Why have kids if you don't want to spend time with them?

A few days ago, I snapped at a friend I haven’t spoken to in years. It was on Facebook, which I guess just makes it less surprising and more pathetic, but anyway, I did*. She put up an article entitled ‘Why have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them?’ and I thought ‘finally a piece that rips that stupid question to threads!’ and clicked on it. But the article did no such thing; it was just another entitled article describing the selfish behaviour of parents who put themselves first sometimes, who want ‘me time’, who don’t cherish every moment with their children enough.

It’s worth talking about the choices we make and how they impact on our children. Actually, it’s crucial that we do. It’s important that we, as a society, have an ongoing conversation about the needs of children and how their many relationships affect them, not least their relationships with their parents. They don’t get a say in this, so we have to take that responsibility. Articles that ask why you’d bother to have kids in the first place if you don’t want to be with them, however, don’t tick that box.

The article in question was published in a Swedish tabloid, so it must be understood in the context of Swedish norms; childcare is heavily subsidised and all children over the age of one have the right to a full-time place in crèche, most of them funded by the local council, with the huge majority of parents working. Workers have a right to a minimum of two consecutive weeks off work, and most white-collar employees take at least a full month off during the summer, with the country almost going into shut-down for two months after Midsummer. This particular article was triggered by a crèche note about planning the summer season, reminding parents of the importance of giving their children a break and spending your holidays with them.

‘All this never-ending talk of me time. I hear it everywhere,’ the writer complained, insisting that the fact that a crèche even needs to remind parents to spend time off with their kids is a sign that our need for ‘me time’ has gone overboard. And I get where she’s coming from; it’s sad that some parents feel that their children are happier and more stimulated in crèche than they are at home, and it sucks that many parents are so exhausted that they’ll consider using their holidays for a break over time with their probably just as exhausted children. What pushes all my buttons is the question: ‘Why have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them?’

I went for a morning stroll by the sea the other day before I started working. I’m lucky that my job allows me to do that, and boy did I need it; it’s been a hectic few months. But it wasn’t without a moment of guilt – because I know how people talk, and I know people like the author of that article. Where were my kids? In childcare, of course. Other times, I’ll go for a run instead of taking a lunch break – again, I’m lucky that way. I could meet a friend for a coffee at 11am and work through my lunch; if I’m really tired and stuck for inspiration, I could even wrap up early, get some fresh air, and pick up work after the kids have gone to bed at night.

Not everyone’s lucky. Many people are stuck in their remote office building even on their breaks, can’t check in on personal messages and social media in work, and can just about leave five minutes early even in exceptional circumstances. When they’re run down and having a bad month, where are they supposed to catch their breath? Compare those who live in the same town as grandparents, old friends and cousins and can easily get a Saturday afternoon to themselves to run errands or hit the gym, to those with no family support at all. No one’s asking parents why they had children in the first place when they leave them with the grandparents for the weekend, do they?

The author of the article is clearly disgusted that some parents occasionally add a few hours to their children’s schedule when they’re not actually working – hours they instead spend cleaning, resting or just enjoying themselves. The children, she argues, are stuck in crèches with overworked staff who don’t have time for the children’s individual needs. Funnily enough, she doesn’t seem to take issue with the children being there on a full-time basis. She doesn’t argue with the fact that parents have full-time jobs. No, it’s when parents stop being productive, when they’re being selfish – that’s when the children come into view. Sure if we’re working, we’re working, right?

In Ireland, the situation is different. Childcare is a costly thing – a ‘second mortgage’, we’ve come to call it – and it’s far from a given that both parents in a two-parent household will work. As there’s no such thing as paid paternity leave, bar the recently introduced two weeks, the by far most common scenario is that mothers stay at home with babies and then choose whether to return to work or not. If they do, they tend to go back much earlier than Swedish mothers – and not always by choice.

Ironically, the ‘why have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them’ question is still a thing, but in Ireland mostly directed at mothers who work. It’s funny, that – isn’t it? Swedish norms allow mothers to work, because working is the done thing and not really deemed selfish, but as soon as they clock out they become greedy if they want to do anything bar being with their kids. In Ireland, because returning to work after having a baby is a new thing, comparatively speaking, that’s what’s seen as a mother’s road to freedom – her little bit of ‘me time’, her being selfish. Why have kids if you’re going to spend all day every day in an office? Unless you’re a man, of course. If you’re a man, who knows why you’d have children at all anyway, other than to make your wife happy.

I thought about the fact that the criticism of parents, or mothers, is the same despite the culturally different norms, and I realised that there is one very clear exception to the rule in both countries. Not once did I ever hear a straight couple asked the why-have-kids question when getting a babysitter for a romantic night out. Everyone agrees that relationships require a bit of effort every now and then; couples need make-up and nice drinks and a change of scenery to keep that spark alive. See, a night with your spouse doesn’t qualify as ‘me time’, no matter how much your kids are being minded by somebody else. A woman isn’t being selfish when she’s out with her man.

‘If you choose to have one or more kids, ‘me time’ isn’t something you can take for granted the first ten years,’ writes the mother-of-two, who works as an account manager for a big IT company and still lives in the town where she grew up. I don’t know how much family and friends she’s got nearby, nor do I know how many struggling single parents she knows, how much her friends talk to her about their post-natal depression or the fact that they regret having kids and can’t wait for the next ten years to pass. ‘Being with my children beats everything else in life,’ she adds. ‘I enjoy every moment they want to be with me.’ She’s one of the good mothers, in case you’d missed her point.

But seriously though: why have kids if you don’t want to spend time with them? To those of you desperate for ‘me time’, who had kids and fear that it might have been a big mistake, those of you who love your children above all else but would kill for a day away just to remember who you are underneath it all, who are stuck in the house and haven’t been able to get out for a drink in years, those who hate your jobs but can’t manage without the salary and love the weekends with the kids but would just like to be really, really selfish and alone for once – there’s the question you should ask yourselves. I hope it helps. 

*And here’s where I apologise for snapping and acknowledge that I do that to the people I love and admire all the time, because I suck at keeping my thoughts to myself and think talking stuff through is good and healthy – and, clearly, inspiring.

Down Syndrome, reproductive choices and the need for a social welfare state

On January 2nd, the Irish Times reported that Irish women have been advised to start having babies younger. The contextual hypocrisy aside (think housing crisis, sky-high childcare costs, poorly paid graduate jobs – the list goes on), one aspect of the story jumped out: Dr. Fishel, of a Dublin IVF fertility clinic, said that Down Syndrome occurs in one of 700 pregnancies in women aged 32, while the same figure for women ten years older is one in 67, and 70-80% of a 40-year-old woman’s eggs have a chromosomal abnormality. Why it’s important? Because Irish women aren’t having enough babies to keep society going with our ageing population. We need to keep producing healthy, productive sprogs.

Last weekend, Down Syndrome appeared in the media yet again, as the Citizens’ Assembly met to consider the medical, legal and ethical implications of ante-natal screening and foetal abnormalities. 40 Irish women, they were told, had abortions last year after screening showed that their babies would have Down Syndrome.

The assembly was also informed that no babies with Down Syndrome have been born in the past four years in Iceland, where highly accurate non-invasive screening procedures are standard, and the development in Denmark, where screening routines are similar, is going in the same direction. The point Professor Peter McParland, director of Foetal Maternal Medicine at the National Maternity Hospital, was trying to make was that “science has got way ahead of the ethical discussion”. And we don’t want that, do we?

This is nothing new. I wrote about my thoughts on the situation in Denmark back in 2012, when a Swedish opinion piece posed a question similar to McParland’s: How narrow can the perception of the perfect child get? It’s an interesting and important question from a philosophical point of view, but when asked in the context of the reproductive justice discourse it becomes puzzling at best – not least because monitoring pregnant people’s motivations is tricky. Do you qualify for a termination if there are multiple reasons behind your request, not a diagnosis alone? If you expressed a wish to terminate before you even got the screening results, will your motives seem noble enough? If you’re broke and lonely and depressed and have no one around to help, and the chromosomal abnormality is deemed extremely serious, do we sympathise enough to budge on the moral high ground?

More often than not, the answer is no, because these arguments have little to do with concern and compassion and a great deal to do with religious, dogmatic principles. The more you pick them apart, the more these concerns tend to fall into the ‘slippery slope’ category (‘if they can terminate for this, they’ll soon be terminating for that’), which follows on from the idea that women are both cold-hearted and hysterical at the same time and don’t know what’s best for them; that the right to choose is not absolute, but must be handed down to women on a case-by-case basis. The slope in the analogy leads straight down into an imagined promiscuous hell, where women can engage in sexual pleasures as they please, almost without consequences.

Of course, talking about the kind of society we want to live in is incredibly important – I reiterate this every time it’s time to go out to vote. But is a concern for babies with chromosomal abnormalities and the kind of society we want to live in really, in practical terms, naturally linked to the view that reproductive choice must be restricted, with forced pregnancy and parenthood suddenly being a-ok?

Two weeks, two stories. And the takeaway? We should start early to minimise the risk of Down Syndrome – but if we terminate a pregnancy due to a chromosomal abnormality, we’re ethically compromised. We should want to avoid it – yet struggling to embrace the reality if we fail to avoid it is just not on. The hypocrisy is mind-numbing.

