Gendered inequality in education at home and abroad

Gendered inequality in education at home and abroad

Gendered inequality in education at home and abroad

A photo of two women studying. There are books covering a desk in front of them.

Image: Kanchanachitkhamma

It’s interesting how when I reflect on my time in secondary school and compare it to the experiences of others I realise that there are at least a few things that need to change.

 

For example I attended an all girls secondary school. There were five optional subjects for the Junior Certificate that students could choose two between. The subjects were as follows: business studies, music, home economics, art and technology. The all-boys secondary school on the other side of town offered subjects such as construction studies, engineering, design and communication graphics, biology, physics, chemistry, P.E, art, business studies, accounting, economics, geography and religion. 

 

Whereas in the mixed school in the next town the subjects students could study for the Junior Certificate were Graphics, music, engineering, applied technology, business studies, home economics, art and wood technology. In the mixed school, the subjects for Leaving Certificate are accounting, art, biology, chemistry, physics, music, design and communication graphics, construction, history, home economics, and geography. 

 

This information about the three types of schools just in my local area does not send out some good messages. Are the single sex schools telling us that young girls should only study art, home economics or technology or as a Leaving Certificate student one or more of the three sciences? If you are a boy studying at an all boys secondary school you can only study science subjects or subjects like engineering and construction studies. Who says that boys cannot have excellent careers as chefs, bakers or musicians?

A photo of three Thai girls looking at a book together.

Image: Ron Lach, Pexels

Although nowadays subjects are not labelled specifically as subjects for girls or subjects for boys but between the 1930s and 1970s this was less subtle. For example maths was titled “arithmetic: girls only” and “elementary maths for girls”. Why was it specifically named “girls only”? Was there a difference between this and the maths that boys were taught?

We can take this a step further by looking across the world to countries where education is not accessible for female students unless they are willing to risk their lives to attend school. According to Julia Gillard, over 130 million girls in 2020 did not attend school worldwide. 

 

There are a whole host of reasons why girls do not attend school or do not finish school. Some families are so poor that they cannot afford to send their daughters to school. Others live in areas where it is too dangerous for girls to attend school. 

 

According to UNESCO data on girls’ rights and access to education globally, 2% of the countries in the world limit the education of girls who are pregnant or a mother. Even when they are allowed to attend school they are separated from their classmates. These girls are made to feel less than their peers and it makes socialising and enjoying school life difficult. Interestingly the places where education is not mandatory or free have the highest rates of marriage for children. 

 

UNESCO has created an online platform called Her Atlas for people to learn about girls’ right to education and if and where that right has been met across the world. Her Atlas is frequently updated and it features countries such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Hungary and Iceland to name but a few. Users can also discover which of the featured countries have signed up to the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education. Last year UNESCO published a report titled Protect her rights, strengthen your laws: Her Atlas: status report on girls’ and women’s right to education. They included their research about girls’ education in every country across the world, the barriers and discrimination they face. 

 

There is gendered inequality both here in Ireland and abroad. We can look deeper into our own towns or villages and find situations of discrimination between girls and boys. 

 

This is naturally very disheartening for women and young girls across the world. In Ireland it can be disheartening and discouraging for young female students when deciding on what subjects to study or what careers to pursue. In Ireland more of a range of subjects should be offered in single sex schools. Education is needed to increase awareness, understanding and respect that girls and boys have the right to equal education.

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The Pressures of a Female Comic

The Pressures of a Female Comic

The Pressures of a Female Comic

Mrs. Maisel looks toward the camera in a crowd of men dressed in grey
Deepthi Suresh

13th of July 2022

A few summers ago, I came across a gem of a show, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, a Prime video series set in the 1950s that revolves around a privileged New York woman who suddenly finds herself single when her husband leaves her for his secretary. As I excitedly allowed myself to fall into the 1950s stand-up scene in New York through the show, I knew I had hit a jackpot of clever wit. It was a journey of a woman coming of age into the smokey comedy clubs, trying to speak her voice when all hell broke loose in her life. This was a perfect combination of entertainment, clever writing, phenomenal performances by the cast, and a story that inspired me. However, as I began my research for this article on female stand-up comics, I was bombarded with articles pointing toward the seemingly common topic, “ Why are female comics not funny?” At first, it seemed odd. I wondered whether there was any truth to it. In my personal experience, I have mostly tuned into male comics’ specials on streaming sites. But why was that?

The 1950s was a time when comedians had begun to transition into observational humour, which is still in vogue today. The lead actress of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Rachel Brosnahan, strikes an important note wherein she says, “History is generally told by men about men. To have a period piece being told by a woman about an extraordinary woman is exciting.“ That is exactly what the makers of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel set out to do. The woman at the centre of the show, Miriam Maisel, on the night of her breakup with her husband, ends up at a comedy club that she used to frequent with her husband to support him. He was an uninspired aspiring comic, and Miriam, being the devoted wife she is,would take notes and help him with his performance. Her rant about how her life turned out on that fateful night sets the stage for her accidental birth as a stand-up comic. She then embarks upon her new reality of juggling two jobs – professional stand-up comedy and single parenthood. Her first comedy routine ends up with her being dragged by the police for flashing the crowd while drunk and furious at the way her life has turned upside down. However, as time passes by, one can’t help but notice and revel in the charm with which she delivers jabs at unruly audience members or the police. She gets arrested not once but a few times throughout the series. It screams out a sure sense of self-assuredness that you normally don’t find in a female (comic) lead of a television series set in the 1950s.

It is interesting to note that Maisel’s character might have been heavily inspired by a Jewish female comic and singer, Belle Barth. Interestingly enough, Lenny Bruce’s character (a phenomenally played by Luke Kirby) acts as a mentor of some sorts to Maisel while in reality Bruce used to open for Barth early in his career.  Barth had been arrested and charged for lewdness in 1953 and was eventually banned from radio and television. But this didn’t stop Barth from achieving commercial success. Similarly, Miriam struggles to find her footholding in the field. She refuses to follow a set and expected style of comedy meant for female comics of the time. She refuses to apologise for her lived experiences and instead churns out spectacular recipes of relatable comedy with it. In the show it is clear that a woman faces bias in terms of finding space in the bill or male managers complaining about their material drawing in more women than men. But she cleverly convinces them that women can be a spending audience too. This is portrayed delightfully well in season 4.

An open minded audience would always be receptive to hear new stories. The question is are they getting a chance to hear stories of female comics or are they choosing to ignore different perspectives overall?

 

Although Mrs Maisel takes place in the 1950s, the show cleverly depicts alternatives to perfection, keeping in mind that women were still encouraged and pressured to strive for the latter then just like now. In Miriam’s case, her pathological need to be perfect is displayed when she keeps tabs on her slim figure by taking measurements every single day, and secretly removes her makeup after her husband sleeps just to put it back on before he wakes up. Perfectionism takes centre stage in Miriam’s life as she constantly walks on a tightrope of the expectations of her femininity while being a single mom as she ventures into the male-dominated field of comedy. She mines for her material through expectations that women are familiar with even today! Having faced setbacks and life experiences throughout the course of her journey to be a comic, she realises one important factor that sets her apart when she tells her manager, “You know what is great about me. It’s when I am me!” For Mrs Maisel to thrive, she had to let go of the never-ending quest for perfection. Her perfect life had to blow up in her face. This gave birth to her authentic self, a voice that tore upon the typical female caricatures that were quite in fashion among the rare female comics who had made a mark with self-deprecating humour.

Maisel learned to embrace the unpolished realities that she encounters in her daily life. She began to make choices that may have been unprecedented within her family. She was afraid of letting go at times but bravely managed to hold her ground even when the going got extremely tough. The most uncomfortable truths sometimes make the best material for comedy. Why? Because you and I are able to relate to it! For example, it is evident with Mrs Maisel’s entry into comedy where she ends up insulting her family sometimes in her act. She insults her Jewishness at times. She even insults the, ‘dumb secretary’ that her husband leaves her for. But would a male comic have to think twice before he spins out jokes about insulting people, family, or a community? 

Stand-up comedy has a tradition of breaking norms, morals, and political conventions. The question that arises in my mind is whether women are scrutinised a bit more than their male counterparts. Comedian Kim Wayans however, observes that with men, “the audience is eager and ready and then he has to prove that he is not funny and then they back off, but with a woman, you have to come out and win them over.” However, in a study by Alice Sheppard regarding social change and audience response to female comedians, she was able to find that there has been a considerable change in contemporary evaluations of women comedians, whose ratings now equal those of male comics. The pressure that a female comic faces in the field may have reduced due to increased awareness of gender problems and inequality in society. An open minded audience would always be receptive to hear new stories. The question is are they getting a chance to hear stories of female comics or are they choosing to ignore different perspectives overall? I would say it should be our duty as the audience to encourage and watch female comics’ specials on streaming sites and create a demand for their humour!

