Category Archives: feminism

On ‘whataboutery’, echo chambers, freedom of speech and playing the devil’s advocate – or: Why can’t we all just get along?

Posted on December 7, 2016 by feministire

Originally posted on Linnea Dunne’s blog – reposted with permission

As someone who is regularly accused of hiding in an echo chamber of angry feminists patting each other on the back, I thought I’d write to those of you who accuse me of that, who think that I’m not doing feminism right. If you’ve ever thought that I’ve been too angry, that I’ve been wrong to disengage myself from a discussion, that I’ve overreacted to a seemingly innocent statement, that I haven’t tried hard enough to convince the other side – this is for you. Please read it.

First of all, I want to highlight that all of the below has been written about beautifully and powerfully and poignantly many times before; but that’s the thing with the echo chamber, isn’t it, that those important articles may well have hit a wall somewhere along the line and never made their way to you. But the beauty of the echo chamber is this: it helps pick people up, it is safe when the outside world feels too scary, and it helps us make sense of those difficult debates we want to deal with but can’t while being shouted at by a nonsensical Twitter troll. What I’m writing here is nothing new – yet it so badly needs to be written again and again and again. So here’s my first point: it’s only an echo chamber if you allow it to be. If this is somehow new to you, chances are it will be to your echo chamber friends too – so share it.

Point two, which is related: you need to take responsibility for your own learning. Inside your echo chamber or elsewhere, there will be people who get something that you don’t get, and if getting it requires you to check your privilege it’s likely that explaining it to you would be really draining and exhausting and maybe even triggering for those who do get it. They get it because they’ve experienced it – ‘it’ being rape or emotional abuse or racism or transphobia or cultural appropriation or a life of being monitored and kicked at by patriarchy – and you can be sure that they are forced to justify their feelings and reactions and sheer existence to mainstream liberal discourse day in and day out without you adding to their workload. And here’s the thing: that’s not their job. You might think that you’re being nice by asking – ‘Tell me again why I shouldn’t use that word you claim is so offensive?’ – but don’t you think it might be nicer for them if you say that you hear them, that you trust them, and then go off and figure out whatever it is you don’t get using your search engine of choice? Be that enlightened liberal you window dress your Facebook feed with and go read the voices of oppressed and minority groups. Then share them widely.

Point three – again, related: stop playing devil’s advocate. Just stop it. People who spend day in and day out talking about and reading about and writing about and experiencing oppression in some shape or form don’t need your assumption that you, a person who doesn’t talk about it quite that much and who’s never really experienced it, have just thought about this one aspect they’ve failed to cover, which will blow their entire argument to pieces. You know, it might happen. You just might be that guy. If that’s the case, you definitely will get your fifteen minutes of fame at some point and that argument will fall; but most likely – just trust me on this one – they’ll have heard your unique insight a thousand times already and somehow managed to still feel how they feel, despite them constantly and persistently wishing that feeling away. So when that devil inside you raises his voice, turn the other cheek and play devil’s advocate with yourself instead: why is it that it would be so incredibly difficult and uncomfortable for you if their experience was really real and their argument truly held up? Is it maybe possibly plausible that seeing and acknowledging and committing to scrutinising your own privilege is just really, really hard?

Next – let’s talk about that anger. I snap sometimes. Someone writes something on Facebook or makes a joke somewhere or shares a funny YouTube clip that – shocker – I don’t find funny. And it seems so innocent to you, yet I turn into that feminist killjoy and snap. Why can’t feminists just chill? The truth is that many of them can, and I admire that in them, but remember this: we’re in this all the time – day and night, wherever we go, since the moment we were born. It’s not like an annoying person at work or a bus route that is consistently unreliable; it’s not even like that unspoken, ever-growing mountain of irritating, hurtful words and comments and insinuations in a toxic relationship that keeps nagging at you until you want to scream at the sheer thought of it and can’t even begin to try to explain it without bursting into tears – worse: it’s relentless in the most literal and vicious sense of the word. So when people don’t bother reading up on stuff and you are patient enough to take all those conversations, when they keep playing devil’s advocate and refusing to check their privilege, and then they go and share that seemingly innocent yet so fundamentally damaging video clip – you snap. Because you’re exhausted, and you’re sick of not being heard, and yes, you’re angry because you are constantly made to feel small and insignificant and untrustworthy and meaningless, day in and day out, by a constant stream of supposedly innocent clips and jokes and comments and devil’s advocates. Perhaps ask yourself this: why is it that your discomfort with the anger and tone and shrillness of it all must blind you to the very reasons behind them?

Next – also on tone policing – logic. I’ve been in conversations where I’ve been trying to understand something and I’ve brought my very Scandinavian consensus-seeking reasoning to the table, and somehow it’s gotten me nowhere. (I quote Björk: “I thought I could organise freedom; how Scandinavian of me.) I’ve been trying to reason out the different sides of the argument using logic, plain and simple logic, because one and one is two and no one can argue with that, so why can’t we understand each other if we put all the cards and facts on the table? Ideological hegemony is why. What was logical to me – a privileged, white, middle-class Swede – was very much logical to me because of the norms of the society I grew up in, the worldview I inherited, the experiences I’d had, and the rules of the world we live in. Really, truly checking your privilege involves shedding layers of truths and logic the way they’ve been handed down to you – yes, even via some of those red-brick university reading lists – and daring to listen to voices you’ve never previously understood. Sometimes they’ll sound shrill, other times their logic will seem flawed. But if you want to understand them, you have to try to read their logic and trust that they’re speaking the truth, their truth. Solidarity is about more than passive tolerance. Real change doesn’t happen in comfort zones.

Now a word on ‘whataboutery’ – because it’d be nice to get it out of the way so that I don’t have to go through this every time someone what-abouts me and I refuse to engage and they think I’m being a hypocrite. I find it acutely frustrating that my feminism is taking up as much of my time and energy as it is. If I could un-see the oppression I see and stop taking the arguments and worrying about the consequences and struggling to enjoy mainstream films, I would – I would hand it all back for just a bit of peace and quiet and a laugh and a chance to engage with some other kind of activism for a while. Because when I see my male peers share stuff about this issue and the next, seemingly informed about everything from immigration policy to global warming and macroeconomics, I feel jealous. I care about that stuff too, but everywhere I look I see the effects of patriarchy and that fire in me comes to life again and I can’t see beyond it. So when I talk about women’s rights and you ask what I’ve done for starving children, I don’t hear sympathy for how I’m feeling – I don’t hear you say ‘hey, I bet you wish you could campaign about this stuff too’. I hear a refusal to talk about women’s rights. I don’t expect of you to read every article I read about reproductive rights, and I don’t expect of you to feel as passionately as I do about body positivity and the domestic division of labour – but I think that’s all the more reason for you to listen to me when I talk about it. What about the men? the internet echoes every time a woman mentions the patriarchy. But why is it that we hear so little from these same voices about toxic masculinity and extended paternity leave until we start talking about women’s rights? And why is it that we’re asked to carry that issue too? Do we not seem burdened enough? Truth be told, I don’t think the whataboutery is all that much about men’s rights. I don’t hear these people stroll up to Greenpeace demonstrators asking ‘What about the men?’. I don’t see them below articles calling for an end to direct provision, commenting to point out that men have rights too. Let’s not play the RTÉ game – let’s not talk masculinity purely for the sake of balance. We all deserve better than that.