What’s ironic is what these two unrelated news stories have in common. Firstly, neither really has anything to do with Down Syndrome; they just use it, crassly, for the benefit of their own argument. Secondly, they rope in women’s sexuality as a tool to get what they want. The goal of the first news piece is optimal reproduction and an increased birth rate, and Down Syndrome is used to convince women to reproduce as required – whether they want to or not. The goal of the second is continued restrictions on abortion access, and Down Syndrome is used to convince those on the fence that liberalised abortion laws are ethically questionable. Both are straw-man arguments, because the crux here isn’t that women aren’t aware of the risks involved with postponing trying to conceive, or that they view people with Down Syndrome as in any way less human or worthy. Still we keep having babies later, and more advanced screening programmes lead to fewer Down Syndromes babies being born – so why on earth is no one asking why?

The third thing the two stories have in common is the solution (hint: it’s not the policing of women’s bodies). Ask the parent of a severely disabled child what they want. Ask a woman trying to conceive aged 43 what she would have wanted years ago. Support and a solid welfare state would go a long way; the modern individualist mantras we are continuously sold today are likely to receive less praise.

What we need is a shift in attitudes and a hugely increased support system, where you don’t need two degrees and a handful of unpaid internships in the bag before you can get paid work, and an additional ten years of career building before you can buy a house; where you can become a parent and afford to return to work should you want to; where the rental market is regulated, secure and tenant-friendly enough that long-term renting is considered a perfectly good option for a family with kids; where we don’t have to talk about childcare costs as ‘a second mortgage’; where social services are built on social values, not financial measures and market logic; where being a single mother does not automatically equate to being the lowest rung on the ladder of society; where you can become a carer of your much-wanted, disabled child and society is there to get you through. Laws controlling women and making them into vessels for steady population growth just won’t work – nor will fake concern for children with Down Syndrome that does nothing but pit them against the people who love them most.   

Normalising hate speech – on John Berger, the Irish Times, and the recontextualisation of meanings

I watched the first episode of Ways of Seeing, the BBC John Berger mini-series from 1972, last night. Explaining how images are given new meanings in different contexts, carrying ideological biases depending on their presentation and contextualisation, Berger ends the episode with a warning: “But remember that I am controlling, and using for my own purposes, the means of reproduction needed for these programmes. The images may be like words – but there is no dialogue yet. You cannot reply to me. […] You receive images and meanings, which are arranged. I hope you will consider what I arrange – but be sceptical of it.”

The alt-right article and glossary* by Nicholas Pell published yesterday in the Irish Times has been called many things – propaganda, a shit storm, an utter disgrace. It is safe to say that readers were sceptical of it, and indeed, when the opinion editor justified the decision to publish the piece by arguing** that the stance of the paper itself has previously been made abundantly clear on its leader pages, Berger’s theses appear highly relevant. In the context of the paper, the words of an alt-right advocate on the opinion pages should not be interpreted as propaganda, the editor’s argument went, but rather as democratic viewpoint airing and an opportunity to face the debate head on. Clearly, readers were not convinced.

We are often fed a hands-off interpretation of our media outlets, told that involvement and meddling equals censoring, that no-platforming is discrimination, and that a laissez faire approach is always the most democratic. After all, the public reads what the public wants; as was pointed out, readers have the ability to make their own minds up. And it’s no coincidence, of course, that a media exposed to market forces adopts the language and logic of the market. It’s perhaps got less to do with consumer satisfaction than it tries to convey – or else the so-called shit storm would have justified the taking down of the original piece and not just the creation of another one in response – but sure enough, the clickbait must have brought home impressive figures for a decent advertising revenue boost, thus justifying the piece in purely financial terms. As readers, we voted with our clicks.

Yet the Irish Times stance in relation to the debacle remains far from unambiguous. The context of the paper as known by the public extends far beyond any position on far-right extremism expressed on the leader pages; for example, a range of articles dubbing both pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners extreme have been published of late, boasting similar views of these campaigners as must have led to the opinion editor’s using their messages as examples of previously published material deemed just as questionable and contentious as the alt-right glossary. And perhaps this is exactly why I – while gobsmacked by the fact that said glossary was even considered for publication, and while entirely in agreement with others, including the paper’s own columnist Una Mullally, who insist that it was a terrible mistake – still struggle to back up my position with what feels like a reasonably rational argument. Because in the context of Ireland, in a highly conservative, Catholic country, what is there to say that the extreme, shrill pro-abortion brigade won’t be denied a platform next, should a paper like the Irish Times decide to turn away an extremist like Pell? While the difference is crystal clear to me, it clearly is not to the paper.

The bare minimum purpose of the controversial article, it was argued, was to decode the language of the alt-right movement. Not that the racism is ever explicitly labelled as such, and the sexism is allowed to pass by all but unnoticed; in fact, the refusal to label the so-called alt-right sympathisers as fascist, neo-Nazi, sexist, racist, misogynist, white supremacists tells a tale – they’re extreme, a bit like the abortion fanatics, and here they are explaining their funny little extreme views. Enjoy! While the Irish Times seems unwilling to go anywhere near the words describing the true ideologies behind the alt-right movement, it seems to find the expressions and worldview behind it just fine – somewhat extreme, but legitimate all the same.

I think the clue is in the fear of labelling. If the ideology you’re trying to decide whether or not to provide a platform for is one the name of which you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, it’s probably one you shouldn’t amplify. The reason you shouldn’t publish Pell’s work is that he’s an unapologetic racist neo-Nazi – but no one’s explicitly admitting that, are they? And in failing to label him for what he is, the publishing of his glossary far from decodes the language of his movement – it normalises it. A pro-choicer, a socialist, an alt-righter – the Irish Times might be a tad uncomfortable with all of them, but each to their own, right? If the alt-right guys are everywhere – on Twitter, in the White House, in our biggest dailies – they can’t be that bad.

Lindy West expressed it very well in the Guardian earlier this week when she wrote about her decision to ditch Twitter:

The white supremacist, anti-feminist, isolationist, transphobic “alt-right” movement has been beta-testing its propaganda and intimidation machine on marginalised Twitter communities for years now – how much hate speech will bystanders ignore? When will Twitter intervene and start protecting its users? – and discovered, to its leering delight, that the limit did not exist. No one cared. Twitter abuse was a grand-scale normalisation project, disseminating libel and disinformation, muddying long-held cultural givens such as “racism is bad” and “sexual assault is bad” and “lying is bad” and “authoritarianism is bad”, and ultimately greasing the wheels for Donald Trump’s ascendance to the US presidency.

Lo and behold, our broadsheet print media is next in line.

In the context of an alt-right propaganda leaflet, the views of men like Pell are what they are: highly offensive, incredibly ignorant, but at least more-or-less clearly labelled. I wonder what Berger would have thought about the recontextualisation of these messages as presented in the Irish Times, told as part of the Irish media story, one that boasts about a commitment to provoking strong debate – even if the provocation comes in the form of something a little extreme. Perhaps a word of warning is in order: there is no dialogue yet; you receive meanings, which are arranged. Consider what they arrange – but be sceptical of it. 

*I will refrain from linking to it for, I think, obvious reasons.

**As above.    

A feminist childcare model - and mammies doing it wrong

“Children of working mothers have better social and everyday skills,” read an Irish Times headline last week. A few days later, The Guardian reported on another study suggesting that mothers should spend as much time with their children as they can afford, and went with the headline “Child’s cognitive skills linked to time spent with mother”.

Such is the game of pitting mothers against each other: you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. This of course is nothing new; the stream of new studies seems never-ending, and media loves reporting on them – likely because new mothers never fail to fall for the clickbait, desperate for some sort of evidence that they’re doing something right in this most difficult job they’ve ever tried their hand at. But perhaps there’s no coincidence that we’re seeing two of these stories in two leading newspapers in such a short space of time in the build-up to Christmas. Guilt is a powerful marketing tool – not least as we are bombarded with images of mothers hard at work on delivering the perfect family Christmas: finding the best deals on those most sought-after toys; creating the perfectly relaxing yet fun ambience in the home; doing all the food shopping, perhaps ‘getting away with’ using a ready-made stock pot; then standing in a doorway somewhere in the periphery looking selflessly blissful while watching their loved ones enjoy themselves.

Timely or not, these types of studies would perhaps be at least somewhat useful if it wasn’t for the fact that few parents feel as if they have any choice at all in the decision of whether to return to work or not. At the very least, thinking outside the box will involve a significantly lowered standard of living for most.

In Ireland, as Minister for Children Katherine Zappone unveiled the government’s new childcare scheme as part of Budget 2017 a couple of months ago, the new programme was heavily criticised. Many highlighted the complete failure to support stay-at-home parents, along with anyone opting for childcare provided by a family member or neighbour, while some went as far as to refer to the full-time crèche subsidy as an incentive for the “institutionalisation of babies and toddlers”, citing studies of young children’s most basic needs.

Further north, said institutionalisation of children is in full swing: in Sweden, quality controlled, local government funded nurseries are available for all children from around the age of one, and a full-time place costs no more than 1,287SEK (about €130), or 3% of the gross household income, per month for the first child. The cost drops significantly for the second and third children in a family, and the fourth goes free. Forget about ‘a second mortgage’, as Irish parents have come to refer to childcare costs – these working parents have two salaries to spend.

