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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.

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The Women’s Aid Helpline is 1800 341 900.

Follow me on twitter @stephie08

 

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Why We Need To Change Our Thinking on Bullying

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Taryn de Vere

I’ve been working with victims of domestic abuse for 6 years now. And during the course of this work I began to see a direct link between children who bully and adults who abuse. Many of the families I have worked with have had at least one child who has begun abusing the mother after she leaves an abusive relationship. These children have had abuse role modelled for them, and disrespect for their mother’s role modelled for them and it takes a lot of work to undo the dangerous ideas they hold.  The link between child bullies and adult abusers is a contentious subject, but an important one for us to consider as it affects so many of us and should be shaping the bullying policies of our schools and universities.

Children who grow up in abusive households are significantly more likely to grow up to become abusers themselves or to be abused. 1 in 3 women in the world will experience physical or sexual violence, most commonly from a partner, so we are talking about a huge portion of the population that is affected by these issues. And yet for women seeking help and support from domestic abuse services there is little help once they have left the relationship and even less support in supporting them to parent children who have been exposed to abuse. Thus the cycle of abuse starts up again, as many survivors of abuse don’t have the skills, energy, time or knowledge to undo the damage done to their children. These children are often abusive to their mother and sometimes to other kids in school. When I first started looking into this 6 years ago I couldn’t find any information, online or otherwise on child to parent abuse. Now though child to parent abuse awareness is spreading and it has in the last few years become an issue that is finally being talked about. Because bullying isn’t just something that happens at school. Lots of children who have grown up in abusive households bully their non abusive parent. Bullying needs to be looked at within a wider context. And it needs to be looked at alongside abuse.

People with abusive mindsets share two things. A core belief in inequality and a sense of entitlement. Bullies also share these two beliefs. In my head bullies and abusers are interchangeable terms. They both mean the same thing,  bully being a kid-friendly term for a child abuser, adult abusers getting called out for what they are.

The fortunate thing is that children are much easier to work with and less fixed in their ideas than adults. It is depressing that the world’s leading rehabilitation program for domestic abuse perpetrators has less than a 40% success rate, but this is probably because the main issue is that an abusive mindset is not a psychological problem within the abuser’s brain, but a cultural and societal problem. It is the result of the toxic masculinity created from being raised in a patriarchal society with rigid gender expectations and unhealthy beliefs about the value of women. And it is constantly reinforced by the media, by the options on supermarket shelves, by the fashion industry, by governments and more. It is everywhere we look. All aimed at controlling women and portraying them as inferior to men.

Studies have shown that the behaviour of abusive people is mostly deliberate. They actively choose to behave in a way that exerts domination and control over their partner, in order to get their needs and wants met. In other words, they KNOW what they are doing. Their actions are intentional.

I do not know anything about rehabilitating abusive adults. I do however know about helping children who have been taught by their abusive parent to be bullies. I know how to help their mothers to parent them in such a way that will guide them towards being respectful people. And much of the work I do with mothers and their children works equally well in a school setting.

I was on the committee that developed our primary school’s anti – bullying policy where we defined bullying as ‘an act with intent to harm’. Most school’s approach bullying as being repeated actions. I disagree with this. Bullying is the softer, kid-friendly word we use for abuse. One act of abuse is enough to call it abuse. One act of bullying is enough to call it bullying. Why do we diminish the experience of the victim by insisting that they be repeatedly abused before we will give the matter the level of importance that is requires? I see this as a gross negligence  of the hurt child, and further evidence of how as a society we protect abusers, at all costs. It seems preposterous that a child must be hurt repeatedly before we will take the incident/s seriously and call it for what it is. In what other area of life would this be the rule? “Oh you were only broken into once Mrs Smith, come back when you’ve been broken into again and then we’ll deem it a burglary.” “Someone put their penis in you without your consent? Well when it happens again that will be rape!”

Who does this ‘repeated actions’ definition of bullying help and support? Only the child doing the abusing (except not in the long run, as being indulged in your abuse of others is incredibly dangerous to all of us, no matter what our age). In my view the important and crucial part of defining bullying is ‘intent to harm’. This is where bullying links in with the adult abusive mindset. Both abusers and bullies are driven by a desire to cause intentional harm to others in order to have some need or want of theirs met.