Last point before I wrap up: free speech. You have a right to your opinion, and you have a right to voice it. You do not, however, have a right to any given platform, nor to the shoving of your opinions down anyone’s throat – especially not if said opinions border on hate speech. So when someone talks about not getting Katie Hopkins on The Late Late Show and someone else cries freedom of speech, they’ve got some catching up to do. It takes a lot to silence a privileged public person with column inches in one of the biggest UK tabloid papers and a huge social media following; refraining from inviting her onto an Irish public service prime time chat show will have little or no impact on how loud her voice is and how far her messages reach. If we’re really interested in the right to be heard, we would do well to ask ourselves why feminist friends of mine have been dropping off the internet like never before, slowly but surely, one after the other, since Donald Trump was elected. These people whose only platform is social media, who are suddenly faced with twice the misogynists and trolls and devil’s advocates and just can’t put up with it anymore – I don’t hear anyone crying freedom of speech when they stop talking.

Finally (and if you’ve made it this far, thank you!), a disclaimer. You might think I’m placing myself on a pedestal, all self-righteous in what a brilliant co-feminist I am. Trust me, I’m not. For the sake of argument, join me for a moment as I recall the year of 2001: I had dreadlocks and a turban (yes, both – simultaneously!) and was singing backing vocals with a reggae band, the singer in which put on a fake Patois accent, and if you had told me about cultural appropriation I would have laughed. There – you’re welcome. I’m highly flawed, but I’m learning. Can’t we all just admit we’re flawed, check our privilege and learn?

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We are not better than Morocco, we just think we are.

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Stephanie Lord

I was walking over Kevin Street one night a few years ago and there were three kids, who couldn’t have been anymore than about ten, throwing stones at a black man and shouting racist abuse at him. I did what any right thinking individual would have done and roared at them “HERE, quit that yis little bastards.” One of them in turn picked up a stone and fired it at me where it pelted me full force inside of my leg and left a massive bruise roughly shaped like Belgium. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the problem for me was that I had planned to attend a wedding two days later and didn’t have time to get a longer dress that would cover the bruise. So I began a Google search to find the concealer that would cover it.

There were literally thousands of results on how to cover bruising. Recommendations from forums about what types of concealer; how to do it with lipstick; the best brushes to use; the way to apply without causing any further stressed to bruised skin. There seems to be an awful lot of women with an awful lot of bruises to cover. Facelifts are popular but they couldn’t be *that* popular. Even the Daily Mail once had advice from make-up artists who outlined in detail how to cover up bruising after a woman wrote in having fallen down in the street. I know a woman who falls down in the street regularly, but it’s usually after her boyfriend has seen her chatting to another man or after he’s been drinking.

There was mass outrage this week when a Moroccan public broadcaster aired a daytime show including a segment on how to cover up bruising after a beating from your husband. It’s makes for pretty grim watching as the make-up artist chit chats while she’s masking the bruising. Much of the uproar on twitter after it was due to the fact that Morocco is a country with an overwhelmingly Muslim population. The logic to the outrage was “Look at these barbarians in this Islamic nation! See how they beat their wives! See how normal it is for them.”

We got one of those smart tellys a while back at home and sometimes I watch YouTube make-up tutorials on it in the evenings. I rarely actually use any of their tips because I’m lazy and refuse to buy more foundation until the one I’m using runs out, but there’s something weirdly soothing about watching someone layer on the primers and highlighters and use eyeshadow to make what is essentially art on their faces. Sharon Farrell is a make-up artist from the West of Ireland who lives in Australia now and is definitely my all time favourite, mainly because she’ll tell you which eyeshadow palette from Catrice is the closest dupe to a Mac set, but also because I am convinced she is more of a wizard than a make-up artist.

Anyway, I watched one of her videos one day and she had a bit of bruising because she’d had her lips done, so this tutorial was about how to cover it up. Just after three minutes into the tutorial my beloved Sharon turns to the camera and says, “If you need to cover up bruises because someone is hitting you, that’s not cool, and it’s not ok, and there are people that you can talk to and there’s help available to you and I’ll put the numbers below the video……and if someone is beating you that’s not cool and you shouldn’t have to accept that in your life.” This was a great thing to do because make-up artists like her are going to reach a wide audience.

Obviously, and rightly, there was no public outrage over this. I spoke to my sister (also a Sharon fan) and concluded that what she had done was a good idea; a simple acknowledgment that some women seek help in covering bruises because men beat them. The video has had almost 179,000 views to date. That’s 176,000 more than this Women’s Aid awareness video.

The Moroccan tv segment is jarring because, if the translation is correct, there is an aspect of normalisation to this. The women speak of bruises from their husbands as being a very standard thing that you just have to get on with. But this is on a spectrum; Farrell’s video to an extent is acknowledging the normalisation of domestic violence too. That is not a defence of how the Moroccan broadcasters handled the issue or a criticism of Farrell, but to point out that so many women are experiencing domestic violence, that for them this is the norm. As a make-up artist, Sharon Farrell would be well aware of the thousands of forums that I came across on my google searches researching the best foundation that will give enough coverage to make a black eye and bruised jaw disappear. Farrell and the hundreds of other make-up artists with similar videos aren’t condemned for this subtle acknowledgment because they’re white and western. Would we be less appalled by the Moroccan tv segment if they’d included a phone number for a domestic violence hotline? Would that have made the men criticising it less concerned about Islam in Morocco and more concerned for women’s well-being?

The sad thing about the Moroccan tv outrage is that it was mainly directed at the women who participated in this – rather than the men who beat their wives so regularly to the extent that it appears to these women to be a perfectly reasonable to have a daytime feature on hiding the fact you’ve taken a beating from a person who is meant to love you. Do we think we are better in Ireland because Irish men mostly beat women where the bruises don’t show? Because we aren’t.

Domestic violence is an enormous problem. Just because a make-up artist here adds the phone number for women’s aid at the bottom of her video does not make us better than Morocco. You’re not likely to see a segment on The Afternoon Show about how to cover your black eye, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t Irish women who would look for similar information online. 6,000 women and children were turned away from refuges in Ireland during 2015 because there wasn’t the space to take them in. A lot of the 16 women turned away every day will inevitably return to their partners, weighing up the risk of a beating against the risk of living on the streets. Domestic violence is exacerbated by the State and the community when it will not give a woman an exit route.

Organisations like Women’s Aid do fantastic work in Ireland, but the men on twitter saying domestic violence is a result of Islam are insulting. Wasn’t Clodagh Hawe’s husband at mass the Sunday before he murdered her and her children and then shot himself in an act of cowardice?

A third of women in Ireland have experienced extreme psychological violence from men. A quarter of women have experienced violence by partners in Ireland.

We are not better than Morocco, we just think we are.

The Women’s Aid Helpline is 1800 341 900.

Follow me on twitter @stephie08

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Posted in Domestic Abuse, feminism, gender, Racism, Violence against women and tagged domestic violence, feminism, Ireland, morocco, violence against women, women. Bookmark the permalink.

All your wombs belong to us – The State, Ms. B and Forced C Sections

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Stephanie Lord

The High Court decision in HSE v B has been made public today (I’ll edit to add a link once it’s available). A month ago, a woman who wished to undergo a vaginal birth after three c-sections found herself in the High Court as the HSE attempted to have her compelled to undergo a fourth c-section against her consent. The HSE case was based on the notion that the Eighth Amendment rendered them more appropriate to decide what was best for her pregnancy than she was. This is a landmark decision, because for once, it’s a maternity rights case where the resulting decision hasn’t been completely terrible.