With a feminist foreign policy, a ministry made up of 50% women, and parental leave in place of gender-specific maternity leave since 1974, including three months earmarked for fathers since earlier this year and an equality bonus for parents who choose to split the 480 days equally, Sweden may be the promised feminist land; yet choosing the longer-term stay-at-home route comes with a huge loss of earnings as that second disposable salary is lost. Moreover, crucially, I have yet to stop receiving messages on an all too frequent basis from friends who have had enough, who just can’t make emotional ends meet, who are burning the candle at so many ends they don’t even know what’s up anymore.

Institutionalisation critics, meanwhile, are mostly concerned with the failing confidence of parents; Sweden’s childcare culture has resulted in a generation of parents who think that they can’t keep their children at home during the summer holidays because they simply don’t trust their own ability to entertain and challenge them. When siblings come into the world, children in Sweden are entitled to between 15 and 30 hours in crèche per week, something that’s been heavily questioned: why would parents send their children away when they’re at home?

A quick recap: we feed parents an endless diet of academically proven ways in which they are most likely failing their children, and then we blame the childcare system for making them doubt their parental ability.

The feminist elephant in the room is of course unpaid labour: the emotional labour that pushes mothers working outside of the home over the edge, and the housework and childcare work that is stubbornly unseen, unpaid and simultaneously always criticised. Because all these critics have grand ideas about what children need, but no one’s asking how their mothers* are doing. Don’t get me wrong: the last thing I want is to play into the rhetoric that poses that happy mothers have happy babies, as if having a bad day or struggling sometimes is somehow a failure. But the chirpy ‘getting mothers back into the workforce’ spiel is starting to sound a bit tired. We’ve been working all along – and that work won’t go away just because society refuses to value it.

So what does a truly feminist childcare model look like? A good first step might be one that doesn’t tell parents that their most important job in this world is to be productive in the sense of contributing to economic growth; one of flexibility and lack of judgement, one that levels the playing field not just in a financial sense but also when it comes to equality of choice and wellbeing. And a feminist media? Alas, it’s a long road ahead. 

*And yes, to be clear: I do mean mothers, not parents. A close friend who became a father recently remarked when returning from a stroll with his baby daughter in the sling how easy it is to be celebrated as a super dad, what with all the smiles and encouraging comments. I’ve yet to meet a mother who feels quite that loved and supported by the general public. Also, refer again to the Christmas commercials. I rest my case.     

On The Niall Boylan Show and getting ignorant answers to ignorant questions

Is the general public “right to be angry at the sense of entitlement” of a homeless, pregnant mother-of-two in temporary hotel accommodation? asked The Niall Boylan Show on Facebook the other day. Linking to screen grabs of a journal.ie article about the woman and a selection of comments on the same, the radio show noted that Laura from Cork was “not getting a huge amount of sympathetic thumbs up” on the site.

Cue the radio show’s Facebook fans telling Laura to “close [her] fucking fanny”, stop having more kids and start looking after the ones she already has, get a job, and start paying for a living. Her “sense of entitlement”, of course, is never questioned – that’s already been established by the question asked.

The fact the journal.ie readers were indeed quick to judge – suggesting that Laura must start taking responsibility, sarcastically highlighting that they themselves actually have to pay when staying in a hotel, and citing anecdotal evidence of random friends who do social work and know of people turning down offers of houses – naturally doesn’t help. But the Niall Boylan Show is only delighted to amplify them, making readers feel righteous in their outrage at this woman’s lifestyle. They are “the general public”, so the radio show said – and, as another commenter points out, it’s the general public that foots the bill for that hotel room. So the circle of hatred is complete.

The fact that there are a thousand and one ways to get pregnant against your will and not a single one to stop being pregnant if you’re a single mother without someone to mind your children while you nip off to the UK to splash out on an abortion, these people seem to have forgotten. Likewise, they seem just a tad ignorant about the difficulty in getting a job when already five months pregnant, not to mention the equation of one income to cover not just rent and bills but also childcare costs for two children.

But what’s outrageous about this isn’t primarily what’s in the comments; anyone who’s spent more than two minutes skimming through comments on any article about anything to do with women will know to expect nothing less. For The Niall Boylan Show to fake upset at the lack of sympathetic thumbs up in the comments on the original post, however, only to go on and amplify said lacking sympathy, cement the idea of a homeless mother-of-two in temporary hotel accommodation as entitled, and do nothing by way of moderating the ensuing vitriol on their own page – that’s what I call irresponsible hypocrisy in its most disgusting form.

A political hero of mine, Swedish politician Gudrun Schyman, talks a lot about a concept she calls ‘problemformuleringsinitiativet’ (go on – give it your best shot). The Swedish multi-syllable word loosely translates as ‘the problem defining initiative’ and refers to agenda-setting power, highlighting that the power to define a problem by extension comes with the power to appoint responsibility and thus also propose wherein the solution might lie.

The question of whether the general public’s anger at Laura’s sense of entitlement is justified or not comes with a number of already established assumptions: that the ignorant people who take time to spew hatred at someone like Laura in the comments section on journal.ie represent the general public; that Laura is definitely to blame for the situation she’s in and we should put all spotlights on her rather than our politicians; that she does indeed feel a sense of entitlement; and that having a sense of entitlement when it comes to the country you live in supporting you when you’re in deep shit to make sure that your children have a roof over their heads would somehow be a bad thing. It’s no wonder that their most unenlightened fans come out of the woodwork at the sight of a post like this. The answers you get are only as good as the questions you ask. It’s an ignorant question, so they’ll get ignorant responses.

I wonder did the radio show ever think to question our elected representatives’ sense of entitlement. I wonder did they pick up on the frustration of the general public at Enda Kenny’s schmoozing with American Vice President elect Mike Pence and ask whether it was right. I wonder did they note the anger marching through the streets of Dublin back in September and put it to their Facebook fans whether the fury of Ireland’s women is justified. That’s the kind of social media clickbait I’d get behind.

On reproductive justice, the failures of neoliberalism, and why ‘choice’ is complicated

It’s a funny one, the word ‘choice’. I spend so much of my time promoting it, explaining it, demanding it – yet whenever I stop to really think about it, I realise that it’s a word I’d much prefer not to have to embrace.

For as long as laissez-faire or economic liberalism has existed, ‘choice’ has been one of its most important buzzwords, second only to ‘freedom’. In fact, the Swedes, keen on optimising language to become its most functional and least wasteful, would talk about a combination of the two: ‘valfrihet’ – freedom of choice. In the name of freedom of choice, neoliberalism has torn down many a welfare state in the hope that the free market, as an invisible hand, would bring us all greater utility by way of rational choice.

In the context of present-day Ireland and the current discussions around reproductive rights, I am unequivocally pro-choice; yet if you tried to twist my words into some sort of neoliberal utopia, I’d cringe.

I grew up in a society steeped in social democrat heritage, where parents shared generous parental leave rights and state schools taught all children from the local area regardless of faith or socio-economic status. I grew up in a country where the school canteen served up free lunches for all, complete with a side serving of the notion of ‘folkhemmet’ – a vision for a society resembling a small family where everyone contributes and everyone’s looked after – and a glass of milk for strong, healthy bones.

Then, in 2006, the liberal-right alliance won the election and neoliberalism swept through the country, the since privatised trains stopped running on time, and finding a good school became all about social capital. Maternity wards got over-crowded, sending women in labour off to the next town or city and midwives home on sick leave due to exhaustion. Many school kitchens stopped serving milk.

I spent a good few years in London, watching the shift from Ken Livingstone to Boris Johnson and hearing David Cameron speak of the ‘big society’, which soon enough turned out to be a cowardly rhetorical device to describe what Thatcher had so bluntly asserted years before him: there is no such thing as society.

I don’t drink milk, yet I liked ‘folkhemmet’ better than what slogans about choice brought about. More often than not, choice-based policies turned out to be get-out clauses for governments who didn’t want to carry any responsibility, for leaders to be able to point to citizens and blame them for choosing wrong instead of providing choice in the real sense, along with care and support. Choice appeared to be to modern-day liberals what the big society was to Cameron – an empty promise, a chance to walk away.

But what’s in a word? Choice can refer to ‘the action of choosing’, ‘the power of choosing’, the sheer ‘fact of having a choice’. At first sight, it seems pretty simple: you either have the right to choose or you don’t. But the action of choosing requires a lot more. I’ve heard campaigners, especially lawyers, point out when pro-choice representatives insist that healthcare and abortion rights don’t belong in the constitution that, in fact, the right to reproductive health should absolutely be enshrined as such. Without a guaranteed, positive right, many people don’t have any right at all.

It struck me as I was thinking about all this that the word for choice isn’t used in the reproductive rights discourse in Sweden. A friend who works in the field explained it to me: abortion rights have in Sweden for quite some time been campaigned for within the realm of sexual, reproductive health rights (SRHR), and in that context the conversation tends to revolve more around justice, access and intersectionality. The dualism of being for or against choice doesn’t really exist.

Turns out, the reproductive justice (RJ) movement, which is growing globally, has already problematised the use of the word choice and its discriminatory and exclusionary tendencies. The right to choose to have an abortion – the fact that a jurisdiction allows for a procedure to take place, more or less without judgement – is not enough for the woman who can’t afford to pay for one, the pregnant person whose local abortion clinic has closed down, the asylum seeker without valid health insurance. And does the right to procure an abortion really qualify as choice if the person needing it has been denied sex education or suitable contraception? What about those forcibly sterilised, what good does choice in regards to abortion and maternity care do them? If the alternative to procuring an abortion, in the event where said procedure is safe and legal, is a life in poverty, judged by mainstream media and society at large – what kind of choice is that?