The great thing is what with kids we can (most of the time) undo the toxic programming they have received from  their abusive parent. Of course there will be children who will bully who have not grown up with an abusive parent as well, and children will bully for a variety of reasons but bullying can be handled the same way regardless of why the child is bullying. The important thing is that they are not able to get away with it, that it is recognised for what it is and action is taken to stop it and support the victim. That cannot happen until we re-define what we consider bullying to be. We should be putting the victim’s needs at the centre and calling any act with intent to harm what it is – Bullying.

 

 

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It Could Happen Where You Live: Stopping the Rise of 21st Century Fascism

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Stephanie Lord

Last week someone told me that he believed the reaction to Trump’s victory was an “overreaction.” Subsequently, another man I know called my terming of Trump and the galvanising of the US right as fascism to be “hysterical.” Media commentators state that anti-Trump activist are whipping up fear unnecessarily but I defy any right thinking individual to watch this video and not be horrified by it.

It is an open white power rally complete with Nazi salutes and declarations that maybe their opponents “aren’t people at all.” This in combination with the regular demonisation of all Muslims is shocking. To compare this to 1930s Europe is not a disproportionate exaggeration.

Years ago I travelled in the former Yugoslavia shortly after the war. A war that was synonymous with ethnic cleansing and where extreme promotion of nationalistic patriotism assisted the xenophobia that led to the genocide in Srebenica where 8,373 Bosniak civilians were murdered. A lot of Belgrade was still rubble and there were signs around Sarajevo saying not to walk on the grass because there were still landmines. I remember talking to someone who had also been there who said to me that a local Serb woman had told her to “never think that this couldn’t happen where you live.”

White power rallies are happening right now in the US – a place where black people are routinely shot by cops and an unapologetic racist and misogynist has been elected president. Marine Le Pen is trying to make the fascist National Front more palatable in France. The far right Alternative for Germany are gaining support. Geert Wilders anti-EU and anti-Islam “Party for Freedom” is gaining support in advance of the Dutch elections next year. Neo-Nazis Golden Dawn won 18 seats in the Greek parliamentary elections in September. Anti-immigration party Jobbik are the third largest party in Hungary and won 20% of the vote on a platform of wanting to stop “Zionist Israel’s efforts to dominate Hungary and the world,” and criminalising gay people advocating prison terms of up to 8 years for what they term “sexual deviancy.” The Sweden Democrats won 49 out of 349 seats in the Swedish parliament promoting an extreme anti-migrant agenda and a policy of returning refugees to their home countries. The anti-immigrant Austrian Freedom Party have huge support and almost won the most recent presidential election. Founded by a former SS officer, they have 20% of the seats in the Austrian parliament and links to a range of fascist and far-right organisations throughout Europe. The anti-Roma People’s Party our Slovakia hold 14 out of 150 seats in parliament and whose leader has said “Even one immigrant is one to many” and spoken openly in favour of politicians during WWII who sent thousands of Jews to concentration camps. While the BNP, the EDL and National Front are on the fringes of the right in the UK, UKIP hold little support on a national level but have 163 council seats. The Tories could easily sail further to the right as the US Republicans have in the wake of Brexit. Rallies are being held in Spain where people hold up photos of Franco and give Nazi salutes.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FAntenapezTV%2Fvideos%2F1178720505552066%2F&show_text=0&width=560

Aside from some Loyalist organisations in the Six Counties, the fascist right in Ireland are largely confined to the boxrooms of their mother’s houses. Former Youth Defence activist and gormless fascist, Justin Barrett attempted to hold a press conference for his National Party in Dublin last week but he event didn’t go ahead after the hotel it was to be held in cancelled due to public outcry. While Justin Barrett and fellow cretin Peter O’Loughlin of Identity Ireland/Pegida Ireland might have the charisma of a corpse in an advanced state of decomposition, their threat should not be underestimated.

In 2004 I was a student in UCD and was in the room when AFA prevented Barrett from speaking. They were right to do so. Later I recall someone saying that if the far right remained in the hands of anti-immigrant xenophobe Aine Ni Chonaill and the Immigration Control Platform then we would be ok. There was an element of truth to this, the public being largely hostile to the ICP views but this was the same year that an anti-deportation activist I knew had her home address published online by fascist sympathisers in Ireland and received letters telling her they knew what bus she took to college in the mornings.