The judgment is long and make no mistake, there is no judicial feminism in here; the Court is at pains to point out throughout the judgment that they have no idea why this woman would possibly want a vaginal birth. But ultimately it goes on to state (at Paragraph 21):

“The court concludes that it is a step too far to order the forced caesarean section of a woman against her will even though not making that order increases the risk of injury and death to both Ms. B and her unborn child.”

Essentially this means that the Court recognises the right of the HSE to pursue a case against a heavily pregnant woman on the basis of the Eighth Amendment, but the idea of legally compelling a woman to undergo a caesarean including the sedation, anaesthetic, the surgery, the pain, the recovery….and all that goes with it, was a little bit too much even by an Irish High Court’s standards.

Maternity rights activists in AIMS have been pointing out for years that the Eighth Amendment is not just a tool of coercion for women who want to access abortion services, but that it is used just as regularly against women who are continuing their pregnancies. They report that women are regularly told the guards will come to get them if they don’t turn up for their scheduled inductions. Being threatened with the guards coming to your door when you’re in the full of your health and not in a vulnerable pregnant state is one thing, but threatening a woman on the brink of her due date is quite another – it is beyond bullying, it is obstetric violence. And as AIMS have pointed out, it usually ensures that women will go along with whatever is being forced upon them by the HSE. The prospect of being brought to court, like Ms. B was, is too much for most.

The ruling is not completely terrible in that it finds that the risk to the “unborn” is not so great that it warrants overriding Ms. B’s rights to have a c-section forcibly performed on her, however as is the practice with Irish judgments there is no sense of what might constitute a *risk* to the unborn that is sufficient that a woman may have some other form of medical intervention performed on her against her will. We are not out of the woods yet. As long as the Eighth Amendment remains in the Constitution, this will not be the last Court case on the matter.

While this was a case concerning a woman who fully intended to carry her pregnancy to term, it has important implications for the tiny number of women who may find themselves before panels of doctors in an attempt to access abortions under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act. In the Ms. Y case a young asylum seeker, pregnant as a result of rape was deemed by a number of doctors to be suicidal. However, the HSE also felt that the way in which to avert the risk of suicide would be to perform a cesarean section on her at 24 weeks gestation instead of the abortion she requested as soon as she found out she was pregnant at 8 weeks. When Ms. Y went on hunger and thirst strike, the HSE sought and received a court order to forcibly hydrate her. The threats of court were uttered in relation to the c-section, and Ms. Y gave birth against her wishes by c-section as a result. We now wonder whether the Ms. B judgment had been delivered earlier and Ms. Y’s counsel fought the HSE at the outset of a c-section being mentioned, would the outcome have been different? Ms. B is yet another judgment to add to the mounting stacks of obstetric violence entering the courts that don’t really give us clarity one way or the other.

What is clear though is how the Eighth Amendment does not just impact those seeking abortions, but on the broader spectrum of reproductive justice. The Eighth Amendment along with a warped mentality of maternity care that infantilises women leads medical practitioners to coerce women into interventions out of a fear that they will be found to have not protected the “right to life of the unborn.” Criminalising those accessing abortions, threatening women who want natural births with garda interventions or dragging women like Ms. Y and Ms. B into the courts is obstetric violence. It demonstrates that regardless of the circumstance or your wishes in pregnancy, the State via the HSE will treat you as a vessel with no competence to make your own choice. There is no autonomy within maternity “care” and doulas are viewed with at best suspicion and at worst, contempt. There is a separate system of medical consent for pregnant women that mean effectively forced c-sections happen every day. They don’t enter the courts, but when the decision to agree to a c-section you don’t really want is made because you can’t take the bullying from medical practitioners or because you believe they will take you to court, is it really not forced?

Any kind of surgery against your will would be unpleasant to say the least. I can’t imagine getting a tooth out without having given full consent. But a forced c-section is a whole other level of violence. It is misogynist and it is degrading, and it is the State sponsored infliction of terror on pregnant women. There is no way you can undergo surgery you have been coerced into and not feel a profound blow to your sense of bodily autonomy and integrity, and those conditions are ripe for birth trauma and postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder. Women are gaslit and told their ideas about what should happen during birth are simply “baby brain” and the parallels with domestic violence are striking; indeed many women first experience violence in a relationship when they become pregnant. This is gender based violence, and if anyone objects to that analysis, then please, show me the judgment where the HSE attempted to compel a non-pregnant person undergo major invasive surgery, then colluded with the courts to make sure it happened.

What exactly will it take to ensure women are afforded autonomy over their pregnancies? Obstetric violence and coercion of pregnant women is abuse, and it is a major public healthcare problem in Ireland. Having an unwanted vaginal exam performed on you without consent is a form of violence against women that is no less real than violence against women in the home. We need to start addressing it as such so that the structural and systemic aspect of it can be picked apart and broken and so that no more Ms. Y’s or Ms. B’s find themselves before the Courts. We need to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

@stephie08

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Posted in feminism, gender, Health, Reproduction, Violence against women and tagged Eighth Amendment, health, Ireland, maternity care, women. Bookmark the permalink.

I’m in an Abusive Relationship with my Country

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Taryn de Vere

Dear Ireland,

I’m sorry to have to say this but we need to break up.

You see I just finished reading this book called “Why Does He Do That? Inside the minds of angry and controlling men” and I now realise that I am in an abusive relationship.

With you.

See abusers have a sense of entitlement, and you have that Ireland, you really do. You think it’s ok to treat women like second class citizens, to lock up asylum seekers, to allow the elderly, disabled and children in care to be abused when you’re supposed to be looking after them, you think it’s ok to expect Irish people to pay twice for water, you make racist jokes and you think it’s ok to discriminate against children who aren’t Catholics.

I know now all of these things are indicative of your deeply held sense of entitlement.

Abusers also have a core belief in inequality and again Ireland, you have that in spades. Women are woefully underrepresented in politics (and other positions of power), paid less than men and have their right to bodily autonomy taken away from them when pregnant. Not much equality there Ireland. Can you see how unfair you are?

Plus you really aren’t respectful of my body, like when I’m pregnant you have more say in what happens in and to my body than I do. You can even force me to stay pregnant against my will, force feed me, touch my body and even cut me open – all against my will.

Other countries recognise that legally as assault, torture even.

I have less rights than a corpse around you Ireland and that really sucks. I mean who in their right mind would actually want to stay in a relationship with someone that would hold all that over you? Someone WHO WOULD ACTUALLY DO THOSE THINGS TO YOU. And if I try and reclaim my body you threaten to lock me up and take away my freedom. That’s pretty dark Ireland. You’re in a dark place.

Abusers have no respect for their partners and you clearly have no respect for me. I’ve seen the way you treat other women too, you just don’t give a shit about us do you? I’m worried about my daughters, growing up with you. Will you treat them as harshly as you’ve treated me? Will they have to go through what I and the women in your past have gone through?

I’m pretty angry Ireland. I’m bloody wild about how you’ve been treating me and I’m not going to let you get away with it. I’m going to keep telling everyone what a shit you are until you change your abusive ways.