I’m not sure about the idea of ‘folkhemmet’ as applied to society the way it looks today; I’m not convinced it’s got the scope for pluralism, at least not in its former guise. But the live-and-let-live ideology that left trains derailed and school children discriminated against won’t be good enough. I don’t want to be handed a token notion of choice only for the decision makers to turn around and walk away. I want to prove Thatcher wrong.

“My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit,” Flavia Dzodan famously declared. Of course the right to choose is a hugely important issue in Ireland, for all kinds of historical and pragmatic reasons. And sure, before you have the right to choose, you’re not going to be marching the streets demanding access. So I will show up for every pro-choice march to demand that most basic of rights; but when the politicians think they’ve awarded it to us, I will keep showing up to try to make it real – to make it free and accessible, complete in every sense of the word, and inseparable from care and support. My reproductive justice advocacy will be intersectional – or it will be bullshit. 

I oppose irresponsible programming - not free speech

So The Late Late Show decided to book Katie Hopkins – British tabloid columnist, vocal Trump supporter and bigoted racist extraordinaire – to fly over from England to discuss the context and outcome of the US election. RTÉ received over 1,000 complaints in little over a day, but the complainants were quickly labelled smug and opposed to democratic, basic free speech, and accused of – wait for it – denying Hopkins a platform.

Let’s be very clear about one thing: this has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with poor programming.

“RTÉ, as the national public service broadcaster, shall reflect the democratic, social and cultural values of Irish society and the need to preserve media pluralism,” reads the first guiding principle of the Public Service Broadcasting Charter. The third principle adds that “no editorial or programming bias shall be shown in terms of gender, age, disability, race, sexual orientation, religion or membership of a minority community.”

So The Late Late Show, notorious for under-representing women amongst its guests, went and booked a woman who not only regularly engages in hate speech and famously referred to immigrants as 'cockroaches' but has explicitly endorsed and amplified rape threats. The irony would be hilarious if it wasn’t so frightening.

RTÉ justified the decision by highlighting what a big event the US election was. Presenter Ryan Tubridy added that Hopkins’ ‘thing’ is to state controversial opinions, which start important conversations. Shorthand, if I may: we're broadcasting a bit of racism and misogyny to spark debate. Reflecting the values of Irish society, huh? This is the media equivalent of the Taoiseach congratulating Trump on his victory on behalf of the Irish people. Not in my name.

There are endless ways to analyse the context in which a man like Trump can be elected President of the United States, without inviting along a hateful person with an already significant platform, not to mention the fact that she seems like quite a far-fetched choice in an Irish-American context. I can think of countless ways to bring to the fore controversial issues while providing a platform for women with voices that are otherwise seldom heard. How about starting by inviting immigrant women from direct provision centres onto the show for a different perspective?

Far from wishing to deny someone a platform, I want to extend that platform to include more voices in an aim to embrace that charter pluralism principle. Far from being smug, I’m worried about a public service broadcaster that should refrain from demonstrating programming bias in regards to everything from gender to race, yet finds it so hard to find suitable women that it resorts to inviting one with a fondness of hate speech and controversy. This is irresponsible broadcasting, plain and simple – at any time, all the time, but especially in the current political environment.

Want to have a debate about free speech and pluralism? Bring it on. But the way things stand, if anyone's smug it's Katie Hopkins.

We need to change the way we talk about politics

I’ll remember the morning Donald Trump was elected as the morning I cried while stirring the porridge. Some people will say I am exaggerating. I can only hope they’re right.

The Ku Klux Klan are celebrating, as is the anti-abortion brigade. Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, the friends of Brexit – these are the people who feel as if they’re on the right side of history in this.

People say that feminism has gone too far, but a man who talks of “grabbing [women] by the pussy” has just been elected to the White House. People say that white lives matter, as the new President of the United States of America prepares to build a wall between ‘us’ and ‘them’, between those born with a right to the American dream and those who need to get out.

I think we need to change the way we talk about politics. This is what happens when politics becomes a financial transaction, when we swap votes for promises of personal gain. When we talk about what’s happening in my back garden, in my wallet, what imagined threats there are to my personal safety, we erase a reality about the bodies across the Mediterranean Sea, about backstreet abortions and those who couldn’t care less about a wallet in the first place.

Trump’s American dream may boast about unity, but it suffers from a severe dearth of solidarity. This is not the President of a world where we take responsibility for each other as citizens.

I think we need to change the way we talk about politics, but not just politics. All this #NotAllMen and #WhiteLivesMatter – this is what has become of it. Do you laugh at the talk of safe spaces and trigger warnings? Do you think gender neutral pronouns are over the top? Do you joke about how feminists need to take a chill pill? Well the joke is on you. You have put your discomfort with the things you don’t understand above the safety of those less privileged than you. Just like the Trump voters.

Maybe you’re also of the opinion that it was all the same, that whatever the outcome of this election it would have been a disaster. But say that to the face of a Mexican in a southern state. Say that to someone with a ‘pussy’.

I think we need to change not just the way we talk about politics, but how we do politics. I look at the friends who supported another alternative, and I wonder how they feel; I wonder if they realise that those alternative votes make the difference between a bad, neoliberal first-ever woman president of the US and hell on earth for many people.

Yet they’re not the bad people here: they dared to hope for better things to come. The first-past-the-post system is always going to be a race to the bottom; it’s always going to protect status quo. Right now, Donald Trump is status quo.

We need to change the conversation, and we need to change it now. White, male privilege won today. Racism won, rape culture won. Let’s make its victory a turning point. Let’s reach out and listen to each other, talk about the things that make us uncomfortable, and try to tease out the things we cannot understand. Let's make today the beginning of the end of a politics of fear.

Meet my sister

Dear new friend,

Meet my sister. Her name is Klara. The last time I saw her was on the first of advent 2006 on a train platform as she got on a train back to where she was studying photo journalism at the time. I was living in London and home for the weekend, and she’d decided to ‘come home’ to see me.

She took her own life just over a week later.

I need to tell you about my sister not because I need you to carry me and tell me you’re sorry. I need to tell you about my sister because she is an integral part of me, and one I adore, and without knowing about her you can never fully know me. And as much as I like you, the opportunity to tell you about that sister I had, who killed herself years before we even met, might never come.

We might hear a Jens Lekman song and I’ll instinctively want to tell you about that summer when we were both living at home and having friends over for drinks, dancing the night away. Or you might tell me I’ve lost an earring and I’ll have to explain that there was only ever one, but I’ll hold onto it like you’d hold onto a family heirloom because she bought it, and she didn’t care much about pairing it up. I might see a photo of one of her best friends on her due date, and it might shake the ground I walk on for days to come. Or you might end up talking about your sister and how nothing else compares, and I’ll cry; and that’s OK, but I’ll want you to know that cherishing it is great but that once you start to take it for granted I'll really struggle.

Meet my sister. Her name is Klara and she was so much to so many people: the funny one, and the quiet one; the strong one, and the broken one; the rock, yet completely lost; happiness epitomised, yet altogether sad. She wore the strangest combinations of clothes but managed to always look like she loved herself. I don’t know if I ever really realised that she didn’t.

She had the most amazing of friends: the kind of friendships you think only exist in American box-sets, except deeper; the kind of friends who laugh so hard they're sore for days afterwards, who love each other so boundlessly that they’ll break each other’s hearts if they have to to keep each other safe.

She didn’t really love herself in the end, nor did she see the charm with those rock solid friendships. She didn’t give anyone a chance to save her, and I’m not sure who I am to say that there was much left to save. I will forever miss my sister, always long for the auntie my sons never had. And boy would she have made a brilliant auntie.

But the memory of her is very much alive, still, approaching ten years since the day she died. In fact, the memory of her is so much more alive than the real-life impression of so many people I meet on a day-to-day basis. And it is talking about her that keeps those memories alive. It is laughing at the funny things she did, talking about the things we used to do, and explaining to people who didn’t know her what made her who she was, that will make her just as alive in another ten years’ time.

I need to tell you about my sister, because the grief has been coming at me at full force lately and I'm running out of excuses for puffy eyes, absent-mindedness and unexpected mood swings. That's the funny thing about emigrating: as you move away from those you love, escape the things that annoy you, and run away from all that which you can't quite put your finger on but which gets under your skin, you also leave behind all the places and smells and memories that would otherwise remind you of your past. Along with the chance to reinvent yourself comes a life without all those people who know who you were at 15. At the same time, grief goes into hibernation and you never know when it might strike.

This is why I need you to meet my sister, new friend. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, but I need you to share those memories with me to keep them – and her – alive.

Why politics needs passion: on tone policing, Repeal jumpers and rational reasoning

Is tone policing the new master suppression technique?

What is a master suppression technique? you ask. It is a way to suppress and humiliate an opponent, according to Norwegian psychologist and philosopher Ingjald Nissen, who articulated the framework of such techniques in 1945.

And tone policing? A tone argument is one which isn’t strictly concerned with what is being said, but rather with the tone in which it is expressed. Tone policing, consequently, is a strategy of dismissing arguments irrespective of their legitimacy or accuracy. It’s a derailing tactic and, I would suggest, a master suppression technique on the rise.