Funny is just funny. Gender must not be an obstacle.

Sumukhi Suresh, Prashanthi Singh, and Urooj Ashfaq, distinct voices in the Indian comedy scene, share their experiences as comics in an interview with Cinema Express. When asked whether questions about women in comedy get tiring after a while, Ashfaq and Singh are of the opinion that pressure to not fail publicly is harder on women than men. Suresh also expresses her displeasure with the usage of the tag, “female comedy,“ which has become a genre of comedy. Meanwhile, Singh understands that with her profession, she gets a chance to be vocal and be the voice for other women, and that is why she believes that questions about female comedy will continue to be asked. In my conversation with Ellen Corby, an Irish comic from Dublin, when asked about safety issues that female comics may have to face, she said, ”If the act is not necessarily in a city or if it is somewhere more in the country. It is funny that you mentioned it because I hadn’t realised it but in the last two gigs that I have been on, I haven’t drank and I have driven home myself. I usually know people on the line up and I don’t feel like I am on my own. It is something as women, we do automatically, we factor these things in constantly. It shouldn’t have to be. It is like second nature for us.” Eurydice Dixon was an Australian comedian and an actress who performed regularly at comedy venues in Melbourne, Victoria. She was found murdered at Melbourne’s Princes Park on June 13th, 2018 on her way back home from a gig. Comedy gigs usually take place at night, and the lack of affordable transportation puts women in an unpredictable dangerous environment.

In an interview for the Belmont theater district, Chicago’s largest theater district, when asked what was the best thing about being a woman in comedy, Jeanie Doogan, a stand up comedian who has set herself apart with her quick observations, says that she gets to amplify women’s experiences and parenthood through comedy. For Correy Bell and Sarah Perry, comics from Chicago, it was the freedom to speak their mind, that was the best thing about being a woman in comedy. But there is unfortunately a negative connotation to female voices in comedy. Common criticism is that female comics only talk about period, cramps, sex, etc.

Ellen Corby however, has an interesting take on this wherein she says, “You get the stereotypes about if you are a woman, you only talk about ‘women things’. I still get those kinds of comments even now but thankfully they aren’t that common or at least people aren’t saying it directly to me … but because I am a sex-ed teacher … people go like are you going to talk about vagina? I kinda lean into that a little bit but at the same time, men talk about dating, sex, and their penises all the time. I don’t even mind that humour. It is something that everyone can relate to or understand. I think it is a human nature thing and I don’t think it has anything to do with gender.” She says there are also a number of female comics who are incorporating various styles in their performances and that women have always pushed the envelope. In Ireland, according to Corby, there seems to be much more awareness with regard to sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour. It is heartening to know that most promoters want to be more inclusive and include people from all genders. She says, “It has become particularly undesirable to have an act that is all just the same kind of looking males. It is much more attractive to people… I think now to see a bit of a variety there.” It seems like Ireland is the place for female comics to perform and grow together.

Today, more female comics are at the top of their field than ever before and they continue to make original and pioneering contributions to the genre. Ali Wong’s 2016 special, Baby Cobra, made headlines as the first comedy special filmed while pregnant. Wong described the challenges of fertility treatment, miscarriages, pregnancy, and childbirth while 8 months pregnant. Tig Notaro, in her 2015 special Boyish Girl Interrupted, performed shirtless in the final 20 minutes of her act, putting her mastectomy scars on full display. Funny is just funny. Gender must not be an obstacle. As Corby rightly points out, it’s just human nature. There are plenty of laughs and more to go around. Female comics have displayed an immense range of creativity and courage by using their lived experiences of being women in their acts. Future comics, regardless of gender, must use this rich universe of stories as an inspiration. These stories were told by fearless women who have successfully paved the way to enrich the fine art of story-telling in stand-up comedy!

 

Featured Image by Amazon Prime Video

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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Global Citizenship in a Changing World – Reflections from the 2022 IDEA Conference

Global Citizenship in a Changing World – Reflections from the 2022 IDEA Conference

Global Citizenship in a Changing World – Reflections from the 2022 IDEA Conference
Protesters Attend March for Refugee Rights
Criomhthann Morrison
8th of July 2022

970 Years and 1 Month

Graduating mid-2020 and working amidst spikes and lockdowns, I have been fortunate to find opportunities to connect with people from across Ireland and the world through various online programmes and groups. While Ireland-based activities have gradually introduced in-person components, it’s no surprise that the annual IDEA Conference in June 2022 was the first in-person conference since the pandemic outbreak for many, including myself. Titled “The Future of Global Citizenship – educating for a changing world,” those attending were invited to look ahead to what global citizenship could look like across every facet of life for all.

The conference opened with the usual ‘long time, no see’ natter, and the facilitator Charo Lanao brought everyone together with groups physically crafting ‘‘living sculptures” of their visions for the present and future, as well as reflections on people’s experiences and backgrounds. A tally counted 970 years and 1 month of collective ‘global citizenship education’ (GCE) knowledge in the room on that one day. So I expected to pick up a thing or two.

Panel Exploring Polarisation and Systems Change

 

 

Biographies for each speaker can be found here on the IDEA website.

 

The opening panel dealt with the structural and systemic problems in our societies, workplaces and governments and how individual actions and lived experiences fit within solutions to address these. Dr Peter T. Coleman, Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia University, highlighted how GCE practitioners can consider the polarisations around them and their participants, and the pursuit of ‘positive’ peace and ‘negative’ peace (“the promotion of peacefulness through positive interactions like civility, cooperation and care” peace” versus “the absence of violence, destructive conflict, and war,” bold added).

I found this distinction a helpful example of how even the most seemingly straightforward ideas can contain quite diverse and even incompatible assumptions and expectations, depending on the people ‘in the room’. This awareness of what we bring to the conversations and groups we find ourselves in is always worthwhile, helping us identity and talk through sometimes subtle yet substantial differences in how we understand the problems and worlds around us.

Dr Ebun Joseph, Director of the Institute of Antiracism and Black Studies (IABS), amongst many other qualifications and roles, also emphasised the importance of ‘healthy conversations’ for addressing the sticky behaviours and systems of oppression we haven’t fully shaked off yet (a purposeful choice of words, as opposed to ‘difficult’ conversations, which can prime people to resist, defend, or fight). Using an instance of racist descrimination between colleagues in a workplace as an example, Dr Joseph advises that the whole workplace should be involved in the resolution, not just the people directly involved. When discrimination happens within any context, whether at work, in education, or in public, we need to explore how and why it was enabled in the first place, and then actively change the structures and behaviours which allowed discrimination to happen. 

Most of us can name a dozen angles from which we do not face barriers and discriminatoin in everyday life like other people do, and we all have a responsibility to be part of the movements to rid of prejudice and abuse. Demanding healthy and meaningful conversations from ourselves and the spaces we’re in is one vital step in being part of an equitable, just and sustainable present and future for all.

 

Director of IDEA Frank Geary and Irish Sign Language Interpreter during the Opening Remarks.

 

Panel Exploring Challenges in the GCE Sector

 

 

The second panel gave space for 4 speakers to share their insights on key issues in the GCE sphere and the directions the space is moving in, followed by some questions from attendees. To briefly summarise some really rich sharing:

Ikal Ang’elei, an environmental activist, spoke about the importance for practitioners and activists to always work with and alongside affected communities, citing her experience as Co-Founder and Director of Friends of Lake Turkana, which works for social, economic and environmental justice for the lands and people in the area. It is an easy though grave error for genuinely enthusiastic and well-meaning individuals and groups to get caught up in their visions for their solutions instead of constructing these in partnership with the people impacted. The phrase “Nothing about us without us” springs to mind.

Mamobo Ogoro, an award winning scholar, social entrepreneur, activist and artist, followed by emphasising inclusion and belonging as key elements to reaching these visions GCE practitioners often strive for, naming dialogue as fundamental to her work with her digital media start-up GORM Media and her PhD research with minorities in Ireland. This calls for practitioners to challenge box-ticking exercises of simply getting certain people are ‘in the room’, asking if everyone in the room is fully able participate in conversations and decision-making, and what we need to do on the individual- and system-level to promote this ‘belonging’ for all. 

