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A letter to our friends in Rojava:

Posted on October 15, 2019 by feministire

As feminists living across the island of Ireland, we wish to express our heartfelt solidarity with our courageous sisters and comrades in Rojava as their project for women’s freedom is under attack. Please know that as the fascist Turkish state attempts to isolate, dispossess and brutalise the communities of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, they will only serve to strengthen our collective resistance and resolve.

 

You stood with us as we fought to repeal the 8th Amendment. You visited us in Ireland and generously shared your knowledge so we could learn from your struggles and victories. You invited and warmly welcomed us into your communities, demonstrating how a feminist society could be organised in practice, something we had only previously imagined.

 

Let us be unequivocal, an attack on the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria is an attack on women’s rights, on feminist organising and on ways of organising society that prioritise ecology, community and humanity over profit. Your woman-led political movement offers a feminist alternative to global capitalism, with its gender-balanced decision-making system, and the centring of women’s liberation in this unprecedented democratic project.

 

Erdoğan and the Turkish state are threatened by the democratic values of Rojava, by its empowered women and its commitment to equality.  These attacks in the name of establishing a ‘safe zone’ are no more than an attack to drive out our friends and comrades from the region, to smash the democratic project and to put an end to women’s liberation.

 

The creation of a so-called ‘safe zone’ also serves the purpose of deporting thousands of Syrian asylum seekers residing in Turkey. They will be brought back to Syria under the strengthened rule of Bashar al Assad, a war criminal, in spite of the fact that they fled from it in the first place. The invasion of Rojava and the full reinstatement of al Assad’s power over Syria and its diverse population are two sides of the same coin, which contemplates the return to an authoritarian stability that can stop the movement of people (so much desired by the fortress Europe), achieved at the price of slaughtering civilians and destroying emancipatory political experiences.

 

We draw inspiration from your courage and your strength and will come out onto our streets to raise our voices in solidarity with you and to fight fascism, our common enemy.

 

 

We call on feminists across the globe to join us in supporting our sisters, friends, comrades. Organise, march, shout, fight and rise up for Rojava.

 

Jin, jiyan, azadi! Ní Saoirse go Saoirse na mBan

 

