Today, it has come to light that Claire Davy, the ex-secretary of the Association for Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena stood down against her own wishes. Davy was the 10th trustee (of 13) to leave since June 2024. Only 3 remain: Steve Parsons, Norie Miles, and Bill Eyre.
Screenshots have been shared of an email sent from the Founder and Vice President of ASSAP, Hugh Pincott, about his plan for handling Claire Davy and another female ex-trustee, Dr Becky Smith. Pincott’s plan is so deeply misogynistic that I honestly thought it was satire to begin with, but it is genuine.
I’ve included below the email in full, followed by my thoughts.
‘And now, something even more revolutionary, which some may not agree with – psychological ju-jitsu! It is agreed that Claire is devious and poisonous, and we must respond with equal cunning. We can probably never defeat her with traditional weapons like CC [Charity Commission] and Company House threats. Even if she resigns she would be a constant pain in our corporate backside for as long as she lives. She will be considerably more use on our side as a bitch Rottweiler …
I suggest that today if possible, Bill (perhaps with help from Mrs Eyre) arranges to send Claire’s home address a large bouquet of flowers with plenty of red roses, to the value of £50. The card should read:
“Far more things unite us than divide us. The Exec. hopes we can soon start working together amicably. We need your strengths.”
I shall deposit the cash in your bank account immediately we agree, Bill, together with any further delivery charges.
What will Claire‘s reaction be? What normal woman doesn’t like flowers? If she tramples on them in rage, it will tell us something significant about her. And furthermore, if she gets stroppy at the EGM, somebody can ask innocently: “is it true you received a large boquet of flowers from other Exec. members inviting mutual cooperation?
Perhaps next week we could then send a similar tribute to Becky [Smith, former ASSAP Treasuerer] this time with a simple Get Well Soon message. Again, I shall fund this.
To adopt this will require a lot of statesmanship from everyone, particularly Norie [Miles], who has suffered a lot.
You deserve a bouquet too Norie, if you support this tactic! Perhaps you could copy this message to other colleagues mentioned in your last email
Regards
Hugh
I have included here the screenshots of the email (click from left to right to view)
To refer to another trustee as ‘devious and poisonous’ would be bad enough, but to then talk about defeating Davy with cunning use of weapons goes beyond the pale. The next sentence then describes her as a ‘bitch rotweiller‘, commenting that she’d be more useful on their side. This comment is dehumanising and deeply misogynistic, but that’s not all. Pincott goes on to lay out his plan to use expensive bouquets of flowers to control Davy’s behaviour because “what normal woman doesn’t like flowers?”
Gross…
This plan is designed to curtail any rebellion from Davy against other Trustees. Pincott makes his case while quoting murdered British MP, Jo Cox, who famously said “we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us“.
Jo Cox was murdered by a white supremacist; fascism is intrinsically interwoven with anti-feminism and misogyny. To read her words quoted in an email of this nature from the vice-president of ASSAP genuinely sickened me, especially when you think back to Pincott’s earlier comment that ‘we can probably never defeat her with traditional weapons’ before laying our his plan to control her instead.
Pincott was talking about the use strategic complaints here, but the violently loaded language used in his email is shameful and should not be ignored. The normalised and casual use of language that denigrates women creates an environment for sexist attitudes and behaviours to flourish. This sets a dangerous precedence for harassment, (Claire received that bouquet of flowers after her address was taken from Companies House).
The attitudes displayed in Pincott’s email belong in the past. Perhaps too should his vice-presidency. With this in mind, I call up on readers of my blog who are members of ASSAP to consider resignation, and I call upon colleagues involved in paranormal research and media to boycott future ASSAP events as an act of feminist solidarity.
update: I’ve updated this post after several men became confused about my original wording about the role of misogyny in the murder of British Politician, Jo Cox.
Sources:
Sexism as a ‘Gateway Drug’ into White Supremacist Movements” | The Centre for the Study of Women
When Women are the Enemy: The Intersection of Misogyny and White Supremacy | ADL
