful situation and that's leading them to start displaying signs of being abusive or have abusive actions, but they're not, say, a serial criminal abuser and perhaps you can actually, if you get them into the right environment and stress-free, that may end the toxicity of that relationship? I'm not approving of any negative actions, but is that...
Linda Parker: No, there absolutely is and we understand that in a lot of cases, especially with kiddos, you want to make sure, you want to keep the family unit together. Both the parents want to stay together in some cases, but the relationship has just become, to your point, toxic. So, there are interventions that we have. In fact, one of the things we're working with down here is trying to look at different programmes for folks that are in that situation, because people don't batter. The old kind of methodology was men batter specifically, and it used to be just men; men batter because of the patriarchy, so we raise men to batter, and so we have to stop the patriarchy. Well, I don't really believe that to be true.
I think that just like other parts of your life, people do things because of their social environment, their upbringing, the nature nurture, everything pours into a person. So, to pinpoint it and say, "Well, society is a reason why we create batterers", is a really narrow way of looking at it. And it doesn't take into consideration all of those other factors, like were your parents abusive, so did you see that growing up; was that a normal thing in your household; what are your coping skills? And aside from seeing your parents battered, how were you raised; were you raised in a really toxic environment? All of those things, while one thing may not be the catalyst, all of those things combined pour into the person to likely cause what's going on.
So, you have to take it back to what are those factors that cause you to think that this behaviour is acceptable and what are the triggers for you? And then also working with both partners separately to determine, is this relationship viable; is this something that we're going to be able to do? And then focus on the battering as, this is an unacceptable practice but how do we get you to stop?
Peter McCormack: And so when you start working with families, is there a part where eventually people are realising actually they're being abusive, they don't realise they're being abusive, they're just in a relationship that's toxic, it can be one, the other, both sides; is there a kind of realisation that you can bring people to?
Linda Parker: I think so. I think that for some batterers, the behaviour has gone on long enough. And you know, physical battering isn't the only thing, right? So, sometimes people are very emotional abusive and that is sometimes harder to deal with than the physical abuse, because bruises heal. So, having someone that's manipulative or someone that is toxic, understand that toxicity, sometimes it's a light bulb, right? Same thing for victims.
We have moms and other friends who bring their friends to the centre and say, "She's in an abusive relationship and someone needs to tell her that she's abused", and she's saying to them, "This is normal, this is normal". So, victims often don't know that they're being abused either. And they come in and we kind of have a checkdown list that we go through with them that says, are they controlling your money, are they using you sexually in a way that's not appropriate, you know what I mean, all the way through the list. And probably usually about three-fourths of the way down the list, they get more and more quiet, they start to reflect, they're looking at whoever brought them and they're saying, "You know, maybe this isn't really a good relationship for me".
I think realisation is hard, it's hard for everyone, it's hard for us as people to realise that we've hurt someone. So, that's really what you want, is for the person who's done it to say, "This was bad, my behaviour was unacceptable and I'm going to do whatever to fix it".
Peter McCormack: That questionnaire moment, that reminds me, I saw a film Never Really Sometimes Always, I don't know if you saw that film, but in that film he starts asking her about abuse and she says, "For each of these questions, can you tell me if it's never, rarely, sometimes, always?" a very emotional scene when they work through it. And it felt like the wording of the questioning was to help her realise that she's in a situation she didn't understand.
Linda Parker: That's exactly right. And a lot of times they really don't understand. And if it's gone on for a really long time, or like I said, if it was a relationship that you grew up with in your household, the same applies to the victim. If you grew up in a household where your parent was manipulative to the other parent and that was what you saw, that's what you see and you don't know that it shouldn't be continued today.
Peter McCormack: So, that behaviour.
Linda Parker: Exactly.
Peter McCormack: And with the abuse, if there's abuse towards the parent, is it often abuse towards the children, or can it be separate?
Linda Parker: It can be separate. I know that the Department of Children and Families, it's one of their focal points. Domestic abuse is the number one indicator for children. It's the number one reason Department of Children and Families in Florida go out on scene is domestic abuse, and secondary to that is substance abuse. So, you know, domestic abuse towards kids is problematic for two reasons: (1) it recreates a generational problem; and (2) you never want children to see something in the home that is negative, right?