All I want is some basic respect and access to my human rights. I can’t believe you continue to deny me them.

Sincerely,

A Woman of Ireland.

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Posted in Abortion, Domestic Abuse, Equality, feminism, gender, Politics, Violence against women and tagged Abortion in the Republic of Ireland, feminism, human rights, Ireland, women. Bookmark the permalink.

Bring Down The Final Curtain: The Citizens Assembly and the Macabre Theatre of the Abortion Question

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Stephanie Lord

I stood outside the Dáil on Tuesday evening during the Repeal demo organised by AAA-PBP and it began to rain. An activist I know from another organisation happened to be standing beside me asked how I was. Tired says I, as I had just come from work and I was up before 6 that morning to walk the dogs. It’s a long day when you’re standing at a demo regardless of precipitation levels. That’s not to try and garner sympathies or kudos – the point is that you’d want more hours in the day for all the protests. You’d be sick protesting. I’m especially sick protesting to repeal the Eighth Amendment. There are literally hundreds of things I could think of that I’d prefer to do. These demonstrations are kind of samey after a while and there are only so many different ways you can point out the sheer horror of having no say in what happens your body before you start to feel like you’re going to lose your mind with frustration.

As I thought about what I would rather be doing (no disrespect to the speakers because the ones I heard were really, really great but let’s be honest, we all want to be somewhere else), the cabinet came to a last minute voting arrangement on the Bill. Minister Katherine Zappone, poster deputy of Liberal Ireland, and a number of other TDs had a dilemma; having previously committed to Repeal but gone into government with Fine Gael they couldn’t vote in favour of the AAA repeal Bill, but they couldn’t vote against it either. Thus a magical typically Irish formula was arranged; the Dáil would vote on a counter motion to the Bill to state that no legislation on abortion would be dealt with while the Citizens Assembly was still sitting. This has the handy effect of getting Zappone et al out of a tight spot in this particular vote, but also buys time for the Cabinet and Independent Alliance. The Citizens Assembly is due to report in a year. Any other attempt to remove the Eighth Amendment between now and then will be ruled out of order using a convoluted mechanism of parliamentary censorship. Meanwhile Zappone and others who have built a political career on “liberal” issues will never have to make an actual decision on it. Sweatshirts and badges notwithstanding, responsibility for the matter is conveniently devolved to the Citizens Assembly.

The Citizens Assembly is a bizarre concept. It teaches us that women’s bodies are so politically destructive and terrifying that the people who are theoretically *elected* to represent the population cannot legislate for the matters that affect those bodies. The “problem” has been discussed at length by numerous Oireachtas committees and Dáil debates, all in an effort to not actually resolve the matter, but demonstrate “Look! Women! We’re TALKING about it!” They need to be seen to be doing something, but the women who need or want, or indeed have had, abortions are irrelevant to their political thinking, The comfort of their Dáil seats and knowledge of extremely healthy pensions, and the leather under their arses in Ministerial cars are worth more to them than women’s lives. Their Mercs with State funded drivers are fueled by the tears of twelve women travelling for abortions to the UK every day and god knows how many more getting medication online and off dealers. What the criteria is by which a cabinet decides an issue is so socially toxic that they could not possibly attempt to legislate for a referendum on the matter is not clear.

The Citizens Assembly is a performance. It is political theatre. It will be fleeting plot line in the inevitable boring memoir by Leo Varadkar or Shane Ross when they have a fleeting reference to how they allegedly attempted to fight against it. It is a mechanism for kicking the can down the road.

Realistically it will be a year from now by the time the Citizens Assembly reports back. That brings us to the end of 2017. There is talk that a referendum could potentially be held in 2018. This seems unrealistic. After the Assembly reports it will, as is the practice with such reports, sit with an Oireachtas Committee for a few months. It will need to be debated to death. At the same time the ordinary business of bills and farcical Leader’s Questions will continue. They will need to pass a budget. There will also be preparations for the local and European Elections in 2019. They will need to address the looming Brexit situation. Political parties view time in election cycles. After the locals, there will be preparation for the next general election of 2021 – if the government manages to last that long. Fine Gael may have quietened any umbrage taken over abortion, but they still have the matter of annual budgets, judicial appointments, teachers striking, cops striking and whatever else is around the corner.

The Citizens Assembly gives them a get out of legislating card. Do not pass go. Do not collect your pension just yet. The idea that 99 random punters are qualified to represent the population in this manner is farcical. It is the outsourcing of democracy. There was a small glimmer of hope among some activists recently when the 2018 repeal referendum was mooted. Hypothetically, if those great 99 return with a verdict that indeed, the women of Ireland need access to free, safe and legal abortion, will we get it? Will we fuck; Our expectations will be managed appropriately. Zappone has been co-opted and regardless of Labour’s current protestations, they were co-opted when they were in Government. Calls for people to be reasonable will abound and those who wish for something as basic as wanting to control reproductive health will be lumped in with the “looney left” who are seeking something better in life that the government tells us is unrealistic. The fiscal space will not allow the eradication of poverty or the realisation of bodily autonomy.

During the Tuesday night debate, Bríd Smith whipped out a packet of abortion pills in the Dáil chamber and rightly asked to be prosecuted. It will never happen though, in the same way the women of the Contraception Train weren’t touched. State authorities will save their efforts for the most vulnerable. Not the woman who has the platform of the Dáil chamber, but the woman who has an abortion at home in Belfast, alone, for want of access to legal healthcare. Or the women who are consistently reminded that you may go to jail for fourteen years if you are caught trying to do what is legal in almost every other jurisdiction in Europe. The criminalisation of those who have abortions at home and the prospective jail sentence must remain for the State; if women take things into their own hands (as they so often do) how else will they control women’s bodies without the threat of violence and imprisonment? Little do they care that there is already a significant level of subversion of these inhumane laws. There are networks of women who help each other and no threats of jail will prevent that.

There is a back and forth where reasonable TDs plead for a reasonable response. Climate change deniers and old men respond that they care about the babies. The gombeen men TDs play to their local audiences. Government members talk a lot without saying much. It is theatre of the absurd. Enda Kenny likes to think he has the air of a gladiator about him, but transcripts of questions to the Taoiseach demonstrate that he clearly has no idea what he’s talking about and it seems more like a pantomime. Look at Micheal Martin, he’s behind you!

The standard rules of political decision making do not apply when it comes to abortion. The Citizens Assembly was an invention to outsource the talking shop elements of modern politics, while retaining the control over whether or not to take on board what they recommend. Each meeting of the Assembly is a staged performance. We are witnessing the dramaturgy of abortion politics in Ireland. Each participant carefully selected to ensure that they have never made any public declarations on the matter one way or the other. The actors will play the role that has been written for them accordingly. The audience reads notes on the drama of each theatrical episode in which pro-choice groups and forced birthers are positioned as two sides of the same coin; an expression of good versus evil. Lazy journalists portray fully staffed organisations backed by the Church and funded by the American Christian right as political equals to organisations filled with students and working class people who work voluntarily to assist women and stand outside Leinster House with home-made placards. Those who would see women jailed portray themselves as the guardians of the nation’s unborn babies, while children sit in homeless hostels, direct provision, schools with leaky roofs, and in counselling services having been abused by others. The orchestrated debates and prepared parliamentary speeches are designed to show us that those in power are truth-tellers. There of course will be the occasional plot twist, as will any political tragicomedy. Fine Gael TD Tom Barry drunkenly pulling Aine Collins TD onto his lap during a debate on legislation that was taking place directly as a result of a woman’s death was laughed off as banter between friends.