Ireland boasts an impressive selection of recent examples of the latter, thanks to a series of articles published across various national dailies arguing that the problem with the public conversation on reproductive justice and a repeal of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution is not in its sheer existence or even the motivations behind its existence, but rather in what it sounds – and looks – like.

“Abortion is, understandably, an issue that arouses deep passions but that shouldn’t preclude an effort by all sides to listen to opposing views and try to understand the reasoning involved,” argued Irish Times columnist Paul Cullen yesterday. He was writing in the hope that today’s debate wouldn’t have to resort to “plumbing the depths” the same way it did in the 1980s – yet, he noted, “the signs aren’t good”.

Much of the recent criticism of the pro-choice movement has engaged in some or a great deal of tone policing. In the most literal sense, those who fear for the outcome of the debate have pointed out that shrill tones and anger won’t win over middle Ireland, that extremists with fists in the air are not exactly attractive. Similarly, Cullen dismisses the “strident voices on the two ends of the spectrum, each group deeply attached to absolutist views on the subject”.

Others have pointed to a naivety, suggesting that the pro-choice campaign doesn’t engage with the important moral debates, instead increasingly resembling a trend-conscious clique. “The push for liberalising abortion law sometimes feels more like a marketing campaign than a political debate,” Cullen chips in, pointing to the Repeal jumpers and focus on personal stories.

But that’s exactly where the tone police get it wrong: this very much is personal.

I was thinking a while back about why I felt so angry when a friend – a male friend, I should say – told me he identified as pro-life. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, and I’m sure there are plenty of his kind in my network of friends and acquaintances. But then it hit me: the privilege of putting the opinion out there, of making me aware of his stance against my right to bodily autonomy, and then suggesting that we agree to disagree in this supposed ‘debate’ about my life and health, is absurd to the point of being offensive. In saying it, he didn’t just side with the people who insist it is right to see me endure pregnancy against my will, give birth against my will, and parent a child against my will just to allow for a potential life to develop; he also equalled his right to staying true to a principle to my right to make decisions about what happens to me, my body and my life. An opinion against a feeling; an argument versus a lived experience.

We talk about reason and rational deliberation as cornerstones of a functioning democracy, about needing to prevent emotions from running high and stopping us from thinking sensibly. This notion of emotions as the antithesis of rational thought is nothing new, especially not for anyone familiar with rational choice theory, which sees citizens voting to maximise individual utility, completely free from emotional and societal bonds. But is this really a useful interpretation of society?

Studies of citizens and different social contexts have shown that, perhaps unsurprisingly, passion and talk of personal experiences are mostly seen to belong in the domestic, private sphere, while rationality should prevail in the political, public sphere. Activists are painted out to belong to an extreme fringe of society, while power and leadership is almost exclusively represented in media by serious figures of authority with no feelings and no displayed personal interest.

But the notion of rationality and passion as mutually exclusive has time and again been questioned by political engagement theorists. ‘Apathy’ means ‘without passion’, argues researcher Cheryl Hall, so the problem with apathetic citizens is a lack of political passion. Cognitive attention is not enough to spark political engagement – citizens need to care about something and have a vision in order to act. Put bluntly: politics needs passion.

At the end of his opinion piece, Cullen writes about Kathleen Sebelius, Barack Obama’s former health secretary, who identifies as anti-abortion but pro-choice. She believes that life begins at conception but accepts that it is not her business to impose her views on others. “Perhaps it is time we started hearing more of those voices,” the Irish Times columnist concludes. Ironically, those voices are very much heard throughout the pro-choice campaign: for instance, the work of Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, has been circulated and celebrated widely of late, and she too is almost coldly rational about how the notion of life from the moment of conception is compatible with passionately pro-choice views; and many others, myself included, have written extensively about the complexities of notions of life and pregnancy loss, yet without for a moment compromising on our pro-choice conviction. Perhaps it is time we started listening to more of these voices – even if they are angry. Perhaps it is time the mainstream media started amplifying them – even if they are shrill.

It is easy to write calmly, sensibly and rationally about just about anything, irrespective of how passionately you feel about it; you may notice how I haven’t been interrupted once in the almost 1,000 words in this post thus far. But the “productive national conversation” Cullen is calling for won’t take place on the opinion pages of our national newspapers – it will have to be a two-way thing, and it will cause friction.

I’m convinced that the huge majority of people agree that we need a productive national conversation on reproductive rights, but I think that the liberal rational choice ideal has sold us a lie about what such a conversation should look like.

Passions are informed by reason, and personal experiences inform our political beliefs. Show me a supposedly superior moral principle and I’ll show you the door; wear your heart on your sleeve and I’ll listen.

Rule of the people, anyone? On democracy and the system being broken

Look, I don’t mean to be patronising. If you’ve been to school, you know this; you’ll know it like the back of your hand. But today, it feels like perhaps we need to go back to basics.

The word democracy means ‘rule by the people’, derived from the Greek ‘demos’, for ‘common people’, and ‘kratos’, for ‘rule’ or ‘strength’. Democracy, in other words, is a form of government in which political control is exercised by all the people, either directly or through elected representatives.

Ireland is a parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Scrap the ‘directly’ bit from the definition above: representative democracy is a form of government in which power is held by the people and exercised indirectly through elected representatives who make decisions – and who are then held accountable for their activity within government.’

Now to the elements of direct democracy. When does a referendum need to be held? Whenever, says the Citizens Information website, the government wants to change the constitution. This is interesting, especially today. Is it when the government wants to, or the common people? If the former differs from the latter, how do we hold the government to account?

Cynics may say, bluntly, that we hold them to account by not reelecting them when it’s time for another general election. But what if the government is actively preventing a general election being called, using tactics so undemocratic that they should, by any democratic definition, be kicked out of the Dáil with immediate effect?

Year on year, the March for Choice grows, explosively. Every day, pregnant people break the law by necessity as they import and swallow pills to induce a miscarriage. Elected representatives put forward bills proposing a referendum to let the people decide whether it’s time to amend the constitution with regards to a change in attitudes towards reproductive rights. And as the government realises it’s divided on the issue and a vote would likely lead to collapse, what does it do? It blocks the bill, instead pointing to the process of a Citizens’ Assembly – yes, another group supposedly representing the people, just not actually democratically elected – to avoid having to make any decision on the issue at all.

To be clear, we’re not talking about making a decision on reproductive rights. We’re talking about the decision to call a referendum to let the people, the common people, decide. What was that definition of representative democracy again? Oh yes, representatives who make decisions. How can we hold them to account when they refuse to make decisions out of fear that they’ll trigger a general election?

It’s a shambles, and it’s not democracy. There’s no sense of rule or strength on the part of the public. We feel ignored, helpless and increasingly angry.

Judging by the government’s current tactics, the timeframe discussed for the Citizens’ Assembly, and the processes involved in preparing for a referendum, any change to the 8th amendment is years away. Just by the end of this year, another 850 people will have left Ireland to access reproductive healthcare elsewhere. Many more will have taken the abortion pill at home or remained pregnant against their will, and thousands will have gone through the maternity system without the right to informed consent.

I’m off to the Dáil to rally. I’m tired, and I’m losing respect for the people supposedly representing us. Who knows what the strength of the common people will look like if nothing changes soon? The system is broken.

Free, safe, legal: on the importance of compassion, and why I won't be playing strategic games

I’m going to come out and say it: I’m for abortion on demand, if that’s what you insist on calling it. Without restrictions.

Time and time again we’re being told to tone it down. Again and again, newspapers insist on publishing opinion pieces telling us to be more strategic and less extreme. Not only are we too angry and shrill; our arguments are simply too much for middle Ireland to take.

But I feel sick every time I think about playing the strategy game, and I can’t help but think that it’s them and not us who are doing it wrong. It is clear as day that volume and persistence works. 30,000+ people don’t turn up to march for choice in the rain during an ongoing bus strike for nothing. Moreover, I’m convinced that it’s worth giving real conversation an honest chance, no matter how difficult that conversation is. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about compassion; and try as politicians might to suggest that Ireland has none, I beg to differ. 87% told Red C during a poll commissioned by Amnesty International Ireland that they want abortion access expanded in Ireland, and 68% agree that we should trust women when they say they need an abortion. And that’s not Dublin’s radicalised women; that’s near consistent across the counties and genders.

Maybe if I were trying to convince the most convicted of so-called pro-life advocates to change their ways I would get into the science about whether or not a foetus can experience pain and try to tease out whether life really does begin at conception. But in conversations with anyone else, I don’t think it really matters.

I’m not here to tell you when life begins. You’re allowed to think of an embryo as the child it may one day become – I’m not going to take that away from you. I’m here to ask you to think of women as people and to take that compassion you have, however deep down, for the woman who is told that her baby is not compatible with life, and extend it to pregnant people in all kinds of different challenging, untimely, complicated situations which you don’t know the details of.

I’m not here to tell you not to feel. You’re allowed to think about the potential of life and the amazing miracle of childbirth and wish for an ideal world where abortions aren’t needed – I’m not going to take that away from you. I’m here to ask you to deal with the complicated greyscale that arises the moment we accept that perfectly healthy zygotes are discarded every day in IVF clinics; that most parents, wherever they stand in the abortion debate, wouldn’t hesitate for a second if forced to choose between saving the life of their living, independently breathing toddler or that of a fertilised egg in a petri dish or even an already implanted, growing foetus.