So, sometimes what happens is a parent will be in a domestic abuse relationship with someone in the house and they continually go back. And the Department of Children and Families looks at that as you're not able to emotionally take care of your child, because you're not looking at their best interest, right? And so sometimes we -- and we have a group that works with those specific families, because those are complicated issues. You're saying to someone, "You're not able to take care of your kids", but in reality, "I can't even take care of myself. So, I don't even have the psychological components to understand that I'm in this relationship and I shouldn't be". The kids end up getting stuck in the middle. Sometimes the batter is not focused on the kids at all. And really the problem is really between the two adults and their inability to communicate or do whatever, and the kids are just randomly there when things are happening.
Peter McCormack: So, with the work you do, Madison, what is the breakdown of support for people in abusive situations versus education; how does the mix work?
Maddison Clyne: I would say that's kind of split. I think we need a lot more education. I think when people think of domestic violence, it's usually negative. There's a lot of victim blaming and not understanding, the deep understanding that you need to have, and that domestic violence isn't just toxic, it's about power and control. And I think that gets very mixed up in people's minds and they don't see why that goes. So, with education, we're getting ahead of that.
So, we have an education and prevention team that goes out to middle schools and high schools and they talk about healthy dating, healthy habits, here are boundaries, here's what you do. And we've had kids come out of that saying, "Oh my gosh, I'm abusive". We just had a boy say, "I didn't realise I was doing this. Me and my girlfriend have broken up since for both of our mental health". Things like that, we need so much of, but then we also need the financial support for now, for the people that we need to get out right now.
Peter McCormack: So, coercion is a big part of abuse as well. Actually, in the UK that is now a crime, you can be prosecuted. There was a comedian, a leading comedian, very successful career, came out, he was very coercive towards his girlfriend or wife I can't remember. I'm not sure if he went to jail for it. Do you remember the guy with the big beard? But his career was over afterwards?
Linda Parker: See, and I think that a lot of areas take domestic abuse much more seriously I think than sometimes the United States takes it. Coercive control is just now getting started in at a federal level. And Florida just passed a law that originally started as coercive control, and now it's reviewing for kids in custody. But it's a huge problem. It doesn't just impact the survivor, it impacts a whole system. And the UK tends to be the place that I look to for new domestic violence research and things, not that we don't have that in the United States, but they just tend, to your point, they've already passed the law, they tend to be a little bit ahead of examining these items and really focusing in on them.
Danny Knowles: Was it Justin Lee Collins?
Peter McCormack: Yeah.
Danny Knowles: Yeah, he got 140 hours of community service for it.
Peter McCormack: So, he got community service, but his career was over pretty much ever since. And it was the first time I think I became aware of coercion as a crime, and also it's one of those things where you read the case and you question yourself and you think, "Have I ever been like this?" and it's one of those things you have to think through and think about your own behaviour. In terms of education, sorry back to the children, what age is it do you think you have to start teaching children about this?
Maddison Clyne: I think middle school, but I think even in elementary school you can really drill on boundaries for child abuse too. So, adults, "Here are your boundaries with adults, here are boundaries with kids". Getting that into their head from a young mind, regardless of what they're seeing at home, what they're watching on TV or what they're around, to make sure that's clear in their head so they always have those in their minds.
Peter McCormack: Okay, and here in Florida, how supportive is the state in terms of providing this education? Because, I'm fully aware there is quite a big debate in the state at the moment between what should be taught in school and what should be taught at home. I'm aware of a particular law that was passed. But in terms of this, is it you guys fighting to have this education or the schools asking for it; and what's the process of actually making it happen?
Linda Parker: So, it's a kind of a multi-layered problem. One, the state pays us a small amount of money to do primary prevention. We feel that prevention is a key component to stopping later problems, so then we go out and get private grants for our prevention programmes. So, our primary prevention programme is one of the largest in the state. We are asked by the school district to come in and talk to them about -- and the curriculum changes depending on the age of the kids, right, because you don't talk to toddlers or to kindergartners about domestic violence, right? That's not appropriate and the parents would slay us. And as a parent, I would never want someone coming in and talking to my child about domestic violence as a kindergartner.