Dr Audrey Bryan, Associate Professor of Sociology in DCU, then raised critical questions about the individualisation and prescription of GCE in Ireland. She also cautioned the increasing focus on measurable technical skills to the detriment of considering holistically the relationships between individuals, their communities, and the challenges faced across society. Dr Bryan spoke to these ideas and more at the recorded webinar Future Trends in Development Education hosted by IDEA in Dec 2021.

Bobby McCormack, Co-Founder and Director of Development Perspectives, talked about developing the ‘innovation ecosystems’ within the sector and emphasised the opportunities for partnership especially with less obvious colleagues, sharing the example of Development Perspectives working with EirGrid to host community forums to include their voice in several energy projects. This suggests interesting opportunities outside the normal bounds of what organisations consider GCE and their roles in a changing world, offering bridges between areas of life not typically linked, from the energy system to community health to agriculture to far more.

During the Q&A, I found one moment worth noting: one attendee asked for suggestions for teaching useful and abstract tools like systems thinking to children, and another attendee quickly took the microphone to share resources produced by their own organisation for exactly this purpose. While a small interaction, it was hardly minor, and just one reminder from the day of the value of sharing these open spaces with our peers. Someone sitting behind you often has something that will help you, even before you realise you need help.

 

Conference Facilitator Charo Lanao speaking to the 70+ in-person attendees.

 

Panel Exploring Challenges in the GCE Sector

 

 

The second day of the conference ran online with two sets of workshops running parallel, which posed me the challenge of which to sign up for! The first I chose was Ecosystem Restoration and Development Education: Regenerating people and wider nature with Gareth Conlon and Karen Jeffares. I managed to catch the latter half which explored the lands, organisms and food around us, and how as GCE practitioners, mindsets should focus on bringing about positive transformation within communities, not particular solutions per se. Group discussions included reflections on how workshops with schools often implicitly task children with convincing the adults in their lives to make changes and the challenges this entails regarding justice and responsibility. Topics also arising included ‘pedagogy of hope’ and potential routes for collaboration across sectors, for example GCE and farmers.

This session posed important questions about our responsibilities as practitioners to the people and groups we work with, who we engage with in the first place, and why. Our answers can inform how we approach our work and help us to see the groups we work with (and don’t work with) as multifaceted and feeling pressures from various directions. What does this mean for fostering space to communicate, build skills, and perhaps sow seeds for peace – and which kind?

The second workshop I attended was Global Business and Human Rights with Mark Cumming. Business is an area many in GCE spaces are averse to, so the workshop sought to highlight the importance of working for human rights in the business realm, and to equip attendees to do so. We explored power of and accountability within business spaces, the state of affairs in Ireland, and what practitioners and the sector can do now and moving forward to better engage with the private sector. One key point made is the importance of building communities and movements for change, including encouraging people to join communities for their passions, and even trade unions, which the large majority of attendees reported not being part of. 

Early in the final workshop, Cumming referenced the Audre Lorde quote “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” This is a challenge for all GCE practitioners in their work: to what degree does the work we do uphold existing structures and systems despite best intentions, and to what degree does our work truly enable communities to achieve their visions within – dare I say – a changing world? Don’t worry, I don’t have a clean answer either.

 

 Lizzy Noone from WorldWise Global Schools speaking during a Q&A.

 

The Value in Sharing Space

 

 

I didn’t get the chance to attend the other two workshops, Transformative Education in Times of Crises with Tereza Čajková and Aurèle Destrée or War, Peace and the Future of Development Education with Zelalem Sibhat, Dr Gerard McCann, and Dr Gertrude Cotter, though from the titles alone, it’s clear GCE practitioners are working hard to locate their work across the different aspects of global and local challenges communities are facing around the world. That said, judging from my conversations with several speakers and attendees, perhaps people were most excited to simply share space with each other and feel more connected with and part of a larger whole.

What I am most excited about are the coming weeks and months, when the conversations and ideas shared will percolate in my mind and influence my work in obvious and subtle ways, some examples of which already spring to mind. And so what are the next steps for global citizenship and educating in a changing world? Healthy conversations, critical reflection, and collaboration across sectors may not be novel suggestions to some or most, but are nonetheless vital to achieving a present we can stand over.

Feature photo caption: From the left: unnamed, Susie Spratt from An Gáisce, Tahla from Amnesty, unnamed. Contact [email protected] if you feature in this photo and would like to be named.

Featured photos by Méabh Hennelly with permission from IDEA.

Connect with Criomhthann over LinkedIn or Twitter.

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin and STAND News & Comms Intern Penelope Norman.

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Meet Treasa Cadogan, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland

Meet Treasa Cadogan, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland

Meet Treasa Cadogan, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland

Protesters Attend March for Refugee Rights
N K Initials for Niamh Kelly

6th of July 2022

Treasa Cadogan is a United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland for 2021-22, and “a very proud Cork person” from Cape Clear Island (with a population of less than 200 people, according to the 2016 Census). The United Nations Youth Delegate Program began in Ireland in 2015 with support from the Department of Foreign Affairs and National Youth Council of Ireland. The goal of the program is to empower young people “to be active global citizens contributing to building a world of justice, equity, and dignity.”

 

Treasa’s Journey to the Role 

Treasa’s journey to becoming a Youth Delegate was an accumulation of previous experiences and undertakings. “Nothing stands alone, nothing stands by itself”, according to Treasa, whose first involvement in community work began at a young age when helping her mother with local family fun days to raise money for charity. Later on, Treasa engaged with more local issues and joined the board of the Cape Clear Island Development Co-Operative. Alongside her growing interest in community work, Treasa became more involved in advocacy when completing a Bachelor’s degree in International Development and Food Policy in University College Cork. Her studies helped to lay the “foundations for becoming a youth delegate” which combined with her local community involvement and learning more about global issues.

A rural upbringing on a small island has surely influenced Treasa’s areas of interest including “rural development, youth participation and getting young people involved”. The limited number of people on Cape Clear impacts on who interacts with who, what everyone talks about, and how often these interactions occur. Treasa notes that intergenerational learning is a huge part of her rural community, and that the benefits of sharing different perspectives (particularly across generations) and learning from each other are integral to local, as well as international, development.

Treasa also has “an interest in food systems and sustainable farming, which, obviously coming from rural area and from a farm, it kind of goes nicely into that kind of climate action that [she] feel[s] like our whole generation is really interested in”. Treasa was awarded the Climate Ambassador Outstanding Achievement Award in 2020 for her work on local climate action in Ireland, and becoming a Youth Delegate has given Treasa the opportunity to see how these local issues are a microcosm of global problems such as climate change.

Since becoming Youth Delegate, Treasa has become more aware of issues beyond Ireland and what is reported in the Irish media. For example, a few weeks after the beginning of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Treasa attended the United Nations Security Council and heard about conflicts in other countries she had not been aware of. Learning about other issues does not subtract from what someone already knows, but as Treasa explains, there is “so much going on and you’re forever learning. I think that’s one thing that I enjoy after leaving college, that I still am continually learning”. The willingness to investigate topics for yourself and openness to gaining new knowledge and understanding are essential to move beyond preconceived ideas about global issues.

Treasa has utilised her role as a United Nation Youth Delegate for Ireland to showcase to others the UN’s impact on their own lives, from the  local to the national level. She highlights “how the UN-level policies influence Irish policy, which I don’t think many people know. They just see it as this big kind of institution that kind of talks every so often” and her role as a Youth Delegate entails “bringing other people along on the journey and hopefully informing other people of what we’re getting up to”. During her time in UCC, Treasa co-founded the UCC Fighting World Hunger branch and she is now involved in the Sustainable Development Goals including Zero Hunger. These initiatives have similar aims but are happening on different levels. Similar to the top-down influence of international organisations and governments on policies, local movements also influence from the bottom-up.

 

Policymakers do notice things like that. The government, TDs and MEPs. They will notice these grassroots initiatives which will hopefully create movement in government level policies and local policies.”

 

For example,the formation of the UCC Fighting Hunger branch by Treasa and other students prompted the UCC Student Union into action. UCC Fighting Hunger highlighted the struggles for some students to access affordable food and in response, the UCC Student Union started a food bank to support students in this situation. Grassroot initiatives can draw the attention of larger organisations and leaders to issues that would benefit from their involvement. Local movements can bring about change to government policy, just as governments decisions have local effects, by emphasising issues that impact both levels. As Treasa phrased it, “it’s kind of that bottom-up or top-down. They have to meet eventually in the middle”.