When does life begin? I don’t know. What does it mean to be alive?

There are situations where we are compelled to empathise with a person who needs access to a termination of a pregnancy, and in those situations we learn that 'life' is not that black and white. But we don’t create laws based on our ability to empathise; we don’t write laws about women’s bodies based on how you feel. Because this isn’t about you.

This is about compassion, and I’m convinced that talking about life that way is worth it. I don’t want to play games, pitting women against each other; I don’t want to pretend that I agree with the pinciple of a foetus’s right to life, but only in the instances where I can’t empathise with its mother. And I refuse to play along with a debate that paints young women in need of abortions out as wanton, when the contempt for young single mothers is just as bad.

The rhetoric about abortion on demand and late-term abortions is a dishonest trick. No one has an abortion for fun. No floodgates are going to open, and no red light abortion districts will take over our high streets. We only have to look to Canada, where abortion is no longer regulated by law – available at any time, for any reason – and abortion rates are at the lower end amongst developed countries.

I want us to get real about the fact that pregnant Irish people have abortions, in Ireland and elsewhere at considerable financial and emotional expense, not to mention the completely unnecessary risks to their health. We have to decide how to deal with it: by toning it down and continuing a narrative of shame, or by admitting that this is what life is and working on being compassionate – even when it’s hard.

Why I'm marching: for real care and real respect, without judgement

I remember vividly the feeling the first time I found out I was pregnant: the magic of it all, trying to comprehend that what was there inside me was the beginnings of a new life, the beginnings of what could become our firstborn, half me and half him. One loss and two unfathomably amazing children later, I sit here trying to imagine the feeling of finding out now: the panic of it all, knowing full well what that teeny, tiny thing inside would be the beginnings of and how life-changing it would be.

We hear the anti-choice campaign talk about the right to life. I’m marching on Saturday because I don’t think ‘life’ is that simple.

I remember vividly the moment everything changed – a sonographer’s silence as she turned the screen away from us. I had experienced grief before and immediately recognised it: a black curtain that closes in front of your eyes, forever shutting out the world as you once knew it. He kicked furiously inside me. “It’s good that it’s happening to us,” I kept telling myself. “We’re strong – we can get through this.”

Along with the sadness I feel when I think about our firstborn, there is a deep, deep sense of gratitude. The care we received was so utterly dignified, the consultant so objectively professional yet supportive, the midwives so warm and caring that we spent weeks talking about them afterwards. It was the definition of ‘care’. I hate the memory of those Whittington corridors, the feeling of walking down the hill from Highgate in leafy north London. But the NHS will always have a special place in my heart, because at a time of numbing grief, we were treated with nothing but respect.

Life isn’t black and white. It comes in full colour, full of bright highs and all different shades of tough, indiscernible grey. There’s no such thing as sheer existence – we feel it, we try to make sense of it, we make decisions and move on. And therein lies the power of it all: we can’t choose what will happen to us, but we can choose how to deal with it – provided our jurisdiction trusts us to.

We hear the anti-choice campaign talk about the right to life, about the need to voice the interests of the voiceless. I’m marching on Saturday because I’m not convinced they can.

We trust pregnant people to mind themselves throughout the sometimes tumultuous experience of a pregnancy, to prepare for the arrival of a new human being who will need their complete attention every moment of every day for years to come, to deal with all the difficult decisions and choices they’ll face as they rise to the challenge of being a parent. How can we decide for their unborn children that sheer existence, the idea of life as absolute, is the best thing for them – no matter how their mother feels, no matter the challenges she’s facing or her feelings of doubt?

We hear the anti-choice campaign talk about the right to life. I’m marching on Saturday because most of the time, it sounds more like they’re talking about the right to birth – the right to arrive into this world no matter the cost, no matter the implications for their siblings, no matter how suicidal their mother is or if she’s been absolutely certain her entire life that motherhood is not for her; indeed no matter the experience of the pregnant person facing months of answering well-intended questions about due dates and plans, knowing that the baby is slowly but surely dying and there will be no such thing as a life at the end of it.

We hear the anti-choice campaign talk about the right to life, and I’m growing really, really tired of it. I’m marching on Saturday because all too often, people tell me they’re pro-life but that what we went through was different – and that’s got nothing to do with life, nor does it have anything to do with choice. That’s telling me that my choice was allowed because I grieved, and that next time, maybe, if they can’t put themselves in my shoes, they’ll deem me a criminal. It’s draining life of all its rich, challenging colour, leaving a watered-down version seeping with shame and fear.

I’m marching on Saturday because I want real care and real respect, and the way things stand, Ireland gives me none of it.

This was written for and originally published by the Abortion Rights Campaign. 

A word on choice and tone-policing – or, why balance is a sham

We’re used to being told that we’re doing it wrong. We’re used to being told that we’re too aggressive, too angry, too shrill. But when, all of a sudden, we start hearing it from people supposedly on our side, alarm bells start ringing.

These alleged pro-choice supporters with the vocabulary of anti-choicers started voicing their concerns in national newspapers recently, airing their fears that the repeal campaign may be failing and revealing that they wouldn’t be joining the March for Choice after all. Why? First we were told that we were failing to take the debate about the unborn’s right to life, and that we’d need to do so in order to win over Ireland’s ‘mushy middle’. It’s a debate campaigners are taking every day, of course, but it turns out that the argument was just a tool used to evoke the image of a poor, innocent baby before going on to shame women for not grieving and feeling guilty enough.

Next we were informed that we were being too aggressive, something that of course makes perfect sense to anyone sharing our pro-choice views and generally agreeing that having been refused bodily autonomy for what seems like forever is more than a bit disgraceful. But this too turned out to be a hoax, followed by an endless stream of reasons why liberalised abortion legislation would be a bad thing, including that sexually transmitted diseases are on the up, that solo parenting might not be quite as horrific as you think, and that many people struggle to get pregnant in their forties. Oh, and just as a side note, we were all overreacting to the video evidence of a faux abortion counselling service telling lies about cancer and parental abuse, and we should all calm down and be civil.

You could think of such poorly staged attempts to package a conservative anti-choice agenda in a less fundamentalist, ever so slightly semi-enlightened guise as harmless. Or you could look at a public discourse obsessed with a literal notion of balance and start to feel robbed. Ring up the paper that published the two aforementioned examples and they’ll refer to them as pro-choice opinion pieces. Transparent or not, it doesn’t take a media scholar to realise that we’ve just lost an important platform along with the chance to define who we are.

The repeal campaign deals with the conversation around the unborn all the time, but if a supposed representative of the movement suggests that it doesn’t, it’ll quickly start to seem suspicious, as if campaigners are hiding something. When an alleged insider drags issues of STIs and infertility into the abortion discourse, it piles on the work of the pro-choice movement to refute such ridiculous claims. And no number of calmly eloquent reproductive rights activists on TV will ever erase the discomfort experienced by some people in relation to the rage also fuelling the movement, once someone who says she’s on their side takes issue with their anger and frustration, even describing them as deluded and condescending. For every column width of anti-choicers posing as pro-choice allies, we are little by little losing control of the narrative.

Isn't it funny how the majority of people seem happy to turn a blind eye to what looks quite a lot like defamation of an entire movement, yet when Helen and Graham Linehan spoke about their experience of losing a baby to a fatal foetal abnormality the BAI upheld a complaint pointing out that the coverage wasn’t balanced enough? Isn't it funny that RTÉ paid out a total of €85,000 to journalist John Waters and members of the Iona Institute after Rory O’Neill referred to their views as homophobic, yet none of the thousands of people who are about to take to the streets for the March for Choice this Saturday is likely to see any sign of a cheque for being described as deluded and “losing their collective minds”, their views completely and utterly misrepresented and the campaign recontextualised to a ridiculous degree?

The Press Council of Ireland’s Code of Practice states that content should not have “been inappropriately influenced by undisclosed interests”. The articles produced by our two faux pro-choice friends – both of whom are, just to be clear, sharing unquestionably anti-choice content on Twitter – are, as such, failing to meet the council’s standards. So why is it allowed to go on? It’s been suggested before that calls for balance in media reporting are almost always part of a conservative agenda, aiming to preserve the status quo; the Broadcasting Act of 2009 holds that broadcasters should not present anything that “undermines the authority of the State” or is “likely to promote, or incite to, crime”. Not only does this highlight beyond any doubt that we’ve given up on the idea of media as a fourth estate, which should monitor our elected leaders to hold power to account, but it also poses some important questions about the notion of balance in regards to the reproductive rights debate, seeing as abortion is still a criminal offence in Ireland.

Perhaps it is time we accept that our idea of balance is a sham – that it is used to protect the privileged and powerful but time and time again fails to deliver when those who dare to question the status quo are being silenced. We have a public service offering that welcomes commercial interests along for the ride, with broadcasters relying on advertising revenue and sponsorship deals to deliver their content. How could we ever fool ourselves to believe that investigative journalism is fully and freely investigative when the work is funded by advertisers with vested interest in its findings? What happens the day a guest of the Late Late Show decides to talk about the need to invest in public transport and increase motor tax, when every week an audience member leaves the show with a brand new Renault?