We live in an environment where the likes of Katie Hopkins is given a platform on RTE, who once suggested that migrants should be let drown and that feminist journalist Laurie Penny should be gangraped by ISIS members, because the national broadcaster views ratings and manufactured controversy as being more important than not allowing a bigot espouse racist views on television. Ultra-Catholic fanatics have columns in national media outlets and take legal action against anyone where there’s the slightest whiff of opposition to their chauvinist anti-woman or anti-LGBT views, despite the fact that their level of actual public support is minuscule. The minority government in this state is a party of the right that has its roots in an organisation of fascists, many of whom went to fight for Franco during the Spanish Civil War. And despite having marginally softened their line on gay rights in recent years, they are still cheerleaders of austerity policy whose leaders routinely present cuts to funding public services as something that just has to be done, and keeps those who arrive in Ireland seeking asylum in camps and institutions where they share dormitories and are prevented from working. Racist incidents and anti-Muslim discrimination are on the rise. Travellers face disgraceful levels of discrimination that involve children being prevented from entering schools because of their ethnicity, Traveller babies are placed on the Garda PULSE system, a facility normally only used for monitoring criminals, and the councils and public are mostly happy for Traveller communities to live in death traps such as the site where the Carrickmines fire claimed ten lives. This is the environment where right wing ideology festers.

The idea that you should put right wing activists on the radio and media in order to allow them to show themselves up for the clueless dolts they are is nonsense. People of colour in Ireland should not have to listen to racists being allowed free rein to spout their bigotry. Allowing this normalises their opinions when journalists refuse to interrogate them in the name of “balance.” There is an onus on the left in Ireland to meet this challenge head on; to organise and to support; to show solidarity; and to prevent the fascist right from organising. Where Trump’s victory has galvanised the right, it should also galvanise the left, both in America and Ireland. Defeating Trump and rising fascistic tendencies across America and Europe, and within Ireland, may seem like a daunting task, but as Bookchin has said, “If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.”

@stephie08

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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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Remembering Savita

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Sinéad Redmond

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Savita Halappanavar died on this day 4 years ago in Galway University Hospital. She died in suffering and in pain, because she was pregnant, having been denied basic medical care she and her husband Praveen repeatedly requested.

She died because abortion is illegal in nearly all circumstances in Ireland and even now remains so; but she also died because she was a pregnant migrant woman and a woman of colour in Ireland. Migrant women are twice as likely to die in pregnancy in Ireland as women born in Ireland and the UK. Nora Hyland, Bimbo Onanuga, and Dhara Kivlehan are all names of migrant women who’ve died in or after pregnancy in recent years in Irish maternity hospitals who should be alive now with their children. Only a few months ago Malak Thawley died in an operating theatre of the NMH after basic surgical equipment “could not be found” to stop her bleeding to death.

Our maternity service is not a sufficiently safe place for migrant women, Traveller women, and women of colour; the denial of access to abortion in it only renders it more so, as demonstrated most recently and horrendously with the barbarities the Irish state perpetrated upon Ms Y.

I remember Savita and I remember the tears I cried for her on hearing how she was left to die unnecessarily. I remember Bimbo and how she was told she was exaggerating the pain which was a symptom of the uterine rupture she later died of, and how it took her partner and AIMS Ireland THREE YEARS of fighting to even get an inquest opened into her death. I remember Nora Hyland and how she died of a massive cardiac event after waiting over 40 minutes for a blood transfusion that never came, and with three times the recommended dose of Syntometrine in her body, a component of which is known to have adverse cardiac effects. I remember Dhara Kivlehan and how her doctor told her husband as she went undiagnosed of a fatal liver disorder that it was harder to diagnose Indian people with jaundice, a key indicator of liver failure.

I remember all these women, their partners, and their families and how they were not only mistreated appallingly by the Irish maternity system in life, not permitted as pregnant women to have the final say on their own bodies because of the existence of the 8th amendment, and how further indignity and injury was heaped upon their grieving families by the Irish state and maternity hospitals in refusing to address properly the causes of their death, apologise for them or treat their partners with the respect they deserved. I remember and I fight for change that sometimes seems as though it will never come, especially on days like today where the darkness closes in early and the memory of the horror and outrage and grief of 4 years ago weighs heavily on me. But I do fight.

Solidarity and love to those of you who fight with me, those of you who’ve fought for years and decades longer than me, and those of you who’ve seen more suffering caused by Irish law and Irish maternity hospitals than I can imagine. We will remember and we will bring about change.