Treasa has also enjoyed meeting Youth Delegates from other countries and expanding her network far beyond Cape Clear and Ireland. A standout moment for Treasa as a Youth Delegate has been attending the Commission on the Status of Women in New York, during which she also attended the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly. Treasa has also given speeches to the European Parliament about youth participation in rural development. She has organised UN Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogues and spoken at events such as Oxford Real Farming Conference and Girl Up India.

 

“The best thing is to just take the first step…”

 

If Treasa’s work as a Youth Delegate and beyond has inspired any young people to become involved in foreign policy and diplomacy, her advice is that “the best thing is to just take the first step” and to join youth organisations such as Comhairle na nÓg or Foróige (if under eighteen), or college societies. Treasa acknowledges that “it’s always so intimidating”, but “these organisations only want to see you improve and thrive”. The smaller steps will build up over time and individuals can learn from their experiences, so “Take the leap!”

The next steps for Treasa include another few months as a Youth Delegate and contributing to another event in New York. In the longer term, Treasa hopes to go into more humanitarian work. Two previous plans to do this were halted because of Covid-19, but Treasa is adamant about going “out in the field, out on the ground”  as “I never want to be the person who speaks about a development issue, but I’ve never actually experienced it in the country it’s happening”. Whether it is a community project on Cape Clear or international work as a United Nations Youth Delegate, Treasa continues to work to bring about positive changes on the local, national and international levels.

 

If you enjoyed this article, you can also read about STAND Contributor Patricia Gonzáles’ Instagram Live Chat with Diandra Ní Bhuachalla, the other UN Youth Delegate for 2021-22, by following the link. You can also watch the full Live Chat with her on our Instagram page @stand.ie, or directly reach it with this link

This article was supported by: STAND News and Comms Intern Criomhthann Morrison

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Meet Diandra Ní Bhuachalla, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland

Meet Diandra Ní Bhuachalla, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland

Meet Diandra Ní Bhuachalla, United Nations Youth Delegate for Ireland
Protesters Attend March for Refugee Rights
N K Initials for Niamh Kelly
6th of July 2022

Since 2015, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and NYCI have partnered to provide the opportunity for young Irish people to participate in the UN Youth Delegate Programme. Each year, two UN Youth Delegates are chosen to form part of Ireland’s official delegation to the United Nations General Assembly. The aim of this public diplomacy initiative is to provide a platform for young people from Ireland to be represented at the United Nations, and to facilitate greater engagement with Irish youth on national and foreign policy issues. This is a unique opportunity for those wishing to get involved in developing policies that affect young people. 

We got to speak to one of the UN Youth Delegates currently in this role, Diandra Ní Bhuachalla. Diandra has an open mind towards possibilities and willing attitude to try, which has led her to opportunities such as this position. She decided not to pursue a career in law after graduating with an LLB degree, and rather use her experience with advocacy and lobbying to develop a perfect mix for the position she is in today. In our Activists and Innovators Live Chat series, Diandra shared what she does and how other young people can get involved.

 

Diandra Growing Up

From a young age, Diandra has been interested in global issues and injustice. She first became involved in student activism at age 14, when she joined her secondary school’s student council:

 

“The student council gave me an opportunity to be involved with the organisational process of campaigns such as anti-bullying and recycling. I really enjoyed being involved in the student council which led me to apply for Comhairle na nÓg.”

 

Diandra’s time on the Cork County Comhairle na nÓg was particularly characterized by her lobbying on transport for young people, eventually leading to the introduction of the Leap Card in Cork, with reduced fares for young passengers under the age of 19.  

Her volunteering experience with Comhairle shaped her and sparked an interest in politics. As a matter of fact, Diandra holds a Bachelors of Science in Government. During her college years, she did an internship in the New York State Assembly, which resulted in her becoming more interested in policy-making and the legislative system. Diandra believes she is “bringing political science and law together by studying a masters degree in MSC International Public Policy and Diplomacy.”

Her path to becoming a UN Youth Delegate started in 2015 when she first learned about it, though it was not until last year that she decided to go for it: “I waited until I really felt and believed I was the best person for it” (bold added).

Representing 1.3 Million Young People

For Diandra, being a UN Youth Delegate is a huge responsibility: 

 

“It’s an incredible programme, you need to realise its value before putting yourself forward. There are an estimated 1.3 million young people in Ireland, which seems virtually impossible to be able to represent each and everyone of them but it’s my job to be able to represent as many as possible. As a UN Youth Delegate, you’ve been chosen to represent them locally, nationally and internationally. You have to find a balance between both forms of representation; representing your country, and representing the young people of your country.”

 

Being a UN Youth Delegate is a voluntary role and varies widely day-to-day, from taking calls in different time zones to late nights with stakeholders in another country. Diandra has managed to balance her duties as a UN Youth Delegate with being a full-time masters student through her incredible organizational skills. Additionally, she has been able to focus her career path by making academics her top priority: “I have now realised that to make the biggest impact and to truly help people, I need to specialise.” 

Diandra sits in the centre of the photo with a sign on a table in front of her which reads "Ireland". Behind is a large conference room with rows of tables and desks with other representatives at the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women..
Diandra at the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March 2022.

“My main hope for the future is to have a future.” 

As a young activist, one of Diandra’s main concerns is climate change: “My main hope for the future is to have a future.” As overwhelming as climate change is, she believes that we still have potential to take collective, empathetic action:

 

“Everyday that we allow species to become extinct, have the worst weather recorded, we allow governments to give the fossil fuel companies a free pass, the longer we are putting the future generations in danger. The WE is collective – fast fashion, big contributors, governments and fossil fuel industry. We’re not feeling it like the Global South is; the impact is felt much deeper there, where the greatest proportion of the global youth population resides. We are furthering the divide in gender, education, and inequalities by ignoring climate change.”

By being a UN Youth Delegate, Diandra represents the power of young people, and hopes to be an encouraging figure for people to follow their dreams. In closing our Live Chat, she reminded us that if young people are experiencing problems, or want to take social or political action, she can be contacted through the UN Youth Delegate @unyouthirl social media channels.

 

 

If you want to learn more about Diandra, you can check out our STAND News Live Chat on our Instagram Page @stand.ie linked here, or watch the Live Chat linked here. You can also follow her journey on LinkedIn here.

If you enjoyed this article, you can also read about STAND Contributor Niamh Kelly’s chat with Treasa Cadogan, the other UN Youth Delegate for 2021-22, by following this link.

You can find author Patricia Gonzáles on LinkedIn by following the link.

 

 

Featured image provided by Diandra Ní Bhuachalla.

This article was supported by: STAND News and Comms Intern Criomhthann Morrison

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Ruled Over While Tilling the Soil: Trans Life, Palestine, and the Texture of Exile

Ruled Over While Tilling the Soil: Trans Life, Palestine, and the Texture of Exile

Ruled Over While Tilling the Soil: Trans Life, Palestine, and the Texture of Exile

A cloudy day above number of buildings' walls ripped apart with building materials scattered on the ground
Penelope Norman
Penelope Norman
1st of July 2022

 

I was walking down Nassau Street one night in early December and I couldn’t stop thinking about Sunnyvale, a trans-majority community centre in north Stoneybatter, which had just been evicted. After the fight, everyone who called the industrial lot home got together to help build it back – climbing over makeshift barricades and crawling through murky halls littered with broken possessions. We picked up nail-sized shards of glass smashed on the concrete ground and took apart walls ripped out of abandoned buildings and caravans after hours of assault by heavies’ invading sledgehammers. We don’t like to talk about it much, though the day and every moment since tends to weigh on us and emerge one way or another. Every humiliation and injury by the gardaí, every community space slated to become a hotel, every time we look at one another and get blocked behind some wall that keeps us from talking about what happened, it’s like we’re living through the eviction all over again, digging ourselves deeper away from the surface.

I reflected on all of this while turning onto Fitzwilliam Street Lower to a house someone I knew had rented for the weekend on Airbnb. It was supposed to be a Haunukkah party with a few friends I’d met in our college’s Jewish society. The host and her family, who had flown all the way from Texas, were Ashkenazi Jews who had all been through all of their life cycle events and education at an average synagogue. Most of us in the college society had a much different experience. Either we had just completed our conversion, or our families had been Jewish for ages and either ignored the fact or hid it from us. My family in particular had gone completely underground (one might say stealth.) After struggling for years to pull anything from my mother and grandmother’s sealed mouths, I learned we were Sephardim and had concealed our Jewish roots for over a century. In other words, everybody in the group was Jewish, just in different, equally complicated ways. The society was and remains an important space for us to meet others and untangle our identities together. The only other relevant fact for what follows is that I had just gotten a new tattoo which was visible under the sleeve of my dress. It said, in Yiddish, ‘באפריי פאלעסטינע [Free Palestine].’