Naming it the “Citizens Assembly” was an important narrative technique to make the audience feel like they had some sort of participatory role in the event. We are citizens; therefore we own this Assembly even if we are not directly involved with the show. Women who remain undocumented or without the ability to travel due to complex and ongoing asylum procedures are among the most affected by the Eighth Amendment, but they are not citizens, so they do not matter. However, we are continually reminded that the Citizens Assembly and the debates surrounding it are for a higher, more moral cause. Their decision will be collectivised and distilled into a representation of the will of the people and we will be told that the nation has at last transcended the difficult Irish question of abortion. They are “the Citizens” after all, and they will redeem the State and the thousands of women forced to leave to access abortions in England will preach forgiveness. That is the hope at least. The rhetoric of citizenship and deliberation and participation is a fitting next act in the midst of state pageantry and a million 1916 re-enactments commemorating those who wished to be heard. The State through its Assembly tells us it is listening and delegitimises more radical acts, such as ordering medication online because you made a decision you do not want to be pregnant.

The cabinet member playwrights will take their bows following its choreographed conclusion; the hope being that future generations will commend them for their brave move in “letting the people decide” conveniently forgetting that letting the people decide will require an actual referendum. In the absence of allowing a Bill to proceed that provides for a referendum, it is merely a spectacle of compliance functioning to hold the government together. If Citizens Assembly did not exist, there would be no excuse in delaying a referendum. It’s the tv series that should have ended three seasons back because it’s starting to feel repetitive but just as back to back episodes of Come Dine With Me replaces anything decent on tv, the sanitised Citizens Assembly will obscure the views of those who think women should be able to decide whether to be pregnant or not regardless of the circumstance of conception or their health.

There was graffiti in Paris in 1968 saying “When the national assembly becomes bourgeois theatre, the bourgeois theatres must become national assemblies.” The outworking of the Citizens Assembly decisions will be done by those who do the banal work of overseeing the work of governance and the State over golf courses and in the Dáil bar and in departmental offices. This is separate from the public performance. In the 1571 a book called “Order and Usage Howe to Keepe a Parliament” detailed how members of parliament should not discuss the internal goings on of the chamber; politics and how decisions are made are not for public consumption or discussion outside. Up to the 19th Century, visitors from parliament were not allowed take notes of parliamentary sessions. There is no live feed in the office of the Secretary General of the Department of Health where decisions are actually made and Dáil committees regularly sit in private session.

We haven’t come that far from the practice of 1571, the Dáil is still just ritual theatre, and the Citizens Assembly is the interval act.

#Repealthe8th

@stephie08

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Posted in Abortion, Equality, feminism, gender, Health and tagged feminism, human rights, Ireland, women. Bookmark the permalink.

Ungovernable Wombs – The Abortion Pill and the Erosion of the Eighth Amendment

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Stephanie Lord

Between 2010 and 2015 the rates of women travelling from Ireland to access abortion services in the UK fell from 4,402 per annum to 3,451 per annum. A total of 27,800 women travelled during this timeframe. Anti-choice groups congratulated themselves because of the drop in numbers, choosing to interpret the British Department of Health statistics as evidence of a drop in the rate of abortions taking place as a result of their work. Pro-choice groups were at pains to point out that this was incorrect; the British DOH stats simply show the decline in the numbers of women travelling from Ireland who access abortions in England in Wales, but they do not represent the total numbers of women from Ireland who are accessing abortions. The 27,800 figure was *never* accurate; it doesn’t include women who travelled from Ireland but gave UK addresses or in some cases used UK NHS numbers. It doesn’t include migrant women who travel to Eastern European states to access services there. It doesn’t include women who travel to other EU states that aren’t the UK to access abortion services there instead.

So the paper published today shows that during the period which *official* numbers travelling to the UK declined by 951, there were 5,680 women who requested the abortion pill to take at home within the island of Ireland from an organisation called Women on Web. The numbers willing to risk a criminal penalty to have an abortion at home are increasing year on year. That said, given that customs seize some of these packages, we don’t know how many made it through to the women who requested them or how many women actually took the medication once they managed to get them. But even if only 50% of women managed to get the abortion and actually take them, it pretty much cancels out the reduction of numbers women travelling to the UK for terminations. Fifty percent is actually a remarkably conservative estimate considering that Customs only managed to seize 68 of these tablets last year, and given that there are more websites than Women on Web who will provide the drug (including Women Help Women) and migrant communities who have their own word of mouth suppliers as well as less reputable black market suppliers online, it’s quite likely that there are a few thousand more who have requested and taken the abortion pill since 2010.

It’s good to see coverage of this issue, and specifically of Rebecca Gomperts’ research paper but it doesn’t tell the whole story about women who are willing to risk a prison sentence (such as the woman in the north who took pills and was subsequently reported to the police by her tout housemates). The pill was supplied by Women on Web to 1,642 women between 2010 and 2012 and they managed to conduct follow-up research on 1,181 of those women (72%).

What report does tell us is that the law that criminalises abortion north and south in Ireland, and allows the state to jail women if they breach it, is completely irrelevant to women who need to access terminations and can’t travel. They are going to take the risk and order the medication anyway. The women who accessed the abortion pill from Women on Web were generally between 20 and 30 years old and the majority of them were already mothers, and 97% of them reported that accessing and using the medication at home was the right thing for them with 98% saying that they’d recommend the experience to other women. The only negative thing for the women accessing abortions at home is doing it outside of the law.

While the Citizens Assembly pontificates on the rights of women in Ireland to bodily autonomy and control over their reproductive systems, women can and will break the law in order to end their pregnancies. The abortion pill is a safe drug, in fact, it’s safer than viagra, and while well-meaning obstetricians like to point out the risks of taking medicines without the supervision of a medical practitioner, it isn’t unreasonable to suggest that in an Irish context, those concerns are as much about women in Ireland challenging the State’s control over their bodies as they are about taking a safe dose of misoprostol following an online consultation with a medical professional overseas. Continuing the prohibition against abortion and forcing women to go to term with pregnancies they do not want to carry is a form of structural violence against women.

The fact that women ordering this medication clearly believe it is safe should tell the State and the Citizens Assembly something. More and more women are now taking the pill and recommending it to their friends who can’t or simply don’t want to travel. Furthermore, even if women don’t believe it’s safe, they are willing to take that risk as well as the risk of arrest and prosecution in order to end their pregnancies at home here in Ireland. At this stage, for women in Ireland whether they travel or order medication online, abortion is a pretty normal event. It isn’t certainly isn’t a rarity. No one is put off ordering drugs whether they are risking a 14 year prison sentence or life in penal servitude, or their own health or life when it comes to disreputable black market sellers. Women on Web and Women Help Women alongside the activists who are supplying them with information, contact details, assisting them in getting the medication and providing them with safe spaces in which to take their medication are changing women’s health care in Ireland. Of course, this medication is only available for early terminations, but the power of it becoming more normalised and giving women control over their own bodies should not be underestimated.