This is my third time of posting this. I said this last year, and the year before; I say it again this year, and will every year until everyone in Ireland with a womb owns their own body.

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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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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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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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A LETTER TO MY SISTER, THE DOMESTIC ABUSE APOLOGIST

Posted on October 4, 2016 by feministire

Several years ago I had just found the courage to leave an abusive relationship. By this stage I’d been receiving help from the Domestic Abuse services for over a year, having been ready to leave a year earlier only to find out I was pregnant. The D.A counsellor advised me not to leave until my baby was born, so I stayed. Even though the man I was with was financially and emotionally abusing me. He was also neglectful of my physical needs, leaving me without food or water for over 24 hours when I was to sick to walk, and he would mock me when I complained of the pain that caused me to have to use a walking stick for the final 2 months of my pregnancy.

I had a Skype conversation with my closest relative, my sister, then  living on the other side of the world to me. During the call my sister was very dismissive of my concerns about the relationship with Sean. After I got off the call she sent me the following email.

I felt the email exchange was worth putting in the public arena (with names changed) as since this time I have supported many women who have been in similar situations to me and in EVERY single case at least some members of the woman’s family have reacted in what I would consider to be a fairly appalling way to the news that their sister/daughter/niece has been a victim of domestic abuse.

Here’s what my closest relative had to say to me:

“Hello darling, I’m feeling very sad after our conversation and wanted to write to say that I hope you are not upset.  I felt like I had to say something to you about how concerned I am about you, but I understand that this is a very difficult thing to talk about, especially as I am not there.  I have been worried about you ever since you started talking about domestic violence in your relationship with Sean, initially because the example you used (which was about how he spoke to you when he brought you soup in bed one day when you were sick) was so far removed from my understanding of domestic violence.  Since you brought this issue up I have looked a little into domestic violence, and while I don’t know as much as you or (obviously) someone who works or is trained in domestic violence, I am still concerned that the situations you talk of as domestic violence aren’t domestic violence.  I believe that you believe Sean acts abusively towards you but even from the most basic look into what constitutes verbal or emotional abuse, the situations you have told me about do not meet my understanding of such.  I know that the counsellors at the clinic have told you that it is a situation of domestic violence, so perhaps there is more to the abuse than you have told me, but I also don’t think you would have gone to a domestic violence support service if there wasn’t some part of you that already believed you were in a domestic violence situation.  I think that part of why I doubt whether the situation is domestic violence is that, for example, all of the books you have read except one do not support your claims of domestic violence, but the one book you have chosen to believe is the book that supports your idea.

Despite that, I think if you believe you are being abused then something is terribly, terribly wrong in your relationship and I am so happy that you have left the relationship and moved out on your own.  I have wanted to say something to you for a long time but decided to wait until after you had removed yourself from living with Sean before I said anything because I didn’t want to add to your stress, and I think moving out is a very good thing, and I also don’t want to be one of the people in your life who does not believe you.  This is the most serious of situations and you know that I love and support you no matter what.  The only reason I am writing this, and telling you what I think, is because I am worried about you, worried about your wellbeing and your relationship with Sean.  The repercussions of saying something to you are too severe for me to say any of this without having thought long and hard about it, and there is no-one in my world who I love and trust more than you, or want better for.

I don’t know what to do from here.  I would like to talk more with you about it but I understand that you might not trust me to talk to me about this any further.  Again, I am only expressing these concerns because I am worried about you.  It has nothing to do with not wanting to hear it or denying that it is true – it just genuinely doesn’t seem like domestic violence to me, and I am worried that these allegations could cause serious harm to you or your kids or Sean.  If there is more than I know, I apologise so very much for doubting you, but I hope you will take these words with the love and concern that they are intended with.

Lots of love, Cass xxx”

My response:

“Of course I am upset. I am extremely upset and I’m also very, very  angry.
When someone comes to you to say they are being abused how irresponsible and how arrogant to not take that extremely seriously. Added to that you have not even read the material I asked you to read. You then questioned my sanity after not bothering to find out more information or read the book.
I have repeatedly told you about Sean’s treatment towards me, the financial pressure he has put on me (which is financial domestic violence), the continual disrespect, the physical and emotional neglect, and the emotional abuse. None of these things were isolated incidents, they have been the hallmarks of our relationship since the very start. You said in our conversation earlier that you believed that some of the things Sean had done were abusive. If you believe that some of the things he did were abusive, then it stands to reason that he is an abuser, and therefore I am being abused.