The gist of the two fraudulent articles comes down to this: that the fury of abortion rights advocates is offensive, and that women who need abortions should be ashamed of themselves. Look at the lies that are published in our name without as much as a blink of an eye, and ask yourself why it might be that we’re angry and shrill. Look at the BAI endorsing the view that the Linehans’ grief should have been attacked live on air, and ask yourself who should be ashamed. It’s easy to be calm and civil when you’ve got the status quo and every regulatory body in the country on your side. When your uterus is treated as public property and every single mainstream media outlet will fight for its right to tell you what to do with it, all while patronisingly pretending to have your best interests at heart, there is no such thing as calm.

Join the Abortion Rights Campaign to March for Choice this Saturday in Dublin, starting at 1.30pm at the Garden of Remembrance.  

From #NotAllMen to #AllVictimsMatter

I started writing a piece the other day called ‘From #NotAllMen to #NotAllMedia’, which I had yet to publish. I wanted to clarify yet again how my criticism of the reporting of the Cavan murders was a structural critique of sorts, aiming to start a conversation around the wider media climate and its impact on the real-life experiences of its audiences, and how making it personal and debating individual journalists’ performances and accomplishments would be to drastically miss the point. Naturally, I responded to requests to debate individual tabloid journalists on air with a firm ‘no’. I wasn’t going to engage with that level of debate at all.

Then the Crime Editor of the Irish Times went and published an opinion piece entitled ‘How #HerNameWasClodagh missed the media’s real failing’, launching the hashtag #AllVictimsMatter, and here I am. I will assume that I was at least to some degree included in the group he defends himself against, dubbed “one ill-informed corner of social media”, “spectacularly wrong” and an “echo chamber of social media and blogging” – and I would happily accept those monikers if it seemed as if the editor had understood at least the most basic ideas behind the criticism of the coverage he writes about, but alas. What this is, then, is not so much a defense of my views as it is an attempt to highlight the privilege behind such hashtags of blind self-righteousness.

“We were told journalists – all of them, it seems – wanted to package this case as a family tragedy and quickly move on.”

I have explicitly repeated over and over again that the journalists pointing out that they in fact did something right are catastrophically missing the point. I have also said explicitly on more than one occasion that I don’t think that journalists consciously went out on a mission to erase the memory of Clodagh. In fact, I have said the complete opposite: that we’ve all grown up as part of a society full of patriarchal tropes, and that what we need is a discussion around how we can avoid perpetuating said tropes. There is a narcissistic streak in the urge for a journalist to take my critique personally, similar to the narcissism that has fuelled hashtags such as #NotAllMen.

“Many of them hopelessly mistook the placing of Alan Hawe at the centre of the coverage as misogyny in a world where the actions of violent men are somehow accepted by the media and their female victims do not matter. The truth is that the case of the Hawe family was treated no differently to any other; with the media focused on the perpetrator over, and at the expense of, the victims. This has nothing to do with gender, no matter how hard some people try to make it so.”

The crime editor is privileged enough that he can compare the reporting of one case with the reporting of another like for like, completely disregarding the context in which those crimes take place and the role of media in augmenting or undermining certain accepted narratives in society. To think that the reporting of a case of brutal domestic violence has nothing to do with gender is not just naïve, but frankly irresponsible and, yes, misogynistic. But then again, that inability to see the bigger picture is inherent to all the aforementioned hashtags.

“Having had the same conversation with many people on the periphery of such cases, I have found that when people speak of a killer’s talents and strengths, they are not condoning or minimising their violence. They are pondering – often in shock – how the life of the perpetrator was apparently so “normal” and at odds with the violence they committed in their final moments.”

No one is criticising the people behind the quotes, those grieving and those in disbelief. It is the blind regurgitation of such quotes by media that is problematic. There is a reason why a seemingly ‘normal’ person committing such a horrendous crime is met with such disbelief and shock; and a media discourse that doesn’t silence but rather trust and support the voices of women who have experienced domestic abuse could significantly help us understand the culture that creates men like Alan Hawe. If we remove the spotlight from the Cavan killings for a moment and point it to the editorial offices of our mainstream media instead, we can start to talk about considered narratives as opposed to spontaneous reactions of shock, and we might be onto something.

“In these cases, local people who knew the family often feel freer, in my experience, to say more about the perpetrator, to whom they understandably have less loyalty, than the victims. This is especially so when, like Kilkenny man Alan Hawe, the perpetrator is not originally from the area where the murders and suicide have taken place but the victims and their extended family are, as was the case with Clodagh Hawe and her Cavan-based extended family.”

The entire history of tabloid coverage of murders, disappearances and similar goes against this theory, but even if it were true, media do not just choose what questions to ask; they also choose what to print. Is a ‘We just wrote what they said!’ kind of media really the kind the editor wants to associate himself with?

“It is interesting that the deaths of forgotten victims – women and men – from poorer social circumstances have not whipped up the same strength of feeling in the past from those most vehemently behind the #HerNameWasClodagh campaign. There are huge lessons in this case for the media, but not the gender-based ones suggested by the echo chamber of social media and blogging; the media needs to focus more on victims. #AllVictimsMatter”

Oh no he didn’t. But of course he did, in one punchy finishing line proving all his critics right. Because this is exactly what this is about: the privilege that won’t give way for scrutinisation; the literal interpretation of the notion of equality that refuses to accept that equal treatment of those without equal starting points does not equality make.

What does #AllVictimsMatter have in common with #AllLivesMatter and #NotAllMen? That people in positions of power and privilege accuse those criticising the status quo for forgetting to care about those already cared for by the status quo: women’s rights activists are accused of not spending enough time campaigning for men’s rights and #BlackLivesMatter spokespeople are accused of discrimination – but those lashing out, naturally, have never bothered to campaign for either cause. All victims do matter, but not all murder victims potentially represent thousands of other victims who are still alive and reading the papers, told that their side of the story won’t be heard. I was told when my piece went viral that Alan Hawe is the centre of attention because he had agency while the others didn’t. Oh the irony of the fact that journalists – those holding the pens that write the stories of how we view ourselves – consider that an unquestionably, already cemented starting point.

Rest in peace, invisible woman

Five people die in Cavan, and in the days to come, Irish newspapers are full of questions. “Why did he do it?” asks one national daily, picturing a man and his three sons. “How could he kill those poor boys?” asks another.

It is almost immediately clear that the father, Mr Hawe, has stabbed the other four to death: the mother and the three sons. He has then killed himself. And in search for answers, we are told what an honourable man the murderer was: “a valuable member of the community”, “very committed” and “the most normal person you could meet”. Soon follow the calls for increased funding of mental health services.

Two days have passed since the tragic news broke, and today the Irish Times ran a front page reading “Wonderful children who will be missed by all who knew them”. “Killed in their pyjamas by father in frenzied attack,” goes one Independent headline alongside a photo of the boys. It is almost as if we’ve already forgotten: they were a family of five. Rest in peace, invisible mother.

The picture of the man who killed her, however, is becoming more multi-faceted by the day. Mr Hawe was “quiet and a real gentleman”, says one representative of the local council. His brother goes on to talk about his big passion, handball: he’d “won a number of titles”, “played from about eight years of age” and used to play “with his brother and his cousin”. A neighbour offers more praise: “He was the sole person who would do anything for anybody at any time of day or night. He was very obliging.”

It makes sense to draw the conclusion that the man must have been carrying some very dark, difficult secrets, that he must have been mentally tortured somehow. Why else would such a lovely man kill his wife and children before taking his own life? (There's a study in here somewhere, comparing the reporting of events like this with the discourse surrounding abortion and mental health, with women being labelled murderers for ending pregnancies, stopping the growth of sometimes near-invisible clumps of cells, regardless how mentally tortured or suicidal they are.) But while a note found at the house suggests that Mr Hawe had been in “a vulnerable state of mind” at the time of the murders – and while I wholeheartedly agree with calls to end the stigma around mental illness – there is a different and important narrative for framing these events.

We hear about tragic killings like these every now and then. Nine times out of ten (I don’t have statistics, but my hunch is that the figure is far higher), the perpetrator is a man. Lots of people, men and women and non-binary people, struggle with mental illness, but it takes more than mental torture to brutally murder your own children. There is a patriarchal narrative that runs through this entire story, from the act itself to the reporting of it, and we need to allow ourselves to see it if we are to find a way to prevent similar events from happening again.

As Paul Gilligan of St. Patrick’s University Hopsital points out, killing a child requires a certain view of children, an idea that they must be controlled and managed and, in the case of murder suicides, that they cannot go on to live without the murderer. This ideal of control is part of the same patriarchal worldview that refuses to label domestic violence for what it is; that insists on publishing praise for a man who has just brutally murdered his wife and three children; that almost entirely omits the one woman from the story.

“Killed in their pyjamas by father in frenzied attack – before mother-in-law found note,” reads another headline. The narrative, of course, is from the viewpoint of the murderer: she was his mother-in-law. She was the children’s grandmother, the murdered woman’s mother. The murdered woman, then, is most often referred to as the murderer’s wife – relevant only as what she is in relation to the man who killed her. Her name is Clodagh.

A man murders four people in Cavan, and we are fed questions and statements of disbelief alongside praise of the murderer as a community man. On the front pages, we see the man and the three children he murdered. Two days in, Clodagh has all but become invisible. And you ask why feminists are so loud and angry?