In 2007, the Israeli state decided to launch a marketing campaign to change how the rest of the world viewed its government. The campaign was called Brand Israel and it aimed to promote Israel as a bastion of rights for gay and lesbian people, encouraging LGB tourism to cities like Tel Aviv. At that same time, violence and hatred against Queer minorities was still present in the city, with a mass shooting in 2009 injuring seventeen members of the community. This was specifically part of an effort of what Palestinian activists have identified as ‘pinkwashing’, ‘how the Israeli state and its supporters use the language of gay and trans rights to direct international attention away from the oppression of Palestinians.’ One of the major rhetorical effects of pinkwashing Israeli apartheid has been a new resurgence of Orientalist language which defines Palestine and other regions in the Middle East as inherently repressive in their attitudes towards gender and sexuality (Said, 205). It also defines the Occident, Israel, as welcoming and open minded towards Queerness in comparison (the most important writer on the topic of Orientalism, Edward Said, was Palestinian.)

This ties into a common myth identified by philosopher Gayatri Spivak as ‘white men are saving brown women from brown men’, which sticks itself in our minds by structuring how we talk about international gender issues, limiting the ways resistance or acknowledgement of colonial structures can be discussed (Spivak, 92). To put it more simply, by leaning into gendered, colonial rhetoric which argues the ‘West’ saves the gendered minority of the ‘East’ from its own ‘inherent’ patriarchy, Israel has painted itself as a kind of widely recognisable saviour, giving it power in the eyes of people familiar with that rhetoric regardless of what they actually do. The most obvious problem with this is that it talks about Israel’s settler colonialism as a kind of protection or salvation, making it seem like the mass exodus comprising the experience of the Nakba (meaning ‘The Catastrophe’, a term referring to the ongoing expulsion of Palestinians from Palestine since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War) was a kind of gift.

One of the most famous retellings of the creation of humankind, as detailed by what Christians call the Book of Genesis, is the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton. Milton was a Calvinist and an ally of Oliver Cromwell who wrote during the English Civil War. His poem tells the story of Man’s fall due to the schemes and manipulations of Satan, who had just been cast into Hell after turning against his Creator. In the epic, Adam and Eve are depicted as the ultimate example of binary genders in a heterosexual union. When they are first referred to by name in the poem, they are described as, ‘Adam first of men […] first of women Eve.’ In a conversation with Adam in the first half of the text, Eve says,

 “O thou for whom
And from whom I was form’d flesh of thy flesh,
And without whom am to no end, my Guide
And Head, what thou hast said is just and right,”

 

She is written to play a passive role by submitting to her husband, testifying to his rationality and morality. When it comes time for them to Fall, Eve is seduced by Satan’s speech as a snake,

 

“his words replete with guile

Into her heart too easie entrance won:

Fixt on the Fruit she gaz’d, which to behold

Might tempt alone, and in her ears the sound

Yet rung of his perswasive words, impregn’d

With Reason, to her seeming, and with Truth.”

 

Adam on the other hand gets to ruminate on his decision to join her in turning against their Creator, completing the epic’s ongoing conversation about the nature of the Divine and Free Will. He was given the time to make a choice. In other words, Paradise Lost tells the story of the first Man’s foolish, gullible wife and her original sin which resulted from her inability to use critical thinking to avoid trusting a sketchy talking snake.

In Bereshit 1:27-28, from what the Christians call Genesis, the first human was created. To quote in translation,

 

“And יהוה created humankind in the divine image,
creating it in the image of יהוה —
creating them male and female.
יהוה blessed them and יהוה said to them”

In other words, the first human (Adam in Hebrew has connections to both ‘human’ and ‘soil’, referring to how this first Human was created from the material of the earth) was neither male nor female, but contained both aspects within them in a unique combination. When their partner was created,

 

“יהוה took one of [his/their] sides, and closed up the flesh at that site. And יהוה fashioned the side that had been taken from the Human into a woman, bringing her to [him/them].”

 

This gets trickier when we remember that the Sex/gender system which tries to divide bodies and social roles into two polarised categories didn’t really become a thing until much later in the historical record. In other words, in Hebrew translation and Jewish tradition, the creation of Adam and Chava wasn’t the formation of the original cishet nuclear family, but the formation of self and other, the making of difference among all people. This interpretation has been told and retold for generations, treasured by Queer Jews and passed onto their chosen descendants. Notably, conversations about this section of Torah and its implications for Jewish life and practice began to gain newfound attention by rabbis in the sixteenth century after the perils of the Reconquista and Inquisition forced Jews out of Portugal and Spain, a population who would become known as Sephardim and eventually lead, albeit after centuries, to me. The most relevant themes which come up from this story specifically focus on the creations of further differences, between a home made for us and a wilderness we are expelled into or living as part of a shared community and dying in the fossils and shackles of violence from the past.

A recent UN publication not only stated that the situation in Palestine was apartheid, and it also described the occupied territories as an, ‘open-air prison.’ To cross between regions, people must undergo invasive searches and checkpoint procedures, conditions of which vary based on assigned nationality. To navigate these checkpoints, people are required to have a series of corresponding identity cards, permits, and other documents; these borders have been recognised as an explicitly gendered space, a ‘social geography of horror,’ where permissions for crossing are granted on a sexist basis (they’re usually only granted to women for exceptional medical or religious purposes) and the facilitation of crossing is founded on strict compliance with embodied gender norms as enforced by Israeli soldiers’ rifles and gazes. The creation of strict gender norms in the carceral structure of the prison or occupied colony is not unique to Israel; Angela Davis in her book Are Prisons Obsolete? details how, ‘the deeply gendered character of punishment both reflects and further entrenches the gendered structure of the larger society.’ (Davis, 61) Along similar lines, Dean Spade argues how,

 

“For trans people, administrative gender classification and the problems it creates for those who are difficult to classify or are misclassified is a major vector of violence and diminished life chances and life spans […] The aim of creating increased security for the nation hangs on the assumption of a national subject that deserves and requires that protection: a subject for whom these identity classification and verification categories are uncontroversial. (Spade, 77-85)”

In other words, the creation of a security state or prison system relies on the enforcement of an ideal person, a person who is defined by the social systems constituting race and gender in that state. For Palestine, the carceral subject under Israeli occupation is the Palestinian who will soon be eliminated by the settler colonial state. Cruelty is the goal; they are not meant to survive. For trans subjects in particular, the systems of policing, surveillance, and apartheid are made even more dangerous by an increased risk from the normal dangers of not fitting into a stable, identity-based system. Israel and its allies don’t care if they discriminate against trans Palestinians because, in their eyes, they are just particularly targetable Palestinians who shouldn’t be in Israel in the first place. Pinkwashing is not only a dishonest marketing strategy, but also a hypocritical alibi for genocide.

At the party, I decided to help my hosts make latkes, fried potato cakes traditionally served during the holiday. A number of friends I expected would be there had sent their apologies, so for a while the only people around to chat with were all standing with me in a circle binding shavings together and browning them in oil. We made jokes back and forth about which toppings are more Jewish, applesauce or sour cream. I learned all of the men in the family had joined the military in America and were quite proud of this fact. In my head, I could see my dad with his eyes locked on me gripping the honorary sword he received for his work on the border in Korea, keeping it safe like the tokens his dad had taken from Okinawa in the forties. My uncle had flown south to Peru at seventeen and died in a plane crash, and at the same age a version of me went east and quickly transitioned; to him, we both went in the wrong directions. Their father wore a t-shirt with the names and numbers of the people he had served with. I was cutting myself with a grater, spilling blood in the onions, while the rest of them moved and chatted together like a frictionless machine.

I was aware of the fact that I was different from the people around me, what I couldn’t admit was how much I wanted what they had. I needed to feel like I could be in a space without fear of hurting everybody else or being hurt myself. The sister suddenly saw my tattoo and asked with excitement what it meant. I knew I couldn’t tell the truth; I couldn’t lose another home. I tried to shrug it off saying, ‘it’s from an old protest chant.’ They pressed on, wanting to know word for word what I had decided to mark on my body. I lied. ‘It means, “There is no Planet B.”’ It seemed to work; I can’t be sure whether or not they bought it, but they were satisfied either way. I felt caged in and alone, after all that had happened there was no one around the room I could turn to for recognition. They went on to joke about the minor differences between Texas and Dublin. I stepped out into the hallway and tried to feel my feet on the ground.