Theresa O’Keefe

Farah Azadi

Juliana Sassi

Wendy Lyon

Paola Rivetti

Aileen O’Carroll

Helen Guinane

Jen Doh

Caoimhe Butterly

Eve Campbell

Hilary Darcy

Stephanie Lord

Sinéad Redmond

Emily Waszak

Aoife Frances

Mary McAuliffe

JA Valois

Maggie ONeill

Linda Connolly

Ursula Ní Shionnain

Suzanne Leen

Sharron A. FitzGerald

Mx Brody Hodgins

Jane Xavier

Paula Geraghty

Melanie McArdle

Dervla O’Neill

Caroline Forde

Ciara Fitzpatrick

Susan Miner

Alanna O Neill

Julia Crowe

Lauren Foley

Heather Ferguson

Joanne Lynam

Emer Smith

Shannon Patterson

Natasha Finnerty

Margaret Ward

Claire McGinley

Nicoletta Mandolini

Clara Purcell

Clare O Connor

Lisa Keogh Finnegan

Tracey Ryan

Anne Mulhall

Maire Ni Mhordha

Eilís Ní Fhlannagáin

Sinead Pembroke

Leticia Ortega

Dyuti Chakravarty

Beth O’Neill

Niamh McDonald

Linda Kavanagh

Antoinette Murphy

Leness Falls

Yvie Murphy

Elaine D’Alton

Maggie Feeley

Siobhán Nic Fhloinn

Becca Bor

Lisa Basire

Xavier Beardwood

Anita Villa

Layla Kuyper

Marie Mulholland

Caroline Kuyper

Marie Moran

Céile Varley

Sharon L Mc Menamin

Muuka Gwaba

Anne McLean

Katharina Swirak

Jacqueline O’Toole

Antonella Garofalo

Brigid Quilligan

Ann O Sullivan

Cat Inglis

Breige Ann McCaughley

Maria Perkins

Sian Cowman

Vivienne Daly

Samantha Kenny

Louise Inglis

Ciara Miller Johnston

Keeva Lilith Carroll

Martine Jackson

Heather McPolin

Ruby Moss

Stacy Wrenn

Tara Ní Dhuinn

Emma Hendrick

Jacqueline Johnston

Sarah Walsh

Breanainn Quinn

Ilaina Khairulzaman

Ina Doyle

Michelle Brown

Alex Ronan

Marianne Farrelly

Joanne McDonald

Georgina O’Halloran

Audrey Fergus

Sarah Shiel

Martina Ferrari

Emma Wallace

Elaine Crory

Becky Indigo Farrell

Cliona Kelly

Goretti Horgan

Bec Fahy

Elaine Mernagh

Melíosa Bracken

Francisca Ribeiro

Kate o keeffe

Joanne Dennehy

Aoife McLean

Mags Glennon

Syd Delz

Carly Bailey

Mairead Enright

Jess Lynch

SaoirseJohnston

Judy Walsh

Aislinn Wallace

Erika Csibi

Stacey Grant-Canham

Laura Ryan

Louisa Moss

Kellie Sweeney

Kerry Guinan

Aisling Corbett

Jane Robb

Sian Cowman

Ingrid Seim

Polly Molotov

Ciara Crawford

Karen Carson

Gillian Brien

Karen Carson

orlagh nic suibhne

Catherine Clarke

Liz Kelly

Irene Doval Marcos

Maryanne Daly

Rose Mullen

Tracy Wall

Maggie Bent

Louise Delz

Bronwen Lang

Rosa Thompson

Edel Quirke

Milena Barnes

Corinne O’Neill

Grainne Griffin

Joanna Schaffalitzky

Aimee Doyle

Cate Dillon

Jennifer Larke

Kalianne Farren

Maebh Murphy

H Oakes

Emma Beuster

Ciara Beuster

Kate Ware

Natalia  R Fedz

Felicity Rawson

Layla Wade

Jene Hinds

Laura J Acha

Niamh P. Keoghan

Lisa Whelan

فرح مخترعيزاده

Cora Quigley

Kellie O’Dowd

Amy walsh

Yasmin O’Connor

Aoife Crowe

Laura McVeigh

Joanna McMinn

Suzanne Dunne

Anne Ralph

Bernie Hughes

Ashley Keenan

Lisa dunne

April Keane

Ann Gerety Smyth

Karen Till

Divya Ravikumar

Jacinta Fay

Caoimhe Doyle

Emma Walsh-Hackett

Tricia Nugent

Natasha Lambert

Anna Higgins

Sorcha Szczerbiak

Alice Chau

Vicky Conway

K McKinney

Sinéad Williams

Ramona Parkes

Charlotte Fassbender

Lorna O’Hara

Niamh Casey

Layla Wade

Rebek’ah McKinney-Perry

Kitty Colbert

Alexandra Day

Síona Cahill

Gen Smith

Heike Stone

Aisling Ní Fhrighil

Aoife hammond

Karen Hammond

Eimear Nic Roibeaird

Mary McDermott

Ellen Murphy

Sarah Elaine McHugh

Niamh Murtagh

Rebecca murphy

Joni Kelly

Bríd Collins

Annie Hoey

Kate Butler

Marie Sherlock

Katie Noone

Ber Grogan

Aisling Cusack

Emma Challacombe

Kerry O’Donnell

Meaghan Carmody

Janet O’Sullivan

Patricia Magee

Gillian Kearns

Éinne Ó Cathasaigh

Claire Brennan

Muireann O’Sullivan

dervla o’malley

Freyja Bourke

Sarah Cassidy

Soma Gregory

Lucy Michael

Deirbhile Brennan

Margo Harkin

Caroline McCormack

Deirdre O’Shea

Liadh Ni Faogain

Yasmary Perdomo Rodriguez

Hayley Fox-Roberts

Pamela Rochford

Clare mccann

Barbara Western

Rebekka K. Steg

Evelyn Campbell

Mariel Whelan

Nicola grant

Dairíona Ní Mhuirí

Taryn de Vere

Yurika Higashikawa

Sallyann Green-Millar

Deb Crawley

Bernadette Hughes

Vikkie Patterson

Trish Hegarty

Katie Harrington

Helen O’Sullivan

Leona Mc Mahon

Rosanna O Keeffe

Angela Coraccio

Helen Stonehouse

Emma Allen

Karen Dempsey

Carola Speth

Aisling Mathews

Catherine Stocker

Jennifer Schweppe

Debbie Hutchinson

Anna McMahon

Rebecca Heslin

Sinéad Ring

Tríona Reid

Loretta J frehill

Aine O’Gorman

Kate Dineen

Amy Kelly

Sharon Pickering

Kelley O’Hanlon

Deidre colgan

Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

Grace Harrison

Phyllis Verschoyle

Emma Dowling

Roisin Blade
Keeva Farrelly
Eve Campbell
Aoife Dermody
Kylie Jarrett
Emily Duffy
Emma Campbell
Helen Crickard
Sevinç Karaca
Leanne Doyle
Jane Ruffino
Wim Hendrix
Emer McHugh
Emilia Burgio
Rachelle Howell
Emma O’Brien
Paula Dennan
Aisling Walsh
Melanie Drumm
Michelle Woods
Lynsey Farrell
Sorcha Fox
Tara Folds
Shauna Stanley
Leah Doherty
Julie Daly
Sarah Holland
Vicky Langan
Katherine O’Keefe
Alber Saborío
Fiadh Punch
Mary Landis
Conorayne
Cathie Shiels
Sonia Balagopalan
Anne Kane, Associate Professor of Sociology
Zoë Lawlor
Natalia Kunachowicz
Lennita Oliveira Ruggi
Bernadette Jennings
Irma Bochorishvili
Oana Marian
Yasmary Perdomo Rodriguez
Anne Marie Kelly
Olga Murphy
Jade Lydon
Aideen Farrell
Eve Cobain
Renata Kempf
Elaine waldock
Kelly Doolin
Avril Corroon
Ashling Cronin
Carol Ballantine
begoña landa
Anastasia Ryan
V’cenza Cirefice
Julie Maher
Tara Flynn
Claire Brophy
Aoife O’Neill
Sharon Boggans Stich
Bernadette A D’Arcy
Gemma Kearney
Eimear Tester
Karin O’Sullivan
Amy Aylmer
Megan Whittington
Sophie Dalton
Jamie Canavan
Eimear O’Neill
Ruth Patten
Livia Hekanaho
Aoife Stephens
Becky Leacy
Caoimhe Ní Néill
Jessica Reid
Lisa Carey
Danielle Lavigne
Eimear Hawthorne
Aisling Murphy
Sandra Fay
Darwesh Obeid
Phyllis Murphy
Jo Parsons
Linda Hayden
Denise C
Kristine Wahl
Kate O’Hara
Aoife Mallon
Rebecca Gorman
Raven Neill
Becci Jeffers
Lisa Breslin
Shivani Jain
Natalie Conroy
Jane Clare
Mo Ludwig
Mary McGill
Jemma McCallum
Dionne Roberts
Dr Sindy Joyce
Naomi English
Charlene Delaney
Caroline Ryan
Elaine Hanson
Joan O’Connell
Suzan Günbay
Sonja Rohan
Kim O’Driscoll
Amy Ní Mhurchú
Lorna Johnson
Stefania Oggioni
Melanie Drumm
Jamie Drumm
Amelia Feery
Hollie Feery
Clare Bell
Ash Hayes
Alacoque
Joan Humphreys
Niamh Webbley-O’Gorman
Katie O’Hara
Mary Connell
Eadaoin de Faoite
Roseanne Doran
Lora O’Brien
Jean Alfred
Vanessa Moore
Grainne
Zoë Lawlor
Vicki Loughran
Aoife Butler
Eanna Finnen
Tara Robinson
Mary Palmer
Ciara hendrick
Marese Hegarty
Siobhán Cawley
Rohan Swamy
Sandra Ní Dhubhthaigh
Zoë Lawlor
Jenny Oreilly
Sian Ní Mhuirí
Aoife FitzGibbon O’Riordan
Gabriela Burnett
Aoife Dermody
Duana mcardle
Dorcy Mac An Fháilí
Sharon Nolan
Nafisah Azeem
Keeva Farrelly
Isabel Rubio
Fiona Lynam
Julie Gleeson
Áine White
Amelia Feery
Hollie Feery
Paula Flanagan
Martha Dalton
Aoileann Conway
Joanna Thompson
Ciara May Boud-Keegan
Nikki O’Malley
Doris Murphy
Vicky Donnelly
Niamh McCrea
Ciara Browne
Amel Yacef
Eugenia Siapera
Ailis Ni Chofaigh
Mo Mansfield
Aedín O’Cuill
Kate Kenny
Aoife Kirk
Stephanie Fleming
Joanne Neary
Emma Brännlund
Sinead Corcoran
Joanne Byrne
Miriam Needham
Lola Gonzalez
Anna Carnegie
Maria Johanna Heschl
Alexandra Soares
Stacey Scriver
Debbie O Rourke
Shauna Markey
Beth Hayden
Jenny Carla Moran
Liath James