The end of censoring myself

“I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.”

I came across this Brené Brown quote one evening recently just after taking part in a Facebook group thread about authenticity and learning to be yourself fully and whole-heartedly, without regard for other people’s opinions. It seemed funny how this came up just then; and then I realised that I had myself been working on a blog post just days earlier, entitled ‘The end of censoring myself’. It suddenly felt as if an entire generation of women had had enough of being nice.

My blog post – the initial draft of what was to eventually be rewritten into this – had been triggered by something as random as a discussion about the sentiment of a car bumper sticker, also in said Facebook group. A friend had lashed out due to frustrations with people, in this instance feminists, who continuously got worked up about the wrong things yet seemed unwilling to support the cause vocally enough and share petitions and articles on request. I had questioned her, it had been a bit tense, we’d had it out and moved on – but I had somehow ended up feeling frazzled, even hurt. A month or two later, enough pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place for me to begin to understand what had happened: I was censoring myself, and she had called me out on it.

It took little more than the realisation for me to decide that I wanted to change. Like the woman who had started the authenticity thread, I knew that I was holding back – but why? Whom was I scared that I might offend? Whom was I trying to protect?

Then another timely piece of writing appeared. After a couple of years’ hiatus, feminist writer Flavia Dzodan returned to the scene with a piece that started like this: “This is about the difficulty of writing about difficulties. The things we do not say because they are not polite or because they are embarrassing. The things we do not talk about because of how they would reflect on those we care.”

There it was: the reason I’d been censoring myself – on Facebook, absolutely, but in many ways far more widely than that. Dzodan continues: “Writing as a woman on the internet is also writing for public scrutiny, to be evaluated in one’s “moral character”. Is this woman embarrassing herself and, by proxy the people in her life? Is this woman bringing “shame” to her family? Unlike men on the internet, we write not only as a reflection of ourselves but of our entire community. When a woman “goes mad” on the internet, she doesn’t just go mad (whatever that means) on her own, she calls into question the patriarchal structures that should have kept her in her place.”

Here’s the thing: I don’t really care what other people think; I’ve just been behaving as if that’s rude of me. But I’m going to write. I’m going to share, and I’m going to ‘like’. Going from A to B might take a bit of time - I’m not even quite sure what B is yet. But what I’m saying is this: if I annoy you, mute me; if you start to really dislike me, unfriend me; if things get uncomfortable, know that it’s coming from a good place. Know that it’s me, fully and whole-heartedly. The watered-down version is no longer in stock. I’m pretty sure I’ll put my foot in it before too long – but I’ll live and I’ll learn and I’ll be able to say that I didn’t censor myself.

All of this pretending and performing has to go. I’m not screwing around. It’s time.

Real change or spare change? Or, why adopting the language of the establishment won't fix it

“See how your income would change with the Renua Ireland flat-tax tax calculator,” my local Renua candidate tweeted today. That’s how Renua is planning on winning votes – literally: click a button and see how many quid you’ll save.

I went to a Dublin civil society group meeting recenty where, among other things, the art of talking to canvassers was discussed. “They’re politicians,” one of the organisers said, “so you can’t talk ethics with them. You have to make financial sense.”

It stayed with me, that idea of politicians as cold-hearted sales people with euro signs in their eyes. Not because I don’t think there’s a smoking gun – but because I found the attitude disheartening. There it was, right at the heart of one of Ireland’s major campaigning bodies: the disillusion.

I don’t mean to say that you get what you deserve. But as much as I take issue with idea that we can think ourselves happy in a flash, I think that there’s a lot to be said for the power of expectation.

Parents have all heard it: don’t tell a child that they’re bold; explain how a specific action is wrong. We must describe kids in positive ways as often as we can, because our perception and expectations of them will make up their sense of self. If they hear often enough that they are bad, pretty soon they will be.

There’s a narrative about politics as corrupt bullshit, about politicians as greedy, power-hungry liars. Then they turn up on our doorstep, and they’re asked: “What’s in it for me?”

I wonder what kind of politicians this rhetoric attracts. I wonder what happens to those deeply devoted to democracy. We can talk about a political class void of ethical concerns, but if we want to talk ethics, we need to put it on the agenda. If we want to live in a world where politics is about more than a transaction of vote for personal gain, we have to start talking about that world when the politicians come knocking on our doors. If we play the neoliberal game and start talking individualism and financial gain the minute they ask us to vote for them, all we’ll get is a flat-tax tax calculator.

“Real change, not spare change,” goes the poster slogan of local AAA candidate, Michael O’Brien. I hated it when I first saw it, found it over-simplistic and banal. The closer to election day it gets, the more profound it seems.

Termination or abortion - it's all about choice

There’s a lot of talk, yet again, in Ireland about TFMR – termination for medical reasons. People who have had the misfortune of having to go through this experience are writing blog posts and articles campaigning for new, proper legislation in Ireland to make the procedure legal, and opinion writers are producing powerful pieces in response to Ireland’s human rights record review in Geneva, begging for abortion to become a choice for all women, or if not that, at least in the case of TFMR.

There is no limit to my sympathy for those who have had to travel to another country in order to give birth to a baby that would never survive outside the womb, told by the powers that be that said horrifying experience would make them a criminal. I went through this while under the care of the NHS in the UK, and I think I would’ve burst out laughing if somebody had told me, at 21 weeks gestation, to keep walking around looking pregnant and answering well-intended questions about the due date, waiting for our baby to die. It is such a barbaric thing to ask of anyone that it seems absolutely ridiculous.

Yet: while I hated the word abortion, while I wanted everyone to know that we really didn’t have a choice, that we had planned the pregnancy and already loved this baby, this debate pains me. Campaigners are making the point so very clear: this is not an abortion; this is not about aborting an unwanted baby. They’re saying that if we can’t grant all women the right to choose, then we must at least grant it to these poor women – because this is different.

But is it different? Explain the difference to the woman forced to carry, give birth to and look after a baby she isn’t ready or able for.

This is only different if we don’t believe in choice, if we are happy to deny women the right to make decisions about their own bodies, if we accept that there is a limit to the amount of responsibility a woman is capable of carrying. If we legislate based on narrowly-defined criteria, suggesting that abortion is murder and criminal unless there is foolproof evidence that the baby is indeed already with certainty destined to die, we are still calling the shots, depriving women of bodily autonomy. In essence: we know better; they should do what they’re told.

It doesn’t matter how mind-numbingly nightmarish that experience was and how much I feel for every other couple that has the experience of an ultrasound scan turned into the most nerve-wracking, scary thing in the world; just because I can sympathise with them, that’s not to say that the decision of those whose experience I haven’t shared is any more straight-forward. We have to accept that if we value a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, that right has to last the whole way – and we have to trust her to be able to carry the responsibility for that decision, whatever that may be.

Some say that it’s a step-by-step process: if we legislate for TFMR now, people will get used to the idea, and some day, the rest will follow. I think, sadly, that those are the words of people who have given up on the possibility of Ireland ever legislating to support and empower women, instead settling for the second best. That’s a fight for sympathy and understanding – not choice. But a rhetoric that further demonises the informed, personal choice of having an abortion is not a step forward – it only plays into the hands of the pro-lifers, cementing the status quo.

It's your own fault you feel shit, ladies

‘Women are their own worst beauty critics,’ says Dove in the latest instalment of its Real Beauty campaign. In other words, women are those whose insecurities are most effectively exploited by an industry that unashamedly rips apart women’s looks in general and bodies in particular every chance it gets. Shocker.

Luckily, Dove is here to show women that they are more traditionally beautiful than they think. How? An experiment that sees an FBI artist sketch the faces of women he hasn’t met based on descriptions by themselves and people they meet respectively demonstrates that the drawings based on strangers’ accounts result in skinnier women with lighter hair, straighter noses, fewer moles and less droopy chins.

The lesson? ‘You are more beautiful than you think!’

Or:

1. How you look IS important.

2. It’s your own fault that you feel shit. Relax and stop being so hard on yourself and maybe you’ll be happy.

3. Beauty is what it always was: see, you’re not as fat as you thought you were, and your eyebrows are actually very well-formed, and your lips could almost be described as full and sexy!

I respect Dove for trying, I really do. The problem is that a beauty product manufacturer depends on its audience wanting to be beautiful. And try as it might to convey that beauty comes from within, that’s not where it’s going to make its money – and, actually, it keeps failing miserably, every single time.

LOVELY, said a choir of clued-in, sensible, politically-conscious women on Twitter, and I died a little inside. ‘Dove is committed to building positive self-esteem and inspiring all women and girls to reach their full potential,’ reads the copy on the campaign site. It’s bullshit. Don’t buy it, girls. They’re part of an industry that makes money off your sense of inadequacy, and no matter how beautiful you are, they’ll keep doing it.

Women are their own worst beauty critics – mad, eh? No, not remotely. There’s nothing mad or surprising or shocking about the fact that people who are bombarded day in and day out with images creating an unobtainable ideal become experts at finding and focusing on their own flaws. It’s no wonder if, in a world where modelling agencies find their future stars outside anorexia clinics, women start to become both paranoid and neurotic.

I won’t judge anyone with an interest in beauty, but let’s not pretend it’s anything but shallow. And Dove, don’t you dare suggest that the hatred comes from within. It’s being handed down to us from a never-ending supply, sustained by companies just like you.