 

 

Featured Image: ‘Sunnyvale Lost’ by Penelope Norman

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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LGBTQIA+ Refugees Are Being Deported to a Country That Will Not Protect Them

LGBTQIA+ Refugees Are Being Deported to a Country That Will Not Protect Them

LGBTQIA+ Refugees Are Being Deported to a Country That Will Not Protect Them

Protesters Attend March for Refugee Rights
Sarah Kennelly

20th of June 2022

To cross the channels in search of hope is a perilous journey that many do not survive. Those who succeed beat the odds working against them. From human traffickers to raging storms, the hurdles are endless. However, the barriers to their safety do not end when they reach our shores, in fact, they are fortified by governments who place policies above people.

 

This is exactly what the UK government is doing with a new policy that will deport refugees to Rwanda. Although Rwanda is making great strides in developing a more equal society, it is still failing to protect many of its marginalised groups.  Although Rwanda does not criminalize same-sex relations, there are no policies that outlaw discrimination against these identities despite the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community being particularly at risk.

 

The UK government is ignoring the concerns raised by many human rights organisations such as Rainbow Migration and ECRE. These institutions work tirelessly to protect the rights of LGBTQIA+ refugees and are experts in how immigration policies affect their clients. They have stressed that the country is an unsafe environment for these migrants who could face discrimination in social and institutional settings. In June of last year, it was even discovered that Rwandan authorities captured and detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, in a bid to “clean up” their streets.

 

 

British officials have openly admitted that they understand the nature of these threats and have expressed their own “concern” for LGBTQIA+ identities in Rwanda. However, they reveal their inhumanity by deciding to move ahead with the policy anyway. It has been justified by claiming it is cost-efficient but this remains doubtful. The top civil servant, Matthew Rycroft, shared this scepticism in a letter to the Home Secretary, stating that there is little evidence to suggest that this agreement would be an effective deterrent enough to save taxpayers money. In another statement, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “our compassion may be infinite but our capacity to help people is not”. It remains unclear how this new policy will benefit the British taxpayer which they are so dutifully claiming to protect. 

 

This decision will also have repercussions for Ukrainian refugees who reach the UK through Ireland. Ireland’s decision to lift all immigration requirements for Ukranians fleeing war has been denounced by politicians in Northern Ireland, who support crackdowns on migrants using illegal routes to enter the country. In response to the policy in the Republic of Ireland, British officials have warned that those who make this illegal crossing will be at risk of deportation to Rwanda

At the time of writing, the most recent development was on Tuesday 14th June when the Strasbourg court blocked the first flight of refugees to Rwanda, citing the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The grounding of the plane came as a result of the countless activists and lawyers campaigning to end this discriminatory policy. The British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab has expressed his disapproval of the decision but has confirmed the removal of refugees to Rwanda will take place despite international pressure. Further, Johnson has raised the idea of the UK withdrawing from the ECHR, publicly querying “Will it be necessary to change some laws to help us as we go along?”. Although the 7 asylum seekers aboard the plane were granted extra time, their future remains uncertain.

 

Featured Image by Vibeke Sonntag on Flicker

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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Maasai Women and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Maasai Women and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Maasai Women and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Vehicle driving through Ngorongoro Conservation Area
Maximiliana Eligi Mtenga

31st of May 2022

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania spans the Ngorongoro crater and is surrounded by many flora and fauna. The distinctive volcanic caldera provides an astonishing view to tourists and visitors who mostly come from outside Africa. The NCA is also home to the Indigenous Maasai community, who have been the custodians of the area for centuries.

The NCA was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979 as a “natural site” and in 2010 as a cultural property. One might think that NCA is blessed with the world’s heritage ‘title’ and the protection that comes with it, but in reality, all that glitters is not gold.

For the past five decades, key researchers have highlighted that the United Republic of Tanzania does not have a land rights regime to protect the rights of the dignified livelihood of indigenous Maasai women. The laws of Tanzania do not adequately recognize and protect indigenous pastoralists’ ancestral lands, which constitute their means of survival and the basis for their communal existence.

UNESCO’s efforts to promote respect for humankind and the planet earth in which we live are valuable. Yet, under its watch, ongoing eviction plans by the government of Tanzania are putting all residents of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area at risk of deepened poverty for the indigenous Maasai community and its women.

Indigenous Maasai women’s rights are being violated in the name of conservation. The Maasai Indigenous women are likely to lose their identity and dignity due to losing ancestral land and poverty. Furthermore, evicting the indigenous Maasai women from the NCA will destroy their traditional “Bomas” homes, livestock, economic activities, and handicraft businesses. 

 

The crisis, just like any other crisis 

The continuing threats of evictions of the Indigenous Maasai men and women from their motherland in the name of conservation only exacerbate women’s rights violations that the Maasai women in the NCA have experienced from the Maasai traditional practices for decades. Indigenous women’s rights are embedded in international laws and human rights conventions, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979, which Tanzania ratified in 1989. However, despite this protection and the mutual agreement at the international level, the Maasai women’s rights are rarely respected in practice. On the contrary, they are violated at the national and international levels by either governments or the private sectors.

These violations amount to a ‘crisis’ because the eviction processes come with significant impacts such as loss of life properties and hunger resulting from day-to-day conspiracies against the indigenous NCA residents who are refusing to be evicted. 

The Director of Advocacy and Reforms from the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) in Tanzania, Fulgence Massawe, says that;

 

“Maasai women need their Bomas (houses) more than men because Maasai men are usually moving with their livestock. So, if the eviction plans succeed, the indigenous Maasai women are more likely to suffer more than men. Indigenous Maasai women are householders; they build Bomas and don’t move easily like men, so their Bomas are their safe settlement.”  

 

Adding on the issues of the co-assistance of the Maasai community with wildlife in the NCA, Massawe continues to express his concerns on the possibility of a loss of Maasai Livelihood amidst the ongoing eviction plans; 

 

“The Maasai people at the NCA are pastoralists, and in an environment where wild animals exist, it means that their livestock can survive in that area, so when you re-allocate them in a place that does not have wildlife, even the survival of their livestock cannot be guaranteed. Therefore, they are going for a disaster, and they will lose their richness, including their livestock; the government might claim that the area is humanly habitable but is it friendly to the Maasai’s livestock?”

 

The fact that there is an ongoing process of evicting the indigenous Maasai men and women in the NCA under the watch of UNESCO is reminiscent of colonial behaviours. Furthermore, the fact that Tanzania is violating the indigenous Maasai women’s rights in the NCA in daylight makes me feel like Tanzania as a country has forgotten the pinch of colonialism. I am forced to think like this because conserving the NCA by evicting the Maasai community, who have been the custodian of that area for decades, means that the Maasai community is being colonized. It’s unbelievable that Tanzania has recently celebrated 60 years of independence while the Maasai community in the NCA are still being colonized. 

Colonialism was indeed a nightmare, and as much as no one wishes to go back to the colonial era, I worry that the indigenous Maasai people in the NCA have never gained independence from their colonial masters. In the long run, the eviction of the Maasai people in the NCA is going to be catastrophic as Massawe continues to add;

 

“We should remember the indigenous Maasai people have their Gods, and they consider their ancestral land to be sacred, so if they are evicting the Maasai people, how are they going to re-allocate their Gods? Because for example, Ol Doinyo Lengai is a sacred mountain to the Maasai where they worship and offer sacrifices to God. So, alienating them from their ancestral land means you are pushing them away from their nature and system of life in general”.

 

From the human rights perspective, if the conservation of the NCA is not in line with rights-based approaches. These include but are not limited to the free, prior, and informed consent for any activity on their land, then that’s the most significant human rights violation which should be condemned by all means.

 

Maasai Women Rights and the SDGs

Regional and international conservators need to employ rights-based approaches in conserving the NCA, which will add to the insightful and innovative work of gender equality in developing countries. That way, indigenous Maasai women are not left behind on the sustainable development agenda 2030 or the Tanzania development vision for 2025. 