But what we do talk to them about is bullying behaviours, being nice to your friends, doing those types of things, which is not controversial. Junior high, we start talking about dating violence and when you start talking about dating, you start talking about all the parts of dating, not just heterosexual dating and engagements.
Peter McCormack: Why do you have to talk about the different gender parts of dating?
Linda Parker: Because you need to you need to recognise that gender plays a role in how dating relationships happen, and there is a huge number of domestic violence in the LGBTQ+ culture. And so, you have to really be able to understand that culture and to speak to some of the things they're seeing to meet those kids where they're at, right? Because kids right now are coming out as non-binary, they're coming out as transgender, and so to ignore that and pretend that that doesn't exist or that it doesn't impact them as a person is problematic, because it impacts the way they engage with their peers, it impacts the way they engage with their relationships, and those relationships are what ultimately cause them to get into power control dynamics that are not good for them.
Peter McCormack: Do you know why there's a high level of violence within the LGBTQ community?
Linda Parker: I think it's an insular community. And I think part of that is they spend a lot of time hiding, and hiding who they are, and so things happen in groups where that happens a lot. And it's like anything else, I think that really it's more about keeping things private, right, because you're afraid of someone coming in and trying to tell you what you need to do or how to manage your life, or that you shouldn't be this way, right? And that just creates a whole set of systems that is problematic.
Peter McCormack: And is the counterargument against discussing gender that it raises ideas to kids who maybe haven't thought about this before, and it itself is making kids maybe question something they wouldn't have questioned otherwise?
Linda Parker: I mean, I think that's an argument that's been used for a number of things for a number of years with kids. It's the peer pressure argument, right, "If you are drinking, I need to be drinking; if you're doing drugs, I'm smoking", that kind of argument. I think that it's tricky because I don't think kids are going to inherently want to be transgender because their friend has said that they're transgender, and there's so much that goes into that, and there's so much stress that gets put on a person for their identity. And I don't believe that anyone would want to put that stress on themselves just for the sake of saying that, "I'm something".
Peter McCormack: Of course.
Linda Parker: And I think that just like heterosexual relationships, we don't go out into the world and say, I never inherently thought to myself when I started dating I do like boys, or I do like girls, or I do like this or I do like that, I was just attracted. You're in high school, you're attracted to whoever you are in high school, and that works the same for everyone; attraction is attraction. So, to try to say that one subsection of attraction is created is an interesting argument to me, but I believe that it's inherently part of who you grow up as as a person, I don't believe it's something that you can put upon someone or put upon yourself because your best friend is gay or your best friend is a lesbian, or whatever, non-binary, I just don't see that.
Peter McCormack: So, do you as a charity provide support to transgender women?
Linda Parker: Absolutely.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, okay. What do you do in terms of men? Is there a separate charity?
Linda Parker: Same thing.
Peter McCormack: So, even though you're -- you just provide support for everyone?
Linda Parker: We do not turn anyone away. In fact, in our shelter, we have a wing of the shelter for folks that are special, we consider special circumstances. So, maybe somebody that is transgender that doesn't want to be inside the normal shelter, maybe a man for instance coming to shelter, they go into the special area because we want them to feel just as safe as anyone else coming into shelter. And it can be a little disconcerting as a man to come into a shelter that is a majority of women and, "How am I going to get the same level of service?" And they do, because we don't turn anyone away.
Peter McCormack: Okay, sorry, you were about to speak.
Maddison Clyne: I think you said, "Why is it important to show DV and talk about it with different relations?" and so I have a friend who's a lesbian and she disclosed to me that her girlfriend used to hit her. And when I looked at her like, "Oh, you're saying that really normal" "Well, she didn't hurt me", because you don't see it. When I look at men, I know to be afraid to some degree because I've grown up with that, I've seen it on TV and I've been taught that. But as a lesbian or a gay man or trans or anything, you're not taught what roles should look like or what it can look like and then you're hiding.
Peter McCormack: Because the tradition is men are the stronger sex and --
Maddison Clyne: Women are weaker.
Peter McCormack: -- women are weaker. And therefore, okay, but if there's two men, who is the stronger sex, and so people don't have a norm to relate to?
Maddison Clyne: Correct, exactly.