Groups and Organisations:

Need Abortion Ireland

Strike 4 Repeal

MERJ – Migrants and Ethnic-minorities for Reproductive Justice

Parents for Choice

Kildare Feminist Network

Fingal Feminist Network

Dundalk for Change

Queer Action Ireland

Reclaim the Agenda

Alliance for Choice Belfast
London Irish Feminist Collective
Dublin south west housing action

ARC Offaly
Galway Feminist Collective

Queer Diaspora Ireland

Feminist/Queer Discussion Group – NUI Galway

 

To add your name please go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSejUIr6m4tmm50_Vt8BpkohTKPsQR4A8DBetI3FeGL6s63YtA/viewform

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Turkey’s attack on the Kurds is a feminist issue.

Posted on October 11, 2019 by Wendy Lyon

Just a quick one because I’m super busy today, but this is important. The attack by Turkey on the Kurdish region of northeastern Syria (Rojava) is not just an unjustified act of war, a humanitarian crisis, another blow to a people who have suffered more than enough already. It is all that, but it’s also something that should greatly concern everyone who cares about women’s rights. Because the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria – the autonomous entity serving as the de facto government of the region – has in place what is by far the most progressive administration in its neighbourhood, where women’s rights are concerned. In fact there are a lot of things about it that western governments could learn from; but certainly it’s well beyond any of the alternative regimes available to the women there.

And make no mistake about it; if this attack continues many of the women of Rojava are going to find themselves living under another form of rule. Turkey’s aim is not, as it claims, merely to create a “safe zone” to protect itself from Kurdish attacks; it is to completely repopulate the parts of Syria closest to its borders – replacing Syrian Kurds with Syrian Arabs. This is precisely what has happened in Afrin, which Turkey attacked a year and a half ago (to a deafening silence from most of the west), with the consequence of forcing the veil on women who wouldn’t have worn it voluntarily and annihilating the rights that women in the DFNS enjoy (such as freedom from forced marriage and protection against domestic abuse).

At the same time, the Syrian Democratic Forces which (currently) control the region are being forced to reduce their capacity to guard the prison camps in which ISIS fighters and loyalists are held. Needless to say, they will also be more poorly equipped to respond in the event of an ISIS resurgence along the Iraqi border. I really don’t think I need to say how utterly catastrophic this would be for women in the affected areas.

The final option would be for the DFNS to collapse and go back under Bashir Assad’s fold. From a feminist perspective this might be the least worst option, but don’t be under any illusions; despite the officially secular stance of Assad’s Syria, only this year have women been given some of the rights that Rojava guarantees – and unlike in Rojava, there is no ideological commitment to women’s rights. It is simply a pragmatic measure adopted in the interest of preserving a battered regime. And we all know how readily that can swing back the other way.

In simplest terms, the demise of Rojava would mean the end of an era of a form of government which is inseparable from the goal of women’s liberation. There is literally no alternative that isn’t worse for the women of Rojava – in some cases a lot lot worse. And while it would obviously be a disaster for them, the fallout from it would hurt the cause of all of us.

There are a number of demonstrations taking place tomorrow – in Ireland (Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, Galway) and elsewhere – to protest the Turkish attack. Please attend if you can. If you can’t, please share. This matters. It really does.

https://womendefendrojava.net/

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Emergence of ‘Legal Issues’ wrt. Shannon Key West Hotel

Posted on February 26, 2019 by feministire

Press release from Leitrim and Roscommon United against Racism, guest published on Feminist Ire

 

23rd Feb 2019

 

Leitrim and Roscommon United against Racism regret the manner in which the sudden emergence of ‘legal issues’ around the use of the Shannon Key West Hotel  as a DP centre gives an impression that the state has bowed down in the face of a spate of racist arson attacks.

 

We feel for the eighty people waiting somewhere in Dublin in a holding centre waiting for placement who now have nowhere to go. They are the most vulnerable people in this whole situation. They are not just numbers.

 

We believe they should now be housed in communities in this general area in the empty housing stock we see all around us – and be allowed work while they await the outcome of their applications for asylum.

 

We hope that a proper dialogue will now take place between citizens, agencies, communities, campaigners, public representatives and churches in this area on this and the related issues. We hope that outside influences attempting to fuel racist sentiment off the back of this situation are excluded from this dialogue.

 

We believe the Direct Provision system is fundamentally an oppressive system and we were glad to hear a local councillor quoted in the Irish Times yesterday describing it as such. We believe it must be dismantled and those in the system be given the right to live and work in our communities. It is a carceral system and an increasingly ugly stain on our society and communities.

 

 

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How to talk to your children about abortion

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Sinéad Redmond
How to talk to your children about abortion

This is a slightly reworked repost of a piece I wrote for Parents for Choice in the run up to the referendum on abortion rights in Ireland. 

 

I have two daughters, who are 6 and 3. My six year old has been really interested in pregnancy, and pregnant women and bumps specifically, since she was three or four, and my three year old’s interest in pregnancy has started following suit in the last year. I think it’s really important when talking to children to try and reflect your own view of the world as honestly as possible in the words you use to them. My own view of pregnancy, particularly in the early stages, is that the developing pregnancy is something with the potential to grow into a baby, but not the ethical and moral equivalent of one. Because of this I’ve always made a deliberate effort to talk about a pregnancy as a “baby seed” rather than a baby. I don’t tell her people have “a baby in their tummy”, we talk about people having baby seeds that are growing into babies. When they’ve finished growing into a baby they’re ready to be born.