Recognising that taking abortion out of the constitution and criminal law and treating it as a public health issue, is absolutely essential. This is about women’s rights and self-determination There are clearly public health consequences as a result of this domestic criminalisation – not every seller is as ethical as WoW or WHW. Forcing women to a point where they order medication online, though potentially empowering from a bodily autonomy standpoint, is pretty demeaning and dangerous in the context of a potential jail sentence if they are caught; if you thought your home abortion wasn’t going quite according to plan and you were unsure whether you were bleeding a bit too much, would you ask a doctor knowing they might feel obliged to call the Gardaí?

The Eighth Amendment might still be in the Constitution looming over everyone with a womb in Ireland, but like the women of generations past who handed down details of Queen Anne’s Lace seeds and Pennyroyal tea; email addresses and website details and safe houses to have packages delivered to are handed down by the current generation. If there is no safe house for delivery there might be a drone delivery. In all jurisdictions where abortion is illegal women will find a way around it regardless of criminal penalties. The existence of the internet makes a mockery of the 1995 Regulation of Information Act that tightly controls the circumstances under which you be given information about abortion; literally anyone with a smartphone could potentially tell you when, where and how much an abortion will cost. Whether you have the funds to access it is a different thing altogether. Even if you do have the funds, the ability to access it in a post-Brexit Britain is in question.

When the Eighth Amendment is repealed, it must not be replaced with a semi-liberalised system that allows for abortion in certain highly restricted circumstances that requires women to jump through bureaucratic hoops designed to degrade them by requiring the narration of their experiences for panels of doctors who decide whether their reason for wanting to end their pregnancy is good enough, or whether the risk to their health or life is risky enough. The treatment of Ms. Y during her engagement with the panel (that ordered the termination of her pregnancy by a c-section at 24 weeks rather than the abortion she requested at 9 weeks) has taught us that the State will not make owning your own body straightforward for women. The Eighth Amendment must be replaced by a system that allows for free, safe, and legal abortion where a woman decides it is best for her, in a venue that is convenient and accessible for her – whether that is in a clinic or in her home. Continued refusal to allow this to women will simply mean thousands more travelling every year and thousands more ordering abortion pills online.

The 1,642 women who received illegal abortion pills in Ireland between 2010 and 2012 are the tip of a very large iceberg that is not going away no matter what the Citizen’s Assembly decides.

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Posted in Abortion, feminism, gender, Health, Politics, Reproduction and tagged abortion, England, feminism, human rights, Ireland, women. Bookmark the permalink.

Looking from the outside In: Why Mothers are outside the door of the feminist agenda?

Posted on October 1, 2016 by feministire

Mothers Artists Makers Ireland

Lately, I have been getting some strange looks when I go out to public events like gallery launches, theatre symposiums, or conferences. I even occasionally get ‘looks’, quiet ‘tut-tuts’, and even shushes accompanied by glares. I look around, wondering what manner social faux pas I appear to have committed. Then, looking over my shoulder, I see a small child strapped to my back.

Why am I getting this reaction? What is the social or behavioural expectation I am transgressing?

I was an activist, theatre maker, and ardent feminist before I had kids, and my passion for equality and desire to work towards a fairer and more equitable society has only deepened since I have become a mother. If have a toddler with me, it’s not because he is an adorable fashion accessory (he is of course, everyone says so), or that I cannot bear to be separated from him (love…

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The 8th

Posted on July 4, 2016 by feministire

Guest Post by Lauren Foley

It was maybe the third time you’d done it. It took easier than the first (you vomited), no worse than the last (DVDs in bed). You’d completely forgotten all three times (and the fourth, then the fifth), but just now there was this article on your Twitter feed.

You remember the rush of sexiness, that floaty semi-arousing pre-menstrual flood. Alarm of hormones. Then blood after saccharine tugging just below your navel. There’s a taste to a chemically-induced period like NutraSweet® in your bloodstream, epidermis, sweat glands; and you do kind of want to lick your forearm the way cats do lick theirs thinking your skin might taste of Diet Coke. The blood is lighter, clearer, brighter – a pop of red cherry. Like how we’re made to think it would look if it was red on TV, and not the brilliant blue it’s made be. The pain is synthetic, manufactured and claws as if from behind a curtain (wherein lies a great and powerful Oz).

You never think on them as abortions.

The third was only twenty-eight hours into seventy-two.

You’d normally ‘double dutch’ it. Condoms and the pill.

But, you’d gained ten pounds on the progesterone injections and your boyfriend had been around a good long while …

You still used condoms, insisted—the Catholic in you—except that one night after the 1920s party when you were both too drunk to fuck but somehow managed to come. He took that as a future freedom like the American guy in Catastrophe who impregnates Sharon Horgan. You agree with her it was a bit bad of them.

And just like this article linked now on Twitter, your abortion did you no harm, you’d completely forgotten about it (the fourth, the fifth).

The eighth.

Lauren Foley is Irish, and Australian (enough). Her short story, ‘Squiggly Arse Crack’, appeared in the 2014 Margaret River Press Anthology. She was shortlisted for the Overland Story Wine Prize, and Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award, 2015. Lauren won the inaugural OverlandNeilma Sidney Short Story Prize 2016. She was also awarded a 2016 Varuna Residential Writer’s Fellowship for her short story cycle in progressPolluted Sex. She lives in Skerries.

laurenfoleywriter.com

@AYearinSouthOz

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Posted in Abortion, Equality, feminism, fiction and tagged feminism, Ireland, women. Bookmark the permalink.

The Dark, Lurking Horror of Parenting Girls

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Taryn de Vere

Here’s some common rape – prevention tips “Don’t drink too much”, “Don’t wear anything too revealing”, “Text a friend to let them know your plans”, “Hold your keys in between your fingers” and of course “Never, ever walk down a darkened alleyway”. These are the things young women are being told by parents, teachers and society. I understand that the reason people are saying these things to women and girls is because they don’t want anything bad to happen to them. But do they actually prevent women from being sexually assaulted?

In the majority of cases I don’t believe they do.

All these rape-prevention tips are attempts to keep away the monstrous stranger. But as statistics collected by R.A.I.N.N show 3 out of 4 rapes are committed by someone known to the victim.

So, with this in mind what are we teaching girls about that? Are we telling them to watch out for the man who lives next door/the older cousin/the guy you’ve been dating for 6 months/his best friend? Are we teaching them that 1 in 4 relationships are abusive and that you need to know the signs of abuse before embarking on one? Are we teaching them how to spot the signs of an entitled person? How to spot status seekers? How to rid their lives of anyone who treats them with disrespect? Are these things fundamental to every parenting book/school class room?

I wonder also why most campaigns focus on women, putting the onus on them not to get raped or be assaulted. Violence against women seems to be the one area where the focus is on potential victims to take responsibility for decreasing their chances of being attacked. I’ve never seen a poster giving tips to stop me being potentially run over by a motorist , or a poster warning me on the dangers of being in the presence of someone smoking. So why in this one area of violence against women, are poster and ad campaigns directed at potential victims? Another issue with these campaigns is that most of the campaigns I’m aware of seem to promote the idea that sexual assault occurs between strangers. I’m yet to see a campaign that aims to impart the knowledge that 75% of assaults happen between people who know each other. Why are most campaigns ignoring the statistics on this? And where are all the campaigns reaching out to the perpetrators of these crimes?