Peter McCormack: Okay, okay that makes sense. Okay, so back to in education then, I don't fully understand, I've only seen the headlines, the Don't Say Gay law, I don't actually know what it is. What is it?
Linda Parker: So, it basically says that there are certain things that cannot be taught at certain ages in the school district, because they don't want it taught in schools. They believe that parents should have the choice to educate their kids as it revolves around sexuality and oppression, and that's the other one. So, one of the pushbacks was that we can't talk about oppression. Oppression is not part of -- there is no oppression in the United States, and there is no systematic difference between people, right? And we know that not to be true.
Peter McCormack: Of course, yeah.
Linda Parker: We know that everyone doesn't start at the same place on the race, right? So, for us as prevention, what we end up doing is, and our curriculum gets submitted to the school board, so they sign off on everything we do, we try to focus more on the relationship part of it and try to be as expansive as possible without violating what the state has said that they don't want, which they want these non-specific items that we can't talk about, gender or gender bias. We can't talk about oppression or really look at some of the causes, because those are things that the movement of domestic violence was originally started on, was oppression. It was originally black women that started really the domestic violence movement built out of the civil rights era. So, to not be able to talk about that piece of it is not okay to me. So, we talk about it.
Peter McCormack: So, okay, so essentially the work you have done is now a victim of the culture wars and political polarisation. And we're talking to a Bitcoin community now, and in the Bitcoin community there are certain people in there who would fully agree with these laws. They're people who are individualists, they believe in certain things should be taught at the home. And I can see some; in my head, I can picture them tutting in their head and saying, "What's this woke bullshit?" But what would you want to say to them to help them understand and just maybe shift some of their thinking?
Linda Parker: So, I think that as a parent, I can understand that. There were things that my kids at school, that they grew up in, that I fought back on because I really didn't believe it was their place to put that in my home. I understand where they're coming from. What I would say is the individual is all individuals and we have to be careful not to take away one piece of something, because pretty soon it's a slippery slope, right? You start to take bits and bits and bits. And now it's this particular issue. But what if that issue is something else that's something that's important to you that may just continue to be eaten away at? But I understand where they're thinking, right? It's a scary thing to have a lack of control in your children's education, and that's where they're coming from, and I understand that. And because of that, there are things that we are doing to mitigate some of that, just to make sure that we're not overstepping where we shouldn't overstep.
Maddison Clyne: I would say the other part of that, though, is that schools are for safety. We have to send our kids there. We know when COVID happened, that child abuse and DV went up because you don't have eyes on those kids. So, the kids who need to hear some of that the most are going to be the parents that fight back the most. The kids growing up in those homes, those kids feeling awful, those kids being suicidal and not loved and not having anyone saying, "This happens, this occurs, this is normal", or, "Reach out if you need help", I think that's another really important thing that we do.
Peter McCormack: How much of a role does pop culture play in shaping opinions, particularly maybe young men?
Linda Parker: I think social media, man --
Peter McCormack: Hellscape.
Linda Parker: Yeah, it really has made our lives a lot more difficult. You see it in different ways but it really is. It's changed the way we communicate, it's changed the way kids see themselves. It's so expansive and I'm so grateful that my kids got to span before social media and after, so they got to see what happens between the two and have a life that was created outside of that. Because now, I get to see some of the fallout of that over the social media and TikToks, and that pop culture piece is huge, and especially with some groups that are more malleable than others, or more that are not as engaged with each other.
So, if you have a household where the parents are not engaged and the kid is doing whatever and then they're on TikTok all the time, things can get out of control, right? Also, it really highlights this idea of the idolised female. So, "What should I look like when I walk out of the house?" followers, Instagram influencers, or other influencers, right? You've got a whole financial system, a whole system built on someone coming online and putting on makeup every day, or someone coming online and doing a video of them. To me, it can be a bit mind-blowing and the kids grow up in this environment, right? So, imagine what that looks like for them, like the little boy who sells toys and now he's got his own toy line. That was created out of his parents just having him play with toys and now he's like a multi-million dollar child.
So, it changes everything. It changes everything about how we see ourselves, it changes the way people see each other. And I think that if you don't have a clear foundation of understanding reality from what you see on social media, it can really send you down a rabbit hole, especially when you're young.