 

I use these terms because I don’t want to have to explain to a child  who’s asking questions about abortion that actually a 7 week embryo or whatever isn’t actually “a baby in someone’s tummy” as I’ve been telling her all along, and so that it won’t strike her as something as immediately shocking as I think it otherwise might. We’ve looked together at diagrams and drawings of embryo and foetal development and talked about how they’re not ready to be babies just yet, that they are growing into babies.

 

I also talk to my six year old about how growing a baby seed into a baby is a really hard and difficult and sometimes dangerous thing for a body to do, so I think everyone should get to decide for themselves whether they do or not. And I tell her some people think everyone should have to grow baby seeds into babies whether they want to or are able to or not. It helps that she remembers my pregnancy on her younger sister, in which I nearly died and had to inject myself with heparin for the remainder of the pregnancy, so we talk about that too.

 

She pointed out one of the “baby” posters during the referendum campaign when we were in the car and passed one. I said “Actually that’s a baby seed but the people who paid a lot of money for those posters made it look like a baby on purpose, because they think everyone who has a baby seed should have to grow it into a baby whether they wanted to or not.” And that I think that’s telling lies and shouldn’t be allowed.

 

I was pregnant with her when Savita died, in 2012, and in 2017 I took her to one of the vigils in memory of her for the first time since she was old enough to ask questions. I actually found hers engagement with the vigil and its cause really poignant; I explained to her in the car on the way in that we were going to a vigil to remember a woman who died called Savita Halappanavar (she said her name very carefully) who died before it was her time to die, because she was growing a baby seed and sometimes growing a baby seed can make us very sick because it’s an awful lot of work for our bodies. So sometimes people don’t want to grow baby seeds and sometimes people are too sick to grow baby seeds. And that I think doctors should be allowed to help people who don’t want to, to stop baby seeds from growing, but here they aren’t allowed to. And because they weren’t allowed to stop Savita’s baby seed from growing, even though her body wasn’t able to grow it, she died.

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Our bodies, our babies, our births

Posted on August 19, 2018 by Sinéad Redmond
Our bodies, our babies, our births

Before I write the rest of this piece I feel the need to lay out my mothering and birth ‘credentials’. I am a mother to two daughters; I’ve given birth twice, both times vaginally, neither time without intervention. I found one birth traumatic and one deeply and intensely healing. One pregnancy was life-threatening and high risk, the other was not. (The traumatic birth was not the one which resulted from the life-threatening pregnancy.) I’ve breastfed both daughters, both exclusively for 6 months, and for an extended period beyond that. 5 years in total with some crossover in babas being fed at the same time (only once literally at the same time thankfully, I HATED that). I’ve spent the entirety of my life as a mother in the struggle for bodily autonomy in pregnancy (whether ended or continued) and birth. Here in Ireland, with the 8th amendment limiting our rights in both, it was always clear to me that pregnancy and birth are a continuum and the restriction of our rights in one aspect of it will be used to restrict our rights in others. The fundamental right to ownership of one’s own body has always been to me one issue.

I do not care how anyone births as long as it’s the way that’s right for them; one they have chosen as freely as possible, one they feel safe and supported in, and in a pregnancy they’ve chosen to continue. Likewise I do not care how anyone feeds their baby as long as it’s the way that’s right for them; one they have chosen as freely as possible and one they have, if problems have been encountered, received appropriate, accurately informed, and timely support for. Unfortunately when women run into problems with breastfeeding this is all too often not the case. I don’t just mean the kind of ‘support’ that involves telling brand new mothers with bleeding nipples to ‘just’ pump instead (the casual disregard for the work and time of women inherent in this is enraging), though. I also mean the kind of support which ignores the realities of that woman’s life, particularly when she already has other very small children around to care for, on top of feeding herself, and no other adult in the home for most or all of the day. The kind of support which pretends the problems of capitalism and patriarchy, where women’s work of feeding and raising babies, doesn’t exist, being instead part of a magical and wonderful nurturing process that is bestowed on us by some earth mother fairy godmother type at birth, and that all will magically come right if you just ‘feed feed feed’. Peer support and advice can only compensate for so much; without an additional set of hands there in the home, many mothers will simply be unable to complete all the separate tasks they must do in a day to ensure each of their children, as well as themselves, are safe, clean and fed. For this to happen, that set of hands would need to be a paid worker, provided by the state, because the state recognises that mothering work, and the work of bringing babies into the world and feeding those babies once they’re there is work of value. I do not believe that we will see this happen while we continue to individualise the ‘problems’ and place the ‘responsibility’ for breastfeeding or not on each mother. As I once said to a friend in the aftermath of her own journey to breastfeed ending earlier than she wanted, with a baby who just wouldn’t latch, I am an advocate for women, not for breastfeeding. I want to support people, not a process.

This piece has been brewing in my mind for some time now, with much of it brought to the fore by some of the response to a US study that found in a cohort of 6,000+ women, induction did not raise the risk of c-section, and that a woman who chose not to have an induction at 39 weeks was more likely to have a c-section. I certainly think there are questions to be asked around this study – I would love to know the outcomes of the 16,000 women who declined to participate. The interrogation of the concept that there may be an element of self-selection in the participants is a welcome one too, and I would like to know to what degree that matters. I also think societies which consider free maternal healthcare to be a basic right for all may not be directly comparable to a society in which those who cannot afford maternal healthcare must go without it.  I would question too if it is reasonable to compare c section rates in a country in which some hospitals and indeed states will compel women to have c sections against their will to those which do not. I would also find far more interesting a trial which, for once, took into consideration the feelings of a large cohort of women about their births. There is a strong distinction to be drawn between the sometimes unavoidable damage to our health and bodies that pregnancy and birth can inflict and the always avoidable suffering and trauma that the denial of our autonomy wreaks upon us. As someone who has experienced both in different pregnancies, I found the former far easier to recover from.