What is life if we are not learning from others? What is happening to the indigenous women in the NCA is similar to the situation of Ireland Travellers before and after their official recognition as an indigenous ethnic minority in 2017. The fact that Ireland took decades to recognize the Irish Travellers came with a greater magnitude of effects. The 1963 Report of the Commission on Itinerancy and other State policies attempted to force Travellers to assimilate with “settled” people. As a result of the Travellers’ indigenous rights negligence, almost five years after their official Recognition of Irish Travellers as the Indigenous ethnicity minority, they still suffer from doubt and distrust from other members of the Irish community.

 

A repeated mistake?

Tanzania is bound to repeat the same mistake that the government made a decade ago when it violently evicted the Nyamuma people from their motherland as part of this same ‘conservation’ paradigm. After a decade of battling in the court of law and support from civil society organizations, the Nyamuma people won their case against the government, and their ancestral land was returned. The Director of Advocacy and Reforms from the Legal and Human Rights Centre, Fulgence Massawe, asserts;

 

“The government doesn’t have a realistic re-allocation plan because, for example, they tell you that the population of the NCA residents are almost over 100,000, but the houses they have built-in Handeni Tanga are barely exceeding 100, so where will they take all these people and what will these people do in this circumstance?”. 

 

The Indigenous Maasai women’s rights crisis in the NCA would have been solved if Tanzania had ratified the 1989 International Labour Organization’s Convention (No. 169) Concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. This Convention outlines the special rights of indigenous peoples regarding activities on their customary lands. 

 

 

Anyone interested in supporting the Maasai Women in Ngorongoro can sign a petition from Rainforest-Rescue.org

 

 

Featured Image by Ema Studios on Unsplash

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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Real People, Tangible Action: a Chat with Climate Love Ireland

Real People, Tangible Action: a Chat with Climate Love Ireland

Real People, Tangible Action: a Chat with Climate Love Ireland

Criomhthann Morrison talks with Laragh McCann
Criomhthann Morrison

4th of May 2022

Laragh McCann is co-founder of Climate Love Ireland, a grassroots, community-led group that started out as a response to the global climate strikes in 2019.

The global strike was a ‘game-changer day’ for Laragh at a time when she was finding it hard to find deeper purpose in her work. The strikes and rising climate justice movement reminded of her younger years “getting so much solace” from connecting with nature, climbing trees and swimming in the sea. 

 

“There was so much momentum in general for the climate at the time, and I had it in me for sure”

 

A day before the strikes, Laragh pulled together a small crew to film the day and make a short video, then Laragh made a new Instagram profile where she posted the video and then started sharing pictures, quotes, and facts about climate change.

The page and team grew organically over time. The graphic designer Emma Conway helped design the logo, and then Laragh met Cormac Nugent at a demonstration outside the Dáil, who helped with the Instagram page. Caoimhe (a former STAND Contributor!) also got involved after reaching out for climate strike footage, and started sharing local businesses on the Instagram page..

Laragh eventually felt the page was becoming repetitive and wasn’t sure they were making much impact. Laragh also knew that she herself needed more time in nature, which ended up setting the tone and pace of Climate Love Ireland going forward.

 

“I felt like connecting with nature kind of embodies the solution in a lot of ways”

 

Nature Connection, Community Action, and System Revolution are the three pillars CLI has focused on over the pandemic, which Laragh feels covers the range of aspects and dimensions to climate change and what people can do about it.

And since restrictions have been easing, the CLI community has grown with in-person events like clean-ups and hikes.

 

“You can’t underestimate meeting people in real life and how much that actually leads to tangible action”

 

Laragh highlighted Rob Coleman as one example of this. She met him at a clean-up, connected him with many people who helped him grow his own project, and now has received funding from Creative Ireland for a tree-planting project with primary schools.

Climate Love Ireland also has a WhatsApp group of 80 people where they share shoutouts and resources and give general support. Even as we spoke during the Live Chat, someone asked in the comments to join it!

I reflected with Laragh on how hard it can be to find where you ‘fit’ in what’s going on, and how there are so many different ways to connect with solutions and movements and make an impact at the individual-level or higher. The most helpful thing to do can be taking time to just find what works for your situation and where you can be proactive. Linking in with a community can be really helpful for doing this.

 

“There’s such a sense of urgency with the climate crisis that […] instinctively one feels you have to be up 24 hours a day doing a mending session, swapping, eating nothing […]. It’s not really like that. It’s more about picking the things you know you’re good at and synchronising it with a wider group so that everybody is ticking lots of boxes and taking the slack off yourself.”

 

Laragh then shared one of her favourite phrases, but with a caveat.

 

“‘Less is more’ is one of my favourite mottos, but skillfully so. Not just saying ‘less is more’ and that’s it, but attaching it more to a wider movement, picking one or two things, not trying to do everything, allowing other people to do their bits”

 

Laragh then talked about promoting the many links across social movements, including examples like groups working towards climate justice, promoting feminism, fighting homelessness, and protection for migrants.

 

“Coming back to our shared humanity is the most important thing”

 

Laragh related this to the story of David and Goliath, emphasising that focusing his aim on the most important point is how David took down Goliath.

Laragh continued thinking about the opportunities and challenges in shifting the public consciousness and engaging political power and decision-makers.

 

“The climate crisis is happening. It’s a present-day thing for people”

 

To people who suggest “it’s going to happen anyway, there’s no point in doing anything”, Laragh highlighted that someone in the middle of the drought wouldn’t accept that, rather they’d be shouting out “Do something now”. And even if someone believes there is no way to hold or slow down climate change, there are still all sorts of issues we need to deal with “to make sure people are okay.”

For anyone looking to connect with Climate Love Ireland and get involved, Laragh recommended following the Instagram page for updates on events and activities to meet other people interested in climate justice. Reaching out to join the WhatsApp group is the next thing someone could do.

Laragh also shared two upcoming events: first the event ‘Swim for Bay’ (costumes optional!) for promoting the conservation and celebration of the Irish Sea. Laragh was going to share some words at the event alongside a speaker from Save Our Seas – Dublin Bay. That happened on the 23rd April.

Second was the ‘Eco-Film Night’ in collaboration with Act Now Collective, Ecohun, and Climate Alarm Clock happening on 13th May in Dublin (details on Instagram!).

Prompted for a final comment for the call, Laragh replied:

 

“Just get involved. There are loads and loads of people out there who genuinely care and are interested.”

 

Laragh shared how she has a pattern of presuming people don’t care, and then shutting down, not engaging, and feeling hopeless. But Laragh finds it helpful to practice being more open and having lower expectations of others.

 

“When that happens, you realise there is loads of people who are mentioning climate and things that are related. Just be more optimistic about people, because people do care. But also surround yourself with people who are on the same page.”

 

I had a really nice time chatting with Laragh and definitely recommend checking out Climate Love Ireland’s Instagram page and website at https://www.climateloveireland.com/.

I’m allergic to the extreme cold of the Irish waters, so you wouldn’t have caught me there. So as long as the place is dry, you’ll see me at the film night!

 

IG Live Chat link: https://www.instagram.com/p/Ccp1JEnFhL3/ or watch the video below

 

Climate Love Ireland Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/climateloveireland-419849408774988 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/climateloveireland/ 

Website: https://www.climateloveireland.com/ 

 

Other links:

Caoimhe/Kiva’s film and photography website: https://www.kivadurkan.com/

 

 

All images provided by Recrowned Ireland

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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Recrowned Ireland: How Women are Looking Out for Each Other Amidst Inequality

Recrowned Ireland: How Women are Looking Out for Each Other Amidst Inequality

Recrowned Ireland: How Women are Looking Out for Each Other Amidst Inequality

Recrowned Ireland logo
Loretta Awiapo

28th of April 2022

“Gender inequality remains one of the most substantial human rights challenges of our time”. Although a significant amount of progress has been made, women still face barriers to becoming leaders and decision-makers on a global stage. Women are still dealing with various forms of gender-based violence. Their confidence and progress are still threatened, and the world is impeding their right to safety and equitable access to fundamental needs. Achieving gender equality is critical to achieving the other sustainable development goals, hence the need for more timely, sustainable, and collaborative local and international efforts for the attainment of SDG5.

 

In Ireland, a group of passionate young black women is addressing SDG5 creatively and holistically by “elevating, empowering, and escalating” the lives of women both locally and internationally. Together, these women make up an organization known as Recrowned Ireland. Recrowned Ireland was founded in April 2019 to give women a safe space to be expressive, confident, aware, and empowered. These women are working to bridge gaps in access to basic needs through mentorship, fundraisers, and advocacy campaigns so that women and girls can live up to their full potential.

