Any Irish feeling a bit isolated...

Yep. I think it's interesting that while the main pro-choice orgs went full on trans kool-aid with their "pregnant people" line, they dropped it for the final Together For Yes push. Because they know most people don't buy it.

I don't want to take away from their achievement either. But it amuses me to see some of the infighting that's happened in the wake of the Yes vote, with disputes over who did what, who deserves credit etc. I saw one young woman demand of another on Twitter "Where were YOU in 2012?"

2012

They don't remember the Kerry Babies, Ann Lovett, Eileen Flynn, the abortion referendum of 83, the X case, that time when it seemed that women's bodies were a national battleground.

That's exactly it. There was a lot of solid campaigning done around the 8th, don't get me wrong. But from surveys done after the vote, it showed that most people had made their mind up before campaigning had even started. It's people like Catherine Corless exposing Tuam, and the women from In Her Shoes that helped changed mass opinion, not a student tweeting "Get your rosaries off my ovaries".

I don't mean to undermine the grassroots activism that ultimately resulted in the referendum passing- my bug bear is that it's become a trophy of Irish Liberal Feminists without any real acknowledgement that this was a war of attrition fought over decades, not something that a few graduates campaigned for between their J1 and graduating from Arts at UCD.

Great points everyone, about how Irish feminism is the way it is. I've pondered it a lot myself too and you're right, there's an overcompensating quality about it and a shallowness that doesn't acknowledge how far we've come in a very short time.

Going full "old codger" here but you're spot on about the Repeal shirts and the young women - it was so easy to go along with it this time round.

Just for context, I remember the time when the student unions were the only places still giving out abortion info after SPUC shut down Open Line Counselling and the Well Woman with their injunctions. The spirit was defiant in Trinity, but there was a vote among students of the main universities in 89/90 as to whether they wanted abortion info published in the student union magazines. UCD voted no. Just think about that - that the majority of the now 40something alumni of UCD were voting no back then to even publishing the names and addresses of abortion clinics. That is what we were up against, in middle class educated South Dublin. As for the rest of the country, forget it.

I don't want to be disparaging about young women either, but what they are giving away isn't theirs to give. They don't remember the Kerry Babies, Ann Lovett, Eileen Flynn, the abortion referendum of 83, the X case, that time when it seemed that women's bodies were a national battleground. They have no right to hand over women's spaces, women's rights, womanhood itself, to abusive narcissistic men who are using them.

Was Datun on alter-egoing as Marcon on RC??

I just looked there and she's deleted all her posts on that thread. It's one of the reasons I don't like RC. Threads make no sense when posters go back and delete posts.

That thread got very heated. The person banging the TWAW drum is actually imminently sensible on other topics but completely blinkered on this one.

Forever that link doesn't work for me.

It did remind me to dig out this thread from Rollercoaster last year. It started out with a fluffy post about Caitlin Jenner on the Late Late, but then turned into a full-on debate about the risks of male bodies in female spaces. There are a few deleted posts but the GC view predominates, which fits with my RL experience: most people aren't giving it a lot of thought, but as soon as they do, they're GC.
www.rollercoaster.ie/Discussions/tabid/119/ForumThread/141515319/Default.aspx

I've just read this thread, which I found interesting :

www.heymammy.com/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=108230&sid=fbb31ecc5f64d6da9ebcd968c644f8c4

It amuses me coz I have 'caught' some of the lads at work pulling on their trousers in the communal locker room but they were apologetic, as they were just trying to do a quick change without having to go down the hall into the single sex shower/toilets/changing area. Slightly embarrassing but not really annoying. Lots of cyclists using the facilities. We're actually lucky to have good showers and changing facilities.

Just reread what I write about young feminists and it comes off a bit sneery

I’m only 30 myself so don’t want to give the impression I’m a wizened campaigner aged by decades of activism. But I do respect those who are, and I’ll listen to them unlike many who think that TERF = Menopausal Madwoman.

I get the sense that a lot of the younger feminists have spent the last 3 years wearing a Repeal jumper and having the occasional spat on Twitter, thinking that's their bit done for feminism.

Yes! That's it exactly. Choicely-choice feminism that lets them be one of the "cool girls". Feminism-lite.

Fat fucking chance they would have called themselves feminists when that involves taking an unpopular position, like trying to advocate for abortion rights back in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s.

Thanks for the validating opinion dinosaurkisses! I don’t claim to have been an activist; I’m a late bloomer. That’s possibly why I feel something I belatedly (but actively) signed up for is fast becoming something I did not sign up for.

Totally agree, @Snipsnip.

Let's be real- the Repeal movement was The Cool & Anti-Establishment Thing to get behind for the last couple of years, particularly since the marriage ref passed.

I get the sense that a lot of the younger feminists have spent the last 3 years wearing a Repeal jumper and having the occasional spat on Twitter, thinking that's their bit done for feminism. They forget the actual blood, sweat and tears that feminists like Ailbhe Smyth have poured into the campaign over the last 30 years.

It was easy won for them, and now they're just looking for the next win.

It just feels so recent that Irish feminists have seen the results of the protests of the 70s and 80s, from the marriage bar to contraception to divorce to abortion, and having found a voice that finally won over the people (viz. the Citizens Assembly, who should collectively be awarded Persons of the Decade), and having secured recognition and a space for feminism, we are so damn quick to invite everyone else to pile into it.

It’s like we went from first wave to fourth wave with no boundaries and no appreciation of what was hard-won.

I was a few years behind Ivana Bacik in college and without the agitation of her and others, and the subsequent maturing of the movement (engaging with medics, lawyers, politicians) we wouldn’t have got Repeal over the line. It’s as if Repeal happened easily: it didn’t! I’m not prepared for this new woke feminism which is the colour-catcher in the tumble drier, losing its own identity and having to absorb general whataboutery.