The level of disrespect in our relationship is extremely high. In order for there to be disrespect there has to be a belief in inequality and a belief in inequality is the basis of domestic violence.
The DV services state that emotional abuse is worse than physical violence as there are no outward signs. I am unable to show you the deep wounds to my psyche from being continually disrespected, from being called lazy and useless, from having my work and contributions constantly devalued, from severe physical neglect, from the cruelty I have experienced. I am sorry I never got a punch so I could take a photo or file a police report so that you would believe me. I would rather have been punched than have what has happened to me over the last few years as from a victim’s point of view it is the more subtle forms of abuse that are harder to pick up on – there is nothing so obvious as a fist to let you know you’re being abused. If I’d had a punch in year one I’d have known and been the hell out of the relationship.
If you genuinely don’t believe I have suffered emotional/mental abuse then I would ask you what is it exactly that you think emotional/mental abuse is? What has to happen for you to believe it is abuse? How have you lowered your standards so much that you cannot see that his behaviour towards me is abusive? This attitude you have is indicative of a very big problem with the general population’s ignorance about DV. You think that these very low standards do not constitute abuse. This makes me worried for you, about the kind of relationships you have had/may have if you cannot see that this is abusive. How can you protect yourself from abuse when you have such a poor understanding of it? How can you be a responsible member of society without a knowledge of abuse?
I have consulted more than one domestic violence service and been told that I am a victim of domestic violence so my belief is based on professionals who work in this area, who work with abused women every day combined with the book they recommended I read, Lundy Bancroft’s book. It is Lundy Bancroft who is asked to speak and provide information to Domestic Violence services here and in America, not the authors of the other books I bought from Amazon (not from the recommendations from trained professionals).
I went to the domestic violence services after picking up one of their leaflets and reading the checklist and seeing that I was able to answer yes to some of the questions they use to determine if a relationship is abusive. I did not believe I was in an abusive relationship but having explored every other angle I thought I would go and see them, even though the whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable. I told the counsellor why I was there and relayed experiences I had had during my relationship with Sean and I was told very early on that I was most definitely in a relationship with an abusive man. You have stated in your email that you have looked a “little” into Domestic Violence. I would like to ask what books have you read or professionals have you talked to? And why did you not read the book I recommended? (the book that was recommended to me by trained professionals, and the book that they told me to ask my friends and family to read).

You made it sound as if you believed I had a desire to believe that I was in a DV relationship. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am also wondering if you think I am making up or embellishing stories for the DV services to validate my so called ‘desire’ to be in a DV situation. I really don’t know what I’m being accused of, but it feels very sinister as well as being incredibly upsetting and unsupportive. Consider the possibility that I am right and you are wrong, how awful, how sinister would it be to discredit your own sister in this way?
I find it really shocking that with your limited knowledge on abuse you still feel it’s ok to question the validity of what I’m telling you, this despite the fact that Sean himself is able to see that he has been abusive and that I have seen various professionals with years of experience in this area who say the same thing.

I am going to go through your email bit by bit.

Hello darling, I’m feeling very sad after our conversation and wanted to write to say that I hope you are not upset.

How inhumane to not think I’m going to be upset by your distressing take on my situation. How could you have such a high level of detachment to not think I would be upset when you yourself say you believe that I believe I’m being abused. It would be impossible for anybody in my situation to not be upset. How can you have such a lack of judgement about what will upset me?

I felt like I had to say something to you about how concerned I am about you, but I understand that this is a very difficult thing to talk about, especially as I am not there.  I have been worried about you ever since you started talking about domestic violence in your relationship with Sean,

This is very condescending and patronising  language. Also I am distressed by your use of the phrase “ever since you started talking about dv”  as if  a woman is not supposed to talk about dv. You should be concerned that I’m in this situation, not that I’m talking about it. The motto for the DV services is “break the silence” there is a very important reason for this. What use breaking the silence though if when you do people don’t believe you?

initially because the example you used (which was about how he spoke to you when he brought you soup in bed one day when you were sick) was so far removed from my understanding of domestic violence.