 

Recrowned Ireland started as an opportunity for girls to experience support in the form of a big sister role, especially for girls within the community who do not have moms or female figures in their lives. “Empathy is integral to the work that Recrowned Ireland does. It is somewhere a lot of girls can feel safe with being able to come to us, chat with us, and confide in us” says Benita Murinda, Creative Director. Vivian Birungi, the Editor in Chief, narrated a daunting experience as a woman in STEM where upon walking into one of her classes made up of 90% men, she immediately felt like she had to hide and make herself small: “I feel like a lot of women in this day and age of all ages, all backgrounds and whatever jobs and schools they are in, feel like they have to make themselves small and not be outspoken in certain spaces and I think it is important to have Recrowned Ireland where we can give women that voice and let them know that it is okay to be heard, it is okay to stand up for what you believe in, it is okay to promote your business, it is okay to be yourself and to confide in someone.”

 

 “Empathy is integral to the work that Recrowned Ireland does. It is somewhere a lot of girls can feel safe with being able to come to us, chat with us, and confide in us” 

 

 

In addition to running a blog that ensures that women are informed about global events and have a platform to express their thoughts and advertise their businesses, Recrowned Ireland has launched various campaigns to advocate for women. Their “sorry is not enough” campaign raised about 6000 euros to help black women who have been abused access counseling. They also raised 700 euros and sent it to One in Four, a charity in Ireland that offers support and counseling for victims of childhood sexual abuse. Additionally, their menstrual poverty campaign, a result of STAND’s Ideas Collective, is providing sustainable and long-term solutions to menstrual poverty for girls in Ireland, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria. 

 

Recrowned Ireland Team Members

 

The Recrowned Ireland Team expressed how much the support from participating in STAND’s Ideas Collective helped them successfully launch their menstrual poverty campaign. They emphasized how helpful the Ideas collective workshops were in guiding them to develop their menstrual poverty campaign idea. The seed funding they were awarded by the judges and the audience respectively, helped them kickstart their campaign where they collaborated with NICKEZE, an Irish sustainable period underwear brand, to distribute period underwear to women across Ireland who need them. According to them, STAND’s Ideas collective has played a significant role not only in the menstrual poverty campaign but has also helped them grow as an organization: “Leaving that pitch event, not just with the judges’ prize of 1000 euros, but also with the audience prize of 500 euros was a huge win for us because it made us realize that people see what we are doing, and people think that what we are doing is important, and that was very inspiring and uplifting for us” said Maryam Yabo, Sustainability Specialist.

 

Recrowned Ireland is a sisterhood united by the same goals, vision, and commitment to supporting women through sustainable, innovative solutions to ensure that women have an equal chance at realizing their full potential. These women are finding their voices by helping others find theirs and empowering themselves by uplifting others. These women are teaching both men and women that supporting women holistically is everyone’s business. People everywhere must be involved in ensuring that women have safe spaces to show up as they are, regardless of who they are or where they are from.

 

 

 

All images provided by Recrowned Ireland

This article was supported by: Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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Gender-Based Violence: Starting, Supporting and Sustaining the Conversation

Gender-Based Violence: Starting, Supporting and Sustaining the Conversation

Gender-Based Violence: Starting, Supporting and Sustaining the Conversation
Woman with tape over her mouth making a silence gesture
Brianna Walsh
11th of March 2022

Some names have been changed to respect respondents’ requests for anonymity.

 

“I think Ashling Murphy has brought out the best and worst in people.” (Sophie, 25)

The month’s mind of Ashling’s tragic death has passed, however, the emotional fallout from the murder of the 23 year old primary school teacher will likely stay with us a lot longer. Since her death, there have been two more notable instances of assault by men against women across public spaces in Ireland. All the while, new developments emerge in the policy arena around how to prevent gender-based violence (GBV) and support victims. Now more than ever, it feels apt to consider the fraught response to this case and the lasting impression it may leave.  As our landscape for change becomes more and more influenced by the media, and in particular, social media, the impact for conversation is significant. While the wave of advocacy in response to this case is welcome, when the issue is as sensitive as GBV, how we talk to each other matters even more. Important questions arise, questions that have an array of potential answers. Each has the power to inspire or isolate, engage or exclude. The legacy of Ashling Murphy’s murder lies not only in its grievous circumstances, but in the context of her death and the discussion it must spark and sustain. Fixed in an Irish and global history of gender inequality, whether this case proves pivotal for progress may depend on how consciously we choose to respond in the modern age.  To capture the ongoing conversation, I attempted to engage, speak and most importantly, listen to young men and women in Ireland, advocates and organisations working in this field. The goal was to explore the consequences of how we communicate in 2022, and how this dialogue can be mobilised to ensure inclusive, effective change going forward. In doing so, a door has been opened into the minds of young people and experts. Behind this door lies a range of thoughts and feelings, beliefs and insights into a perennially controversial issue; men’s violence against women. 

You are invited to step in. 

 

“My initial reaction was kind of like, oh no, not again” (Serena, 22)

 

“[there was] disbelief in the beginning… then I kinda caught myself and said, why don’t I believe this? This isn’t new?” (Deirdre, 24)

 

“We’ve heard this so much over the last two years” (Matthew, 22)

 

These initial impressions of Ashling’s death are chilling. As respondents attempted to encapsulate something “so, so tragic and so, so sad”, there was an underlying current of grim tolerance throughout these interviews. A sense that while shocking, there is little reason to be surprised. 

 

“244 women since 1996. We’ll see another Ashling Murphy, Sarah Everard… the problem isn’t going to go away.” (Deirdre, 24)

 

Each reaction, though striking, was immediate. As interviewees increasingly began to echo each other, one simple question remained: why? Why did this case make such an impact if this happens so frequently? Why, without knowledge of motive nor means, were we so quick to link a stranger assault to the wider issue of GBV? Why, and why now?  Everyone interviewed acknowledged this case as a tragedy and several drew reference to previous tragedies, such as the murder of Urantsetseg Tserendorj last January in the IFSC. However, the impact Ashling Murphy has had is marked, spurring unusually charged sentiment throughout Irish media and society.  Ashling was painted the perfect victim. Young, Irish, innocent, out for a run in broad daylight. “I think the reaction from everyone has been very emotional, which is understandable… we’re 23, we’re students, we graduated as a student last year, I have a friend who’s a teacher… everyone knows an Ashling Murphy, even if you didn’t know her” (Sarah, 23). Serena emphasised the way Ashling was depicted in the media, along with the uniqueness of her death; “I think the way Ashling Murphy’s case was worded definitely had an impact on the way people view it and I know this is terrible to say, but you hear about domestic violence cases more so than murders in Ireland so it’s going to catch people’s attention because it’s quite an extreme case.” Emotions were high and a surge of activism ensued. Social media was alight with six poignant words: She Was Going For A Run. Women shared their own stories of safety, their experiences of assault. Keys between fingers and catcalls on streets. Organisations continued to campaign for change. We were igniting a long-overdue, wider dialogue around gender-based violence. Yet, there were early indications that this advocacy could divide us further.  Making the links between everyday acts of misogyny and an isolated, acute incident like this one is a difficult task. In a media landscape that is increasingly polarised, nuance can get lost in the pressure to take a stance, defend an opinion, and allocate blame for such an incomprehensible crime. This impact is observed most fervently in the #NotAllMen rhetoric that rears its head regularly during these discussions:

 

“Why is it that when a woman is attacked, all men are implicated in somehow being responsible for the crime, but when a woman attacks a man, no such thing happens to women… when men are attacked by men, we only implicate the individual in this case. Men as a whole aren’t implicated. Why the double standard?” (Miguel, 27)

“There are certain words that trigger men and kind of the general population, like feminism, misogyny, patriarchy, you know, toxic masculinity… I also think there’s a huge amount of really complex language being used which completely alienates a very big proportion of society who maybe aren’t as articulate or don’t want to read several paragraphs on ‘why men are bad’”

“There’s a responsibility that does need to be taken by men – that is a huge burden on someone, a huge thing to take on, to say, well my gender keeps killing people, my gender keeps catcalling people in the street, but I’ve never done it – what can I do about it?” (Sophie, 25)

 

Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, assessed the connection between the two. While this “stands alone as a tragedy, there is a parallel…” The response to this case was less about the detailed circumstances of this murder, and more to do with the memories it aroused. 

 

“My sense is it’s not that Ashling Murphy’s death has caused women to be afraid, it has reminded them to be afraid… more and more people started to realise this was the ultimate nightmare but it wasn’t the only nightmare…a lot of people know that abuse doesn’t normally start with murder, it starts with something