According to the UN It is estimated that “35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. However, some national studies show that up to 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime”. So, if you’re a woman or a girl you’ve got a 35 – 70% chance of being sexually or physically abused by a man. And these statistics are not taking into account other forms of abuse – verbal, emotional/psychological, financial abuse and cyber abuse (unsolicited dick pic anyone?)

I don’t know ONE WOMAN who has not been subjected to something on this list of awful. Not one. That’s 100% of the women I know who have been abused in some form by a man. I can hear the ‘not all men’ brigade jumping in at this point, and I want to say – Sure, not ALL men, just enough that 35 – 70% of ALL women will experience abuse or assault. Plus these statistics are based on reported incidents of crimes against women. And many women do not report. If I had of reported every assault against me I would have spent most of my 20’s and 30’s in copshops and courtrooms.

I have lost count of the amount of times I have been harassed online or physically/sexually/verbally/emotionally or financially abused by men. At a rough guess I’d say maybe 200 men have combined to abuse, denigrate, assault or intimidate me over the course of my life. 200 DIFFERENT men that is.

I did a rough survey of women’s experiences on a few women-only groups that I’m part of on Facebook, to find out if my experience was unusual. Women shared having experienced varying degrees of abuse and assault with a couple of women saying they also felt it would be up to 200 men who had been abusive to them in their lifetimes. Other women said they had had one bad experience only. It was by no means a scientific study but it gave me a slightly broader view on what was happening outside of my circle.

I can’t help but wonder what the statistics would be if there was an official system in place for reporting crimes against women – one where women could share their experience regardless of if they want to pursue anything legally (if they are fortunate enough to live in a country where the crimes against them are considered to BE crimes that is). Or even something like the Everyday Sexism site, which collects and collates women’s experiences from around the globe.

Every time I read official statistics on rape and sexual assault I feel angry that none of my experiences are counted in those statistics. And it is too late for me to report them now, the first time I was raped was 20 years ago and in another country. Plus being a witness at a rape trial when I was 17 significantly deterred me from reporting any of the crimes committed against me. I know I am not alone in that most women do not report this kind of crime, especially when they know the person who has committed it, which as we know is in 75% of cases.

The dark, lurking horror for me as a parent of two girls is that I know there is little chance they will escape this. I know in my woman’s heart what most likely waits for them. It is frighteningly likely that at some point a man is going to try and hurt my daughters.

Given all I know about abuse and assault I feel that it is my job to prepare my daughter’s for the likely possibility of being assaulted or abused. Of course I never tell them that I think they might be assaulted, instead I teach them about consent and boundaries, so they know what is and isn’t ok. I teach them about respecting their own and other’s bodies. I want the lines to be SO clear for my beautiful girls. I want no doubt in their minds when someone crosses a line. I want them to KNOW it is wrong.

I teach them what I was never taught, to be fierce. To be so fierce that they feel comfortable yelling and shouting at anyone who makes them feel uncomfortable or wrong. I want them to know how to scream and what to scream.

I practice scenarios with my teenage daughter, “A guy does this to you, what do you do?” I say, “You need to scream as loud as you can for help.” I teach them that no matter how well they know the person that they should act like he is a stranger because people are more likely to help a woman who is being accosted by a stranger than get involved with a ‘domestic’.

I teach them emotional intelligence, so they can articulate what happens to them. I teach them resilience so, if they need it, they can heal. So if it happens my girls will be strong within, are less likely to fall to pieces, or to lose weight, friends and jobs because of what has happened to them. Alongside of all of this I’m trying to teach my daughters that there are also lovely men out there, that they can trust, men who are allies, men who are respectful and that hopefully these will be the majority of the men they encounter. And while I’m doing this a little voice inside me is saying “it just takes one.” One man to hurt my child.

And while I’m teaching my girls all the things no one ever taught me and I wish they did, I’m thinking “Fuck this awful world, that is making me teach my daughters to prepare for what feels like their inevitable assault. Fuck this.” And I’m getting angry about it, so fucking angry.

Because I know that this could all change in one generation. If we were all teaching our sons to be respectful to women (and each other) this would change. If there were actual consequences for being disrespectful towards women – this would change. If men were speaking out to other men, calling them on their sexist bullshit – this would change. If society actually gave a shit about women – this would change.

Because who wants to live in a world where parents have to prepare their daughters for abuse by men?

Not me.

Taryn De Vere is an eccentric dresser, a writer, mother of 5, a conscious relationship coach for http://www.lovewitheaseplease.com, performance artist https://www.facebook.com/A-Chaotic-Embrace-113263035681066 , and a sex positive parenting educatorhttps://www.facebook.com/sexpositiveparenting

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Posted in feminism, The family, Violence against women and tagged abolitionism, daughters, feminism, Feminist Ire, Human trafficking, Media, parenting, Rape Culture, sexual assault, Statistics, violence against women, women. Bookmark the permalink.

Dear Brock…

Posted on June 9, 2016 by Taryn de Vere

Photo by Eamonn Brown Photography

Dear Brock,

I read your letter to Judge Persky and, as someone who works with survivors of male violence and a survivor myself, I found it rather distressing. I’m posting your letter below along with my response in purple:

“The night of January 17th changed my life and the lives of everyone involved forever. I can never go back to being the person I was before that day.”

As the person you were before that date was a man who was happy to rape women I think I can speak on behalf of society here and say that we are all glad that you can never go back to being that person.

“I am no longer a swimmer, a student, a resident of California, or the product of the work that I put in to accomplish the goals that I set out in the first nineteen years of my life.”

How is any of this relevant? Is it actually possible you are expecting people to feel sorry for you because the fact that you raped a woman and got caught means that your life has changed for the worse?

“Not only have I altered my life, but I’ve also changed [redacted] and her family’s life. I am the sole proprietor of what happened on the night that these people’s lives were changed forever. I would give anything to change what happened that night. I can never forgive myself for imposing trauma and pain on [redacted]. It debilitates me to think that my actions have caused her emotional and physical stress that is completely unwarranted and unfair. The thought of this is in my head every second of every day since this event has occurred. These ideas never leave my mind. During the day, I shake uncontrollably from the amount I torment myself by thinking about what has happened.”

If you actually feel so remorseful why did you plead not guilty and drag her through the courts, making your victim recount every traumatic thing you did to her? I have a sneaking suspicion Brock, that the thought of having to suffer the legal consequences of your actions has been the thing that has debilitated you.

“I wish I had the ability to go back in time and never pick up a drink that night, let alone interact with [redacted].”

Alcohol is not to blame for what you did. You are. Alcohol does not turn people into rapists.

I can barely hold a conversation with someone without having my mind drift into thinking these thoughts. They torture me. I go to sleep every night having been crippled by these thoughts to the point of exhaustion. I wake up having dreamt of these horrific events that I have caused. I am completely consumed by my poor judgement and ill thought actions. There isn’t a second that has gone by where I haven’t regretted the course of events I took on January 17th/18th.”

How self obsessed. No word of the pain and trauma the victim has suffered, it is all about you.

“My shell and core of who I am as a person is forever broken from this. I am a changed person.”

The women of the world can only hope that the shell and core of you is broken and forever changed. We hope being held accountable for your despicable actions will teach you not to rape in the future.

“At this point in my life, I never want to have a drop of alcohol again. I never want to attend a social gathering that involves alcohol or any situation where people make decisions based on the substances they have consumed.”