'ello 'ello.

Another one in Belfast. Am a loose follower of Belfast Feminist Network but am tiring of them falling over themselves to be inclusive, i.e,. centre men and try awfully hard not to hurt their feelings (unless they're in the DUP ). It's really putting me off engaging with them, which is a pity as we still have so far to go in NI.

Imho (and I don't mean to offend any posters here by saying this) Irish feminism just isn't mature or confident enough to allow dissenting voices or even take a step back and realise that regardless of their self-IDing as feminists, they're still acting as handmaidens to entitled men abusing their positions.

The pace of political change regarding women's rights has been immense over the last thirty years, but I don't think culture has kept pace, even amongst the young. For the most part Irish women are still putting the wants and desires of men before women and girls. Ask yourself next time you see a pile on on a GC twitter exchange- what's the difference between the TWAW "feminists" commenting, and the women who a generation ago stood by and shamed their peers for extramarital sex, unplanned pregnancies, divorce or for being a victim of spousal abuse? I make no apologies for putting Irish women first, and I'm glad to see there's other posters here who feel the same.

OK, this is from the website "The Irish Girl Guides believes in providing a single-sex environment that will help girls develop to their fullest potential. As an organisation we know it is also beneficial to girls and women to have supportive families and friends. Males are welcome to support the Irish Girl Guides in various roles such as Unit Helpers".

They say single sex, so why is teni getting involved? I'm thinking I should go to the training but I fear I'd get so frustrated and angry about it I'll just cry.

I'm not long involved and I have only scanned our inclusion policies, but I believe the language refers to gender rather than sex here. I'm going to do some research tomorrow.

Our pack would generally be from a very a la carte RC/CofI area, quite lefty middle class suburbanites. But we have one Muslim girl joining us so it's become a bit more real for me thinking about how she might continue to engage if a trans girl was to join either brownies or guides. I don't know my fellow leaders long enough to be able to gauge their opinion on this.

@Mother I was thinking about the Guided thing the other day.

I’m in NI where all GG groups near me seem to be attached to a Presbyterian or Methodist church and run with those ethoses in mind. I just wonder how that will mesh with the new guidelines that have come out in the last few days

Is anyone involved in Irish girl guides? I'm a brownie leader and just got an invitation to an lgbt awareness training to be facilitated by TENI...

Hi, MarDhea. Yes exactly, that's the quote that stood out to me, too (I was thwarted by the return-key bug earlier so gave up teasing out what I was trying to say...).

He is clearly someone acutely aware of misogyny and putting in some thinking about the roles of masculinity. Not that I expected anything about trans in this article because it was about something different, it was just that as well-meaning as he is, he didn't manage to amplify any women in this piece and I'm left wondering if he's even aware.

I was just musing on whether the intersection of the free-speech aspect (the billboard, Angelos Sofocleous being dropped as editor of the Durham philosophy journal) with the suppression of women's voices in the trans debate is something that would resonate with him.

When you imagine hypothetically someone of his stature in Irish life coming out on the side of women in this specific matter, it's an interesting thought exercise - is he unaware, doesn't think it important because "that never happens"/miniscule numbers etc, or simply knows what the reaction would be and isn't up for it. Cos I sincerely doubt he actually believes TWAW. Makes me realise that for all the wokeness pervading Irish Twitter there must be a lot more influential people like him who have managed to studiously avoid coming off the fence. What would happen if women got there first in calling on them to do so?

Pressed post too soon...

The above quote is verbatim what is said in the FWR boards about TRA tactics. I do wonder if Fintan was obliquely referring to such tactics in those lines, or if he's as head-in-the-sand as other journos.

I interpreted it differently, more about the moral imperative of a free press and how a particular editor fell short.

He definitely didn't mention anything GC but I did like the following:
"The culture of misogyny is a culture of silencing. The revolt against it is a revolt into speech, a rebellion against the old injunction: You can’t say that."

Anyone read Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times today?

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-metoo-cannot-win-in-a-climate-of-fear-1.3639666?localLinksEnabled=false

[...]the great insurgency against misogynistic abuse cannot achieve its full goals in an atmosphere of guilt by association. The culture of misogyny is a culture of silencing. The revolt against it is a revolt into speech, a rebellion against the old injunction: You can’t say that. It is also an opening-up of a dark, unpleasant and uncertain terrain of distorted masculinity.

So he writes in favour of people being allowed to publish difficult, challenging truths, and calls for self-examination of toxic masculinity... but somehow the article as a whole was "all about the men" and as somebody pointed out in the comments he even managed to erase an eminent past co-editor of the NYRB... a woman. He's not going to come out for gender critical women, is he?

We exist op. We're just sick and tried of the gobeens who describe themselves as "genuine Irish feminists" who are doing more harm to Irish women than any government, man or religious body has ever done. Please do feel free to search us out on Twitter

and don't buy into the bs that if your feminism is not intersectional, then its not feminism. I see that a lot on twitter. Intersectionalist tool has been stolen from Black women, who have huge issues of racism to deal with within feminism. But now the well connected Irish feminists have leveraged that to argue they are more oppressed than working class men. Despite their better start in life, university education, access to housing etc etc. That is another con they are trying to pull.

Im happy to give anyone my LinkedIn profile if they want to meet up but not sure who you can trust. I work for my self, so am not answerable to anyone. After all the shit Irish women have had to go through, I am not going to be silenced. I wish men who have no skin in the game would focus on stopping men raping and attacking us, instead of joining in this bullying. At the end of the day I earn less money, and am a carer because I'm a woman. My biological sex determined my life outcomes.