In much the same way as I view breastfeeding, I do not believe in nor agree with the privileging of ‘natural’ pregnancy and birth above all else in the birth advocacy world. Not least because the insistence on ‘natural’ pregnancy as a process seems to me to be at odds with the struggle for our rights to choose to end or continue our pregnancies as we see fit. Please do not misunderstand me here; the fight for ownership of our own bodies in continued pregnancy and birth is frequently one that takes the path of having to defend our rights to say no to external intervention in pregnancy and in birth, rights which are all too often trampled on. But I simply do not agree that the one overarching goal of the entirety of the maternity and birth rights movement should be the prioritisation of ‘natural’ birth. I worry that the focus of this movement has shifted from our right to have the time and space and care to have the best birth for us, to the idea that there is only one best type of birth. It would be easy to understand how this might have happened, in societies in which all too often a medicalised pregnancy and birth is presented as the only option and in which it can frequently seem as though the intervention-free birth is only possible in one’s own home. But I am concerned that this focus on ‘natural’ birth, as distinct from the right birth for each birthing person simply creates a parallel between natural birth advocates and the paternalised medical system which so many of us have negative experiences of.  Again, I want to be an advocate for women and each individual woman or person’s right to own their own unique experience, not an advocate for a certain kind of pregnancy and birth. I don’t always believe that what’s ‘natural’ is best for each and every woman, but I do believe in every pregnant and birthing person’s right to fully informed choice. And I believe with that right, and with supportive, informed, qualified, involved carers, from whom the person giving birth has had continuity of care throughout pregnancy, everyone giving birth would have the perfect (though perhaps not natural) birth for them.

As a final note, I haven’t mentioned anything about babies, their rights, and their best outcomes in this piece. This is a deliberate choice on my part, in part because I believe that information (as pertaining to breastfeeding in particular) is pointless without the resources to implement it, and in part because I don’t believe that the outcomes for babies should weigh on anyone who is not their mother making decisions about their mother’s body. Nor do I believe it is my role as a mother who breastfed to advertise breastfeeding to other women. Each individual woman is the only person who is or ever will be in her shoes and is the only one possibly qualified to make the right call for her and her baby in their best interests.

 

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No more than she deserves

Posted on August 13, 2018 by Sinéad Redmond
No more than she deserves

In a country which voted overwhelmingly only a few months ago to return ownership of our bodies to us, it was dispiriting, though not surprising, to watch the mob turn on a young homeless Traveller mother, Margaret Cash, for the crimes of being young, a mother, a Traveller, a woman and homeless. The mob has spoken, and it has decreed that she has too many children (though it has failed to specify which exactly of her children should not have been born), that she is in some way to blame for her circumstances (though the housing and rental crisis is in no way of her making), that she should have taken the housing options she was offered (though she could not afford them, had no way of getting to them, and indeed in one case they could not take all of her children with her).  The mob would presumably let them all rot on the benches of Tallaght garda station indefinitely. The mob also does not give a toss that Margaret Cash’s children are listening while it bays that they should not exist.

Why is it that we can talk about “the housing crisis” or “the homelessness crisis” in the media as one under which people are suffering, yet when a mother in pure desperation shares a photo of the straits her children and her family are in, she is torn apart for it? Are people that desperate to believe it couldn’t happen to them that they will peer through every tiny chink into a family’s life through Facebook posts and deem them unworthy and undeserving on this tiny, one-sided, skewed angle of perception? That is surely a part of it, but there is a darker truth here too. The habit of misogyny and of blaming women and mothers for their societally created and enforced suffering is one that has long been pervasive in Ireland. However much you may like to believe that your Together for Yes twibbon frees you of the need to interrogate any of your beliefs about women – especially mothers –  if you believe that you have the right to a say in anyone else’s reproductive decisions, particularly in the wake of their being already made, you are a part of Ireland’s misogyny problem.

Let me be perfectly clear; if you are one of those people who last week thought or said or posted or tweeted or commented that Margaret Cash had surely some part to play in sleeping in a garda station along with her children, you are one of those people who would have said the same about the mothers and the children in the Magdalen laundries and the Mother and Baby homes. If you believe that it is in any way acceptable for you to suggest going through Margaret Cash’s Facebook posts in response to a family being so utterly failed by the society they live in that they are forced to resort to trusting to a policing force that automatically sees their ethnic grouping, including their children, as criminals, to house them, you are one of those that would have looked straight at those women walking together with shorn heads in ragged uniforms down the main streets of Ireland’s towns and never seen anything amiss.

To want a home in which to have and raise children, and to be supported by society in so doing, is a perfectly feminist ideal and to suggest otherwise is pure misogyny. The work of having and raising children is work of value on which society depends; indeed without the work of mothers in growing, birthing and raising our children society as we know it would end within a generation. This is not a new feminist ideal; it has been widespread since the Wages for Housework international campaign of the 1970s. Most of the demands of the Wages for Housework campaign (paid maternity and parental leave, women’s right to work outside the home, equal pay, and social welfare supports) have passed into the accepted needs of society as a whole and are taken entirely for granted as part and parcel of our fought-for and hard-won rights in feminist circles. There is however one area that hasn’t yet been assimilated into society; the concept that the work within one’s own home, of raising one’s own children, of contributing to society the thing it needs most to keep going, should be paid work. That a mother’s work is valuable because it has a price; not worthless because it is of no monetary value.

The reason this vital part of the Wages for Housework campaign did not succeed as its other demands did? Simple; ‘business’ (by which I mean of course capitalism) does not directly benefit from it in the same way that the opening up of a new supply of workers (mothers) to the workforce does. Capitalism requires that this work not be seen as ‘real’ work; that it be done silently and alone without pay, that one employee who wants to have a family must have another person in the home doing the unpaid labour of caring for that employee and the family. Without that person and their unpaid labour the edifice of capitalism begins to shudder, to be seen as the imprisoning behemoth it is, beneath the weight of which all of us are being slowly crushed.

Margaret Cash and her children are today’s sacrifice to Ireland’s continued worship of the combined gods of capitalism and misogyny. We cannot continue like this; leaving the children of ‘undeserving’ mothers to be trodden underfoot by the rest of society, nor can we continue to declare the system is not broken beyond repair in the face of the growing thousands without homes and safe places to stay while the massive landlords that are banks and the vulture funds are given tax break and bailout hand over fist. In much the same way that we reclaimed ownership of our bodies, so too is a movement where we seize back our basic, fully achievable right to homes and safe shelter the only way from here. The ongoing refusal of the State to provide for our obvious needs while women and families suffer and die is an all too familiar echo of the decades gone past. We know they would not have listened to us then had we not risen up and made them. It’s time to make them listen again

 

 

 

 

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It’s been two months now

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Sinéad Redmond
It’s been two months now

If I have to tell you what it’s been two months from there’s probably not much point in you reading this.