Peter McCormack: Also one of the things I've noticed recently on Twitter where I am is a pushback to more traditional roles for women, and women pushing for more traditional roles. I've seen arguments and discussions around the feminist movement has led to more women going into the workplace, having equal opportunities, which as a father of two, I think is brilliant. But also then perhaps realising too late, it's too late to build a family, because it's hard after your 40s for a woman to have a child. Whereas, I think we've just seen Robert De Niro at 82, or something, just father again. So, there's different pressures on men and women to create families.
I obviously support the push for equality of opportunity for women in the workplace because I have a daughter, but this pushback I'm seeing now for more traditional roles, is that positive or is that negative?
Linda Parker: I think it's neutral. For me personally, I believe that feminism supports whatever women want to do. So, if women want to go back into the home and work at home and someone else is the breadwinner, okay. If you want to go out into the workforce, for me, equality means I don't judge your choices as a woman, I don't want you to judge my choices as a woman, and I support you in whatever those things are that you want to do, whether it's at home or in the job, I want you to be successful. It's more about, for me, opportunity and being given the okay, essentially, and the opportunities to do the same thing as my male counterpart and being able to be paid the same level as my male counterpart, being able to be seen as the same level as my male counterpart. And I think that having one parent in the home, regardless of who it is, is a good thing for kids, right? If you can afford that, hats off to you.
I'm glad that I probably would never have been a good stay-at-home parent. I love my children, right, but I've always been very career focused. And so to me, being at home all day, I probably would have driven them crazy! They would have said, "Please, mum, go find something to do, volunteer, do something!" But I think that it's okay for folks to want to go back to a time that was a little bit easier, or in our minds was a little bit easier; I don't want to say that because I never lived that life, but I think it's okay to want that. And I think it's okay for people, as long as you're not pushing your value of thinking that that's the way it should be and you're open to exploring that women can do everything, I think that's fine.
Peter McCormack: Okay, I'm going to bring up someone's name that's going to trigger a lot of people, and talk about Andrew Tate. My daughter's school had an assembly about him. Yeah, they had an assembly to talk about the way he talks about women. Now, I've seen people defend him and say, "No, he's just trying to enforce traditional values", and I've seen people say, "He's a danger to society". I mean, I struggle to see him as a danger to society, I think he's a dick, but I'd be more interested in I think your opinions and his type of opinions and what he does on social media, what impact you see that may have.
Linda Parker: You know, probably a few months ago I would have said he's a blowhard and he's just a jackass. But I think honestly, I don't think that he's the level of danger that some people are saying, like he's the degradation of society. I think that's an extreme for one person, unless you're in a position of a power to really be that person. I don't see that power with him. What I do see is the same thing that I see on social media, which is a subset of the population that really wanted to have their values already solidified, and finding a voice in him that solidified values you already had, or that you had already thought about.
From a female perspective, I don't find him to be talking about traditional values, and I think any time that you use your voice as a negative fashion against any other group of people, that's not a good way to affect change. No one that listens to Andrew Tate is going to come to me and tell me something and I'm going to say, "Oh, well, you totally changed my mind because he said it". I think that the pendulum is kind of swinging back the other direction and that there's enough people saying, "This man is a menace and everyone just needs to stop giving him time to talk", but enough damage for some groups have been done in the interest of, "I want to live a life like that. I want my woman should stay pregnant and my dinner should be on the table 5.00pm. And if she's not, then we're going to have a problem, right?" That's not positive reinforcement of traditional values.
I think that's really something that you have to make it up in a relationship, you have to determine that for yourself. And you both have to agree with it because you both have to live with the consequences of someone staying home and someone working, or two people working, or it's like any other decision, "Are we having kids, are we not?" Financial, "Are you paying the bills; am I paying the bills; are we splitting the bills?" To me, those are all things, and I think he enjoys the stir.
Peter McCormack: I think he's a grifter. I think he's found the way to monetise being a dick. But some people think I'm a dick, so that's fine! And they're probably right sometimes. But I think he's monetised being a dick, he's found a niche to get attention. But I would normally have just ignored somebody like him, just say, "Yeah, he's a dick", whatever. It's when my daughter came home and said, "All the boys at school love Andrew Tate. Do you know him?" I was like, "Oh yeah", "They said they all love him, they think he's hilarious". And I was like, okay, so I went and did my research.