What exactly is your understanding of dv? Someone with a knowledge in this area would know that that situation re the soup was a perfect example of a person with an abusive mindset. It was not even a very subtle example, it was no small thing.  My physical needs were forgotten about and I was spoken to very rudely when I was in a vulnerable situation and unable to look after myself. The whole situation that day showed Sean’s lack of humanity, he was not even remorseful about his behaviour. As my sister I would have thought that you would have been shocked and distressed to hear that I received such a poor level of care when I was so ill. How much worse could he have treated me for you to agree that his behaviour was abusive. I experienced a high level of physical neglect that day. I am the one with a lot of  knowledge in this area and yours is the naive and crude understanding of what the reality of what dv is. If this is your level of understanding you need to learn more, for your own sake at the very least.

Since you brought this issue up I have looked a little into domestic violence, and while I don’t know as much as you or (obviously) someone who works or is trained in domestic violence, I am still concerned that the situations you talk of as domestic violence aren’t domestic violence.

How can you make this judgement that it is not domestic violence when you agree yourself that you have only looked a “little” into the subject. How arrogant of you to assume you know more than people trained in this area. The main person I have been seeing has been working 15 years as a counsellor and 15 years as a Domestic Violence counsellor, I am certain she has more knowledge in this area than you.

I believe that you believe Sean acts abusively towards you but even from the most basic look into what constitutes verbal or emotional abuse, the situations you have told me about do not meet my understanding of such.

Why would you even say this? Of course I believe what I’m saying! Why would I say it otherwise. How patronising! What made you think that having a basic look at something allows you to make a judgment about it (especially one so serious and with such serious repercussions!) Also there is no such thing as a basic look at DV, it is a complex subject that requires assimilating a lot of emotionally difficult information.

I know that the counsellors at the clinic have told you that it is a situation of domestic violence, so perhaps there is more to the abuse than you have told me,

“Perhaps”?? This word in this context carries detachment and it is also incredibly patronising. I’m getting the impression that you are speaking as if you know more than I do about this and speaking down to me.
You need to learn more about how to support people in a dv situation. You are being patronising and condescending. Are you aware of this? It is very disrespectful to communicate with me in this way, especially when I’ve told you that I have experienced significant disrespect in my relationship. would you not be trying to be incredibly respectful and careful in your communications with me given the experiences that I’ve had?
The information I have already told you about my relationship should have been sufficient to convince you of the abuse. When you don’t understand DV you don’t think that information is sufficient.  Also I would ask why you did not enquire about if there was more to it? If you felt there was even the possibility that there was other things happening you didn’t know about (which of course there was) then you should have asked. Instead you have made judgements based on small amounts of information.

but I also don’t think you would have gone to a domestic violence support service if there wasn’t some part of you that already believed you were in a domestic violence situation.

You state this like it’s an accusation? What is it I’m being accused of exactly? Having a suspicion that I may be in an abusive relationship? What would be wrong if I did???  Are you suggesting that I ‘wanted’ to be in an abusive relationship? What is the subtext to what you’re implying? Are you suggesting that I am trying to create this in my life because I believe it and not that I believe it because it is a reality?????

I think that part of why I doubt whether the situation is domestic violence is that, for example, all of the books you have read except one do not support your claims of domestic violence, but the one book you have chosen to believe is the book that supports your idea.

As stated above the one book I’ve “chosen to believe” is the book that was recommended to me by the domestic violence services. They only recommended that one book as there is a lack of good books on the subject available. To put this statement in this way is really offensive. Can you not see that? You are questioning my sanity and my ability to think logically and rationally. You show a gross lack of awareness in respectful ways of communicating. You are talking down to me. If you read up about dv you will see how detrimental this is to a victim as you are hitting me with the same stuff I’ve been living with. You are crossing boundaries and you are giving me hidden motives.

Despite that, I think if you believe you are being abused

you are constantly saying “I don’t believe you”

then something is terribly, terribly wrong in your relationship

If you really believe me that something is terribly terribly wrong would that not be a big warning sign of the possibility of abuse????

and I am so happy that you have left the relationship and moved out on your own.  I have wanted to say something to you for a long time but decided to wait until after you had removed yourself from living with Sean before I said anything because I didn’t want to add to your stress, and I think moving out is a very good thing,

So patronising. really offensive.

and I also don’t want to be one of the people in your life who does not believe you.

And yet you are.

This is the most serious of situations

and yet you are not taking it seriously.

and you know that I love and support you no matter what.