We won and I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel. I thought I would feel joy. I thought I would feel vindicated. I thought I would feel loved and supported. I thought the 26th would be a celebration. Instead it felt more like a wake. I found myself stopping many times, just where I was, to cry. On the footpath while taking down a Together for Yes sign for my wall. At home in the morning. In the car on the way to the count centre. While tallying. Every time I saw the unofficial Limerick Together for Yes results. Seeing women I love and work with sharing the victory together without me, in places far from me. When I saw the ratio for the tiny village I cast my vote in come in at 67% yes. When I had to accept that I was so exhausted I needed to ask my friend to bring me home at 5 o’clock that evening instead of being able to dance and sing as I thought I would.

I thought I would feel energised. I thought I would feel empowered. Instead I am more shattered than I would ever have believed possible. 6 long years of the intensity I pursued this with has left me in pieces; burnt to the socket and beyond. I had some intensely ugly feelings during the last 13 weeks of the campaign, from when the referendum date was announced. I found myself carrying a frightening dark resentment for people who were able for far more than I was; whose energy reserves hadn’t been as completely sapped as mine. I felt judged for not being able to do more than I was; for not being able to give more than the everything I already had done and was still giving. I felt an indescribable level of bitterness for the lauding of male political and medical figures as leaders of the campaign, particularly those men who’d opposed us every step of the way back in 2012 and 2013. I found depthless fathoms of rage inside me for the shaping of a campaign I’d once had the opportunity to be a key part of without me; without any voices in the struggle near me. I discovered I was and still am fighting not to be consumed by rage at personal betrayals by people I’d thought were my allies and my sisters. I find my fingers shaking when I try to respond to people who describe the last 13 weeks of that fight, without thinking, as “the campaign” in its entirety. (No, not all of these feelings were fair. Not all of them are without hypocrisy. I am sure many people in this fight far longer than me have felt the same things about me, including my beloved sisters-in-struggle at Feminist Ire. Fairness is not the point about dark, ugly feelings, it turns out. If you’re reading this and worrying it’s about you, it’s not; it’s about me.)

I am grieving the loss of untainted first years with my children and with my partner as parents to this struggle. It is difficult to put into words the intensity of the driving force to fight for abortion rights and bodily autonomy I found awaking inside me in 2012. It grew with the pregnancy I was carrying inside my body, that of my first child, the first of my two daughters. It exploded into engulfing fury in November of that year, when those of us outside Galway first heard of the unnecessary death of Savita Halappanavar. I found the pro-choice movement growing with my daughter; my drive to keep going through Parents for Choice intensified with my 2015 pregnancy with my second daughter. I spoke at the 2015 March for Choice when 8 months pregnant with her about my near-death pregnancy-induced event early on in that pregnancy; it brought home intensely to me the experience of being 8 months pregnant in 2012 on the Never Again march for Savita.

I remember thinking victory would bring freedom; that it would bring peace. I never once imagined it would bring grief, exhaustion and anger beyond I ever think I remember feeling in the depth of the struggle. I feel selfish even for writing this, this first piece I’ve been able to write in months. I thought I would be invigorated by the need to capture all of our own voices and our own stories; to talk to the incredible women I have been inspired by for years, who I am privileged to know, to count as friends. Instead I have had weeks I cannot even leave my own house, never mind get to Dublin for events I desperately long to be able to attend. I thought I would be able to turn to the rest of the many injustices on which I long to work, in conjunction with those who suffer from them, on putting to rights. I am simultaneously deeply jealous of the women I see doing this work and filled with self-loathing for my own incapacity.

When I stop and think about it I know that surely this will pass; that I will heal from this as I have healed from all the other wounds inflicted on my body and my self by the 8th before. But still at my core I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to trust that I will ever be truly made whole from the scars and the suffering from this, the last indignity, the last sufferings it has ever caused me. I am in pieces and I do not see how this shattering will ever be truly pieced together again.

 

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Feminist Solidarity: cis and trans people will not be divided! (Re-blog)

Posted on July 12, 2018 by feministire

Solidarity with British feminists fighting back against the scourge of transphobia in the UK women’s movement.

Feminist Solidarity: cis and trans people will not be divided!

We are a group of feminists, many of whom identify as lesbian or whose politics were influenced by lesbian culture. We are cisgender, we are non-binary and we are trans. All of us are active in the arts, community organising, the media and education. We have all benefited from the deep analysis, radical lifestyle and astonishing bravery of the lesbian feminists who came before us – actions that we understood to be about dismantling the patriarchy, liberating all women from gendered oppression and re-imagining the future.

Therefore, we were dismayed to see Pride in London being hijacked by a fringe group determined to divide the LGBTQIA+ community along the issue of trans rights, particularly rights for trans women, and arguing that the struggle for such rights erases cisgender lesbians.

This cannot stand.

We re-state our support for trans people everywhere. Transitioning in a transphobic society is a brave – sometimes…

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No council for (some) women: the NWCI and the silencing of sex workers

Posted on June 24, 2018 by Wendy Lyon

Last week, at its AGM, the member groups of the National Women’s Council of Ireland voted down a motion (proposed by the Abortion Rights Campaign and seconded by the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland) calling on the NWCI to “develop a process for a review of its position in relation to prostitution and sex work”. Instead the NWCI reaffirmed its existing position, supporting the Swedish model and defining all prostitution as violence against women.

The committee in charge of these things decided that you could only support one motion or the other, and the latter motion (proposed by Ruhama and seconded by the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation) won out by 43-24. Reports from attendees suggest that there would have been more support for the ARC motion if it hadn’t been deemed oppositional to Ruhama’s.

The outcome was disappointing but not surprising, particularly in light of the fact that sex workers themselves were unable to contribute to the debate. This is because the only Irish organisation led by current sex workers, the Sex Workers Alliance Ireland, has been refused membership of the NWCI. The NWCI is therefore taking policy positions about a group of women without allowing those women any say in the position it takes.

The criteria for joining the NWCI are listed on its website. While I don’t have access to the written reasons for refusal, I understand its Board decided that SWAI didn’t agree with the NWCI’s “values”. It should be noted that the Board includes Sarah Benson, CEO of Ruhama, and Sheila Dickson, a past president of the INMO.