Linda Parker: They think he's hilarious because they're in high school and they're high school boys, and high school boys have a tendency to think that things are hilarious in inappropriate ways, because their frontal lobe is not developed! So, I look at it, it's the men, the men that older and that are now starting to switch their switch a little bit, and really listen to what he's saying, that concern me more. I think you can unroll some of the things that the teenage boys are saying, because your daughter, meeting someone like your daughter who I do not know, but I imagine is probably pretty independent and you know pretty well-spoken with what she will and will not tolerate, one of those boys meeting someone like her and then realising no woman wants to date a man walking around telling me to get my ass in the kitchen, no. There are very few women that are going to date someone like that.
So, once you come across enough women telling you to get to like hit the bricks, hopefully you'll start to realise that that is not a good methodology.
Peter McCormack: It's not a winning strategy.
Linda Parker: Yeah, to pick up a woman!
Peter McCormack: Okay, so let's talk about the financial side. How much of a role does money play in abuse?
Linda Parker: We have a whole line of financial abuse. It plays a ton, because normally the abuse comes with the power dynamic of, This is my money, all of our money is my money". We just had a young lady that the majority of was financial abuse. And he had locked her passport, she was actually from the UK, he had locked her passport in her safe, she couldn't get access to any of her documents, and he controlled her money. She got a paycheque, went into his account. And it means that when folks eventually leave, you have nothing. You're leaving with nothing and you're making a choice, I'd rather be safe and have nothing than continue to deal with this degradation.
But it just means it's like starting your life over with no support and nothing to get you by. You don't have any money to go to get a hotel. You can't feed your kids. You can't feed yourself. It makes it hard to get a job. It makes it hard because how do you get around? You don't have a bus pass, you don't have... So, you have to have a way in which to start your life and money is the way we function.
Peter McCormack: Right, and so when somebody comes to you or they come to your centre, do you have a programme to get them back on their feet?
Linda Parker: We do.
Maddison Clyne: Yeah, so it's different in every case, but we rely on a lot of other partners for financial assistance, so housing programmes, that kind of thing, and then everything is on a case-by-case basis. Then we also have an economic justice programme to teach financial literacy, because they're not just starting over, they're starting negative. So, not only do they have no money, they probably have no credit. Abusers wreck their credit so they can't get ahead, and then they don't have credit history, they don't have employment history, some of them are stay-at-home moms or fathers, and so you're starting way back. And then usually you don't have that knowledge because they don't want you to have that knowledge because that's how you stay there.
So, now you are like a baby 18-year-old starting over maybe with kids and where you should be further ahead in life and you don't know any of this. So, it's so much catch-up when you think that the average person doesn't really have enough financial literacy. So, to get them to that point is so necessary to get them the skills and give them a hand up and not just a hand out. We don't just want to hand them money, we want to know that they know what to do with that money and that money is going to last for them, their kids, and their future.
Peter McCormack: It feels like for each individual person and their children, it's a big job to take them from rescuing them from abusive situation to getting them back on their feet?
Maddison Clyne: I mean, if you want to rent an apartment, it's first, last, and deposit, thousands of dollars. I just moved out. It was hard for me, and I was in a good position, and I had family, and resources, and a savings, and it's still catching up. So, to have nothing, and that's the minimum that you need is at least $5,000 to get into maybe a good place with no credit, it's impossible. And then if you're looking at buying a house, again, no history, no credit, no anything. So, you're cow chopping or you're on the streets.
Peter McCormack: When you have got somebody back on their feet and independent again, is there a high level of risk that the abuser comes back?
Linda Parker: Oh yeah.
Peter McCormack: How do you prevent that?
Linda Parker: Education, and really talking to them and safety planning. You know, we safety plan with them through everything. So, you're living in your house and the abuser just shows up, he hears you finally got it together, and now here he comes with his sad song story and his wanting to move back in and everything's going to be different. And part of what we do isn't just the financial piece. When we're following them with that financial, we're showing them up with therapy. So, we're also talking to them about, you know, "How do I say no? How do I treat this and I can just walk away? How do I shore myself up?" And domestic abuse is a little bit like Stockholm syndrome in that you see the good in that person occasionally, and it's enough that you think, "Well, there is a good person in there. Why does that person do this though?" So, it's very cyclical.