If this is not your intention I do not feel supported by you. I do not feel that you are being very loving either. I told you of a situation where your sister was sick and unable to care for herself that her partner did not give her food. When he finally came to the room after leaving me for 24 hours without food or drink and I asked for food he went to the shop and when he came back he told me he forgot to buy me food. When he said he’s make me soup and I said I didn’t want to be any trouble and I’d just have toast I was criticised and spoken rudely too. He did not apologise for his treatment of me or show any remorse. This situation is a perfect example of abuse and yet you cite this story as being of no consequence.

The only reason I am writing this, and telling you what I think, is because I am worried about you, worried about your wellbeing and your relationship with Sean.  The repercussions of saying something to you are too severe for me to say any of this without having thought long and hard about it, and there is no-one in my world who I love and trust more than you, or want better for.

I think you should be worried but for different reasons than the one you are.  Imagine the possibility that I may be right and think that you may have been concerned because you thought your sister was losing her sanity rather than being concerned because your sister was being abused.
I am glad that you realise that when you accuse someone of being mad when they say they are being abused that they will be upset. and there will be serious repercussions. You are right on this front.
I do not believe you thought long and hard about this as if you had you would have done more research and read the book I asked you to read to arm yourself with more information if you have a gap in your information you need to get the resources to find more information.
You did not need to think about it at all, as your thinking on this subject is erroneous. It is also very arrogant to think that all you had to do was a bit of thinking about it, as if you have all the knowledge.
You’re not doing any asking here – you are showing a marked lack of humility. You did not do this, you did not take care in how you dealt with this situation.
Exactly what do you mean by trust in the above statement? You have shown no trust in my judgement. I am very concerned if there is no one in the world you trust more than me when you do not trust me.
If you genuinely want the best for me would you not acknowledge the wrong in a relationship where I am not even given food when I am ill.

I don’t know what to do from here.

read the book

I would like to talk more with you about it

not until you read the book

but I understand that you might not trust me to talk to me about this any further.

Good, I am glad you have some awareness of the impact of your patronising and naive ways.

  Again, I am only expressing these concerns because I am worried about you.

Can you please start considering the possibility that I am in an abusive relationship before you jump to the conclusion that I am mad.  What is more likely?

  It has nothing to do with not wanting to hear it or denying that it is true

even though you are denying that it is true.

– it just genuinely doesn’t seem like domestic violence to me,

that’s because you have very little knowledge of dv.

and I am worried that these allegations could cause serious harm to you or your kids or Sean.

It is not the allegations that have caused the harm, it is the continued exposure to abuse that has harmed us all. In a really big way. This statement contains a subtle threat, it is the most sinister thing you have ever said to me I think. It is another attempt to silence me, why do you not want me to talk about the abuse I have suffered? This will have serious repercussions for my family if I don’t deal with this. How irresponsible of you to try and silence me talking about this when it is so big and will have such an effect on all our lives. You are accusing me of possibly causing harm to my children, which is a really serious accusation to make. Do you realise that? All because I am trying to speak out about what has happened to me.

  If there is more than I know,

what you know should be enough, and would be enough if you had done more research. These are not conditions that any woman should not see as serious.

I apologise so very much for doubting you,

Do you know what doubting a person who comes to you looking for help with abuse does to that person?
When you have raised your awareness sufficiently to understand the enormity of what you’ve done then come to me with an apology that fits the crime because the apology you’ve just given would technically be seen as a non apology.

but I hope you will take these words with the love and concern that they are intended with.

If you haven’t read the one book that I asked you to read before you spoke out you have shown little love and concern for me.  You started to doubt my sanity and expressed that to me before doing any research. How is that loving to question someone’s sanity? That is not loving. I’m telling you I’m being abused, I’m being bullied and you don’t believe me. Would you not think you needed to check that out? Would you not ask lots of questions about what’s happening and arm yourself with information? That would show concern for me.”
I wanted to share this as so many women are not believed or their concerns are dismissed when they speak out about the abuse they received from an intimate partner. And when you’ve just left an abusive relationship you’re often re traumatised by the responses of loved ones. I call it the second punishment. We are punished for speaking out about what happened to us. We are silenced, mocked, dismissed and ignored. Even women I know who have had bruises to show have been treated like this after speaking out about their abusive ex partners.

It takes courage to tell someone you’ve been abused.

If someone shares their story of abuse with you, please, please believe them. 

 

By an Anonymous Survivor.

(Recommended reading: “Why Does He Do That?” By Lundy Bancroft).

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