Now obviously the NWCI is a private organisation (albeit one that receives a fuckton of public money) and has a right to decide who can join it. But it seems … curious that this issue is one that they’re prepared to exclude a group over. You would think, for example, that repealing the 8th amendment would be regarded as a key NWCI value (especially given the organisation’s effective takeover of the Repeal, sorry the “Yes” campaign) and yet it was fine for member groups to refuse to support it, like Ruhama and the YWCA. Equal rights for same-sex couples might also be thought of as a key NWCI value, yet it has no problem with the membership of an organisation that “continues to hold the view that ‘marriage’ is inherently between a man and a woman”. Not locking young women up in institutions for perceived moral failures, where they would be forced to work as slaves, should pretty definitely be a key NWCI value and yet a group whose founders did exactly that, and which still has board members who are refusing to pay redress to these women, are not only allowed to be members but are effectively allowed to direct the organisation’s policy towards the “fallen women” of today. Their attitude towards groups that don’t share their “values” seems a little bit selective.

But I think it’s important to point out that simply opposing the NWCI stance on sex work isn’t enough to make a group unwelcome in the NWCI. If it was, then ARC and the MRCI and all the others in the 24 would presumably be tearing up their membership cards. So, it’s fine for a women’s group to advocate for the rights of sex workers as long as they aren’t sex workers themselves. It isn’t about values at all, then; going on that vote, SWAI’s values are shared by more than a third of NWCI member groups already. What is it then? Are sex workers the NWCI equivalent of “Unwomen”? Do they have cooties? Or does the Board just not want to have to listen to them?

The most galling thing about the Ruhama motion is that it refers to “support for women and girls affected by prostitution and sex trafficking“. But what constitutes “support” is being decided in a context where the affected girls and women are denied a voice. Supporters of the policy would no doubt argue that the women they’re concerned with are a different class of sex worker to those in SWAI, but they have nothing to support the implicit suggestion that those women want their clients criminalised. It’s notable that GOSHH (Gender, Orientation, Sexual Health, HIV) and the Chrysalis Community Drug Project, the two other Irish organisations that do outreach to the more vulnerable sectors of the sex industry, are both strongly opposed to the Swedish model.

There are, of course, former sex workers (or survivors, to use their preferred terminology) who would share the NWCI’s position. But isn’t it remarkable that practically none of them seem to have actually worked in Sweden – or any other “Nordic model” country – under that law?  We’re nearly 20 years into it now; if it worked as well as its advocates say it does you’d expect there would be dozens if not hundreds of women coming forward to share their accounts of how the Swedish model saved them from the sex trade, but I legitimately cannot think of one. Certainly, all the survivor organisations are led by women who didn’t survive the law that they’re campaigning for. Nor, it seems, are they particularly interested in hearing from women who did: whenever I’ve mentioned them in response to “listen to survivors” comments, the response has been … crickets.

And there’s also research from nearly every country where the law has been introduced, showing that opposition to the law straddles all classes of sex worker. I’m not going to link to it all here because frankly it’s tiring always pointing to research that Swedish model advocates just ignore anyway. Though tellingly, they can’t provide any research that says the opposite.

At the very least, though, a member-based organisation like the NWCI ought to be listening to groups of women before taking policy positions about their lives. This is one of those things that I can’t believe I even have to say. The refusal to do so sends a clear message that it simply isn’t interested in what sex workers think. Its position on this issue is going to be determined by the organisation’s own take on “feminist values”, one of which is apparently not recognition of lived experience. I could dig up loads of NWCI quotes from the Repeal campaign which show the irony of this approach, but I understand Linda Kavanagh from ARC already made that point at the AGM and it clearly didn’t make a difference. The NWCI doesn’t “trust women” who are sex workers, doesn’t want to hear from them, will happily let others speak for them (or purport to), but ultimately will fall back on the conviction that it knows what’s best for them, anyway. Viewed in that light, maybe its embrace of an NGO with roots in the Magdalene laundries shouldn’t be so much of a surprise.

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Trans Rights and Healthcare are on a Precipice

Posted on June 16, 2018 by feministire

This piece comes from an anonymous contributor, a comrade of the writers of Feminist Ire, speaking out at a crisis point in trans healthcare in Ireland from the perspective of a trans woman. 

I’m currently writing with feelings of anger, sadness and frustration at two powerful elements within Irish society that seem intent on further damaging the health and well being as well as perpetuating the overwhelming stigmatisation of trans people in this country. When we peel back the surface and uncover the plight of Trans people this ultimately and all too often reveals itself in violence, disenfranchisement, poverty, rape, self harm and suicide. It’s often highlighted in discussion around trans topics, the terrible statistics of self harm and suicide when it comes to the trans community for example. To reference some headline figures a study by the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland in 2012 shows that 78% of trans people have had thoughts of suicide, 40% have attempted and 6% have attempted five or more times! Self harm is not much better with 44% of trans people reporting that they have self harmed at some stage in their lives with 6% actively currently self harming. Unfortunately this very plight of trans people which should be an impetus to drastically improve the standards of care for a vulnerable and suffering minority is often used as a stick to beat us with.

These heartbreaking statistics are a reflection of a wider societal issue, that of the systematic oppression of trans minorities where a binarist, cisnormative, patriarchal society violently attacks in both it’s messaging, actions and structures, every aspect of trans people’s public and private lives as we fight to exist openly and authentically and navigate within it. The statistics quoted above are a snapshot taken three years before marriage equality and legal gender recognition had passed and at an earlier stage in a sizemic cultural shift currently taking place on this island, which has seen a new generation of progressive and radicalised citizens and residents pushing through sweeping social reforms and resisting privatisation through grassroots activism in a country still dogged by it’s colonial and theocratic past. Indeed this aspect of Irish culture and the potential it envokes in shaping our society in the near future makes this Island a pretty good place to be trans comparatively, albeit coming from a very low base. The presence of a strong grassroots, intersectional and women led network of activists has helped to stave off much or the recindance of trans rights that can be seen happening within our two giant anglophile neighbours. To our left we have bathroom ‘debates’ and the dismantling of legal protections along with scores of murdered trans people, excused through panic defense. To our right we have the potential of a depathologised legal recognition for trans and intersex people being attacked, alongside numerous cases of trans women sent to their deaths in male prisons.