Stop trying to blame your rapey behaviour on drink culture. Many, many men (and women) drink and don’t rape. You do not get to use drink as a free pass to rape people.

“I never want to experience being in a position where it will have a negative impact on my life or someone else’s ever again.”

Then stop raping.

“I’ve lost two jobs solely based on the reporting of my case.”

You lost two jobs because you raped an unconscious woman. Not because newspapers reported it.

“I wish I never was good at swimming or had the opportunity to attend Stanford, so maybe the newspapers wouldn’t want to write stories about me.”

Being good at swimming has zero to do with this. What university you go to has nothing to do with this. If you felt entitled to rape an unconscious woman as a swimmer and a Stanford attendee then chances are you would have raped someone else at some point, regardless of what uni you’re at or what skills you have. It was not all just an unfortunate unavoidable fate that you found yourself with the perfect storm for raping a woman. You chose to rape her. Being written about in papers is a side effect of being a criminal. If you didn’t want to be written about, you shouldn’t have committed a crime.

“All I can do from these events moving forward is by proving to everyone who I really am as a person.”

Yes? Who are you really as a person Brock? I’m not hearing a lot of remorse in your actions or words.

“I know that if I were to be placed on probation, I would be able to be a benefit to society for the rest of my life.”

Really? How?

“I want to earn a college degree in any capacity that I am capable to do so. And in accomplishing this task, I can make the people around me and society better through the example I will set.”

But I thought you said being at college was part of the problem that lead you to rape a woman? What example are you planing on setting? How do you plan on making society better Brock?

“I’ve been a goal oriented person since my start as a swimmer. I want to take what I can from who I was before this situation happened and use it to the best of my abilities moving forward.”

How about realising that who you were before this was a person who could justify raping an unconscious woman in an alleyway beside a dumpster? How about deciding that maybe being the guy with those values doesn’t serve you or society anymore? How about ditching that guy and starting afresh?

“I know I can show people who were like me the dangers of assuming what college life can be like without thinking about the consequences one would potentially have to make if one were to make the same decisions that I made. I want to show that people’s lives can be destroyed by drinking and making poor decisions while doing so.”

Again Brock, this is NOT about drink. Stop trying to blame alcohol for your rapist mentality.

“One needs to recognize the influence that peer pressure and the attitude of having to fit in can have on someone.”

Are you suggesting that your peers pressured you to rape a woman?

“One decision has the potential to change your entire life.”

It wasn’t one decision, it was hundreds of decisions. You decided to take advantage of her, you decided to lift her shirt, you decided to lift her skirt, You decided to pull down her pants, you decided to insert things into her vagina. Each of the actions you took were decisions and at any point you could have stopped. Your attempts to make this look like one poor decision made whilst under the influence of alcohol belies the actual lack of responsibility you feel about your actions.

“I know I can impact and change people’s attitudes towards the culture surrounded by binge drinking and sexual promiscuity that protrudes through what people think is at the core of being a college student.”

Again drink is NOT responsible for rape. Rapists are. Sexual promiscuity? Let’s look at that. Promiscuity implies someone who likes to have sex with lots of people. Rape is NOT about sex. Sex is consensual and enjoyable. Rape is a tool of violence and power and is completely unrelated to sex. Men who rape are not promiscuous – they are rapists. Putting the focus here on sex and alcohol is a red herring and is COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT that rape is not at all linked to promiscuous behaviour or enjoying sex. The idea that you are going to change people’s attitudes to drink and sleeping around is completely unrelated to what you did. If you suggested doing talks on respecting women’s bodily autonomy or offered to spend your life raising money for rape crisis centres then you’d be somewhere in the area of genuine understanding and remorse.

“I want to demolish the assumption that drinking and partying are what make up a college lifestyle”

This is completely irrelevant.

“I made a mistake, I drank too much, and my decisions hurt someone. But I never ever meant to intentionally hurt [redacted].”

But Brock the problem is that you DID intend on intentionally hurting her. You forcibly raped her. While she was unconscious. Do you expect us to believe that you actually thought that you weren’t hurting her when you did this?

“My poor decision making and excessive drinking hurt someone that night and I wish I could just take it all back.”

STOP. BLAMING. DRINK.

“If I were to be placed on probation, I can positively say, without a single shred of doubt in my mind, that I would never have any problem with law enforcement. Before this happened, I never had any trouble with law enforcement and I plan on maintaining that. I’ve been shattered by the party culture and risk taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school.”

The only thing you have been shattered by Brock is your own ideas, actions and behaviour. Party culture has nothing to do with what you did so stop trying to abrogate responsibility onto random concepts. You say you have been shattered by the ‘risk taking behaviour’ that you ‘briefly experienced’ in your four months at school. This wasn’t something that happened because you fell under a mad spell of risk taking during a 4 month period in your life Brock. This is something you were very likely fed from when you were a child. In order to do what you did you had to have a belief that it was ok to do that to a woman. That’s indicative of a pretty rotten core belief system Brock. It didn’t happen because you fell under the influence of some ‘risk takers’ during a few months of college. You are consistently trying to nullify your own responsibility for your actions. I find that kind of despicable Brock.

“I’ve lost my chance to swim in the Olympics. I’ve lost my ability to obtain a Stanford degree. I’ve lost employment opportunity, my reputation and most of all, my life.”

So much about you, so little about your victim. What of all she has lost Brock? I am reminded of that statement ‘Me, me me!’ when you constantly talk about how tough things are for you now. What of the woman you raped Brock? What of her employment opportunity, reputation and life?

“These things force me to never want to put myself in a position where I have to sacrifice everything. I would make it my life’s mission to show everyone that I can contribute and be a positive influence on society from these events that have transpired. I will never put myself through an event where it will give someone the ability to question whether I really can be a betterment to society.”

Frankly I find a lot of this to be nonsensical. Surely you have already put yourself in a position where you have to sacrifice everything? I am still very confused Brock by how you plan on being a positive influence on society – in fact I find myself feeling very distressed at how little you seem to understand what you did and why you did it. The thought of you speaking to masses of students about any subject other than your own ignorance on these matters alarms me greatly.

“I want no one, male or female, to have to experience the destructive consequences of making decisions while under the influence of alcohol. I want to be a voice of reason in a time where people’s attitudes and preconceived notions about partying and drinking have already been established. I want to let young people now, as I did not, that things can go from fun to ruined in just one night.”

I want no one, male or female to have to experience the destructive consequences of being sexually assaulted. That’s what I want Brock. Because I am one of those women who, like many women, has been sexually assaulted. I have been raped on two separate occasions (once while I was so drunk I was unconscious, much like your victim) and I have suffered the innumerable sexual aggressions some men think it is ok to do to women – slapping my bum, grabbing my breast and in one case sticking their tongue in my mouth. Sadly we live in a world where many men think it is ok to assault women. I’d love it Brock if you were as passionate about ending sexual violence towards women as you seem to be about the completely unrelated issues of binge drinking and promiscuity.

Here’s an idea Brock, how about you read up on sexual predators, abusers and rapists and you find out why they do what they do? How about you start a parenting revolution to teach people to teach their sons about respecting women and what the hell consent means? How about you spend the rest of your life tirelessly working to end sexual assault? Or, at the very least how about you indicate that you fully understand what you did, that you are incredibly sorry and that you dearly want to repair the damage you have done to your victim? That would be a good start.