So, part of the reason why it's important for them to get stable, not just financially but psychologically, is so that they can undo that that internal monologue that they're in that says, "Well, he was nice yesterday, so maybe this can really work", when this has been going on for ten years.
Peter McCormack: Right, okay.
Linda Parker: So, it's a dual issue.
Peter McCormack: So, back to the financial situation, is financial education something you're providing?
Linda Parker: Absolutely.
Peter McCormack: Okay. I'm reticent to say Bitcoin fixes this, because I don't think it does. I think what you're doing fixes this, and education fixes things. But is Bitcoin a potential tool for someone to be able to save money and build themselves up a secret savings pot that gives them a bit of freedom? I think of the film Sleeping With the Enemy, the secret plan to escape from the abuser. I think, can there be a secret plan? Somebody understands there's Bitcoin, they can hide that away.
Maddison Clyne: Yes, and that would be amazing, because the average person, I would say, doesn't know about the wallets or cold storage or know where to look. But if we hit that in prevention and teach them and empower them to own their money, control their lives, if you have that mindset, that's hard to break if you can keep it. So, if we do that with Bitcoin and if we taught that as an exit route or just even in a happy relationship, you should have backups. You should have things separate and safe and secure. And so much of getting out of domestic violence is regaining your control. You've gotten all your control away. So, I see Bitcoin as a solution to take ownership of your life. You got it back, this is my money, this is my wallet, I'm controlling it, I'm going to learn about it, and I'm not going to let this happen again.
Peter McCormack: Have you implemented any education programmes with it yet?
Maddison Clyne: We are looking for sponsors and Bitcoin partners, that's actually our next thing, because even though right now maybe it's not something that would be helpful for them, but they also go back. So, say they got what they needed here, something happened down the line, they got back into this situation, now they have this tool in the back of their head like, "Oh, I can maybe use this to get out again".
Peter McCormack: Okay. How big is the charity; how many people work for it?
Linda Parker: Around 120.
Peter McCormack: Here in Broward, in Broward County?
Linda Parker: Yes.
Peter McCormack: Are you independent and just here, or are you a nationwide charity?
Linda Parker: No, we are just here and independent.
Peter McCormack: Okay. It feels like a very expensive operation to run. How are you supported financially; how do you make this work?
Linda Parker: 51% is private donations and private foundations, and 49% is state and federal dollars.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so the state does support you?
Linda Parker: The state does give us -- about 13% of our dollars are made up of state dollars.
Peter McCormack: Okay, so how can we help, and how can people listening help?
Linda Parker: You know, we do take Bitcoin donations, we do take those.
Maddison Clyne: Yeah, we'll give you guys our address.
Peter McCormack: Where? Tell people where to go.
Linda Parker: To the website, to the womenindistress.org.
Peter McCormack: We will put that in the show notes.
Linda Parker: Okay, but I would also like to have someone come in and educate our survivors about Bitcoin, because I think that they there would be more interest in having those dollars set aside. So, I think that would be a good next step also, because I think there's a real lack of understanding.
Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean I think you'll have no difficulty finding somebody. There's people here in Miami, I bet Shay would be able to help with something like that. If nobody does get in touch, reach out to us, we know some people will come and help. I think you should also go to the Bitcoin meetup here and talk to them, I think that would be helpful for you. Okay, and so if anyone wants more information.
Linda Parker: womenindistress.org.
Peter McCormack: womenInDistress.org. If any of my questions came across dumb, I'm really sorry, but --
Maddison Clyne: No, not at all.
Peter McCormack: Thank you for coming in, you're a friend of the show now. Anything we can do to help, let us know. Come to Nerdfest next year.
Linda Parker: I will.
Peter McCormack: It's in Nashville, it's not going to be here in Miami, it's going to be moving to Nashville. I still think you should come, at least one of you. I mean, your dad will probably go, so maybe we'll drag you along. But I appreciate you coming in. Anything you need, just reach out to me or Danny and we'll do our best to help you.
Linda Parker: Thank you so much, you guys have been great.
Peter McCormack: Thank you.