However despite this somewhat favourable environment, there remains two large and prescient threats to the progress of trans liberation in Ireland. Namely, a couple of chiefs based within one hospital in south Dublin who seem intent on limiting access to health-care and perpetuating an outmoded and dangerous conservative pathological ideology, discouraging people from transitioning where possible, refusing to listen to the increasingly angry and desperate voices of the trans community, refusing to implement international best practice when it comes to trans health care, criticizing us for demanding such health-care and proportioning partial blame on the healthcare demands of the trans community for the regrets of a small number of detransitioners all the while conflating their situation with the desperate mental health situation alluded to above. Thier prejucicial elitist practices are resultingly working to conserve the violent patriarchal transmysogonist aspects of a society that kills us and in order to do this these dinosaurs are allying themselves with traditional media to spread this destructive message and shore up their status as Ireland’s premier gatekeepers. This is a high risk strategy and very dangerous to the health and wellbeing of trans people, the same people they proport to care for.

The media narrative in Ireland in relation to trans people is currently being pulled in two destructive and harmful directions. On the one side there is an old school and elitist club, most prominent within the broadcast and ‘newspaper of record’ realms that projects a veneer of liberalism, but in reality paints over the cracks of a declining conservative, ignorant and voyeuristic mindset influenced by the ‘medical oddity’ genre of pseudo scientific transexual documentaries of the 90s to early 00s emanating from either side of the pond. The impact of this club’s influence can partially be evidenced in the cautious language reflected in the recent together for yes campaign which amongst other things erased the effect that the eighth ammendment had on trans and intersex people in much of its messaging in the penultimate weeks of the official referrendum campaign.

While many trans people who worked hard to secure a yes outcome and their grassroots allies were prepared to begrudgingly go along with this messaging to secure a victory by not actively speaking out, a hurt and resentment remains that has spilled out in potentially destructive ways. A statement from anonymous members of the trans community demanded an apology from together for yes literally hours after the results were declared. This resulted in an unintentional indirect attack on the grassroots, who are made up of pragmatic trans people and their allies and threw trans women and femmes to the TERFs. The downplaying of the intersection of trans and intersex people in relation to the 8th has also resulted in gendered language in the headings of the prospective legislation which, if not rectified could potentially leave trans and intersex people with uteruses still unable to access abortion healthcare in Ireland. Thankfully there seems a concensus around rectifying this situation but this should never have arisen in the first place.

On the other side there is a red top brigade that on the one hand is perfectly content to sensationalize, hypersexualize and dehumanise the trans experience to titillate and incense their diminishing white cis-hetero audience. They are in turn being pushed into even more dangerous territory by their sister publications in the UK that are largely owned by an increasingly centralised right wing conservative and billionaire class, who by co-opting the language of feminism and fueled by evangelicals are giving voice to their willing lackeys in the form of a loud minority of middle class TERFs who are ramping up their attacks on trans people. This tactic compliments their agenda of dividing people into competing groups and hierarchies to distract from intensifying inequality, debt and economic stagnation caused by their economic plunder. Although making inroads into online spaces where increasingly their once captive audiences have deserted to, their impact on these realms on the mindset of people living in Ireland remains limited. That being said it’s this cohort of nasties that have the potential to derail impending legislation that should increase the ease of legal transition for trans people in Ireland and regognise non binary and intersex identites. Hopefully the former cloak offered by the marriage equality results and resulting legislation while the original gender recognition bill was passed will again be offered by the success of the repeal campaign.

The results of this unholy alliance between the chiefs and the dieing media, aside from the problems stated above is that healthcare in Ireland for trans people is in a dangerous and delicate impass. The chiefs want to model the recent and welcome investment in trans healthcare in their own image, to preserve the status quo and bolster their own professions albeit with shorter waiting times. Trans people as individuals are a small disparate and oppressed minority with limited voice, resources and energy fighting for a depathologised and informed consent model that is on demand and without apology. We are at the mercy of the chiefs despite a favourable cultural environment, despite support from politicians, and even tacid support from the health service.

What we’ve currently been able to muster in terms of advocating for health care is a small and problematic campaigning group centered around inexperienced trans-masc indivituals who are currently on the outside of the health system. They speak out loudly and attempt mass protests for healthcare. They have uncovered the sinister ideology begind the masks of the chiefs but they tone police their own community members who wish to speak out at protests, disengage with non-binary ‘trouble makers’ online and sit in meetings with the likes of Joan Burton and celebrate it. Of special note however is the emergence of Radical Queers Resist, a broader queer alliance who came to light during the refferendum campaign by largely nullifying the effects of the most grotesque forced-birther group in the form of the ICBR. This group offers the potential of offering an effective avenue for the campaigning elements of the trans liberation movement going forward.

Meanwhile non profit organisations working largely within the system with limited clout, work desperately behind the scenes despite stretched resources and limited funding pools. They are, as the system dictates heavily funded by the very organisations they are advocating towards. They can not speak out for fear that the chiefs in a strop, stop treating half of the countrys trans patients within the health system overnight. The only solution is the mobilisation of the existing wider grassroots movement of allies. This has the potential to effect change in our favour but it must be built upon a greater understanding of our predicament and the sharing of experience and resources. This can be realised through the amplification of our voices through the correct use of it’s inherant privelege.

In the meantime waiting lists continue to lenghten causing massive mental strife. Trans people continue to be subjected to invasive and unnecessary psychological and psychiatric assessment based on outmoded and offensive criteria, being actively discouraged in their hormonal and medical transitions and twarted at every stage. Non-binary people have to lie and pretend not to exist in order to access the same treatment as their binary counterparts, access to counselling and non-patholigising forms of mental health care is sparse to non existant albeit linked with the wider defunding of mental health. Recieving hormone replacement therapy for already transitioned individuals from GPs on a parity with their cisgender counterperts is almost impossible. Autistic people and those with other and often linked mental health problems such as PTSD are not deemed to be ‘true transgender’, expensive treatments deemed cosmetic because they don’t conform to the male gaze of medical practitioners rather than seen as alleviating the distress of dysphoria remain out of reach and patients are forced to travel abroad for intensive operations with limited aftercare and financial support. The potential outcomes of this impasse will have a greater threat to the lives of trans people than the unfortunate decisions and regrets of a minority of detransitioners currently being used as false equivalencies to preserve the status of the chiefs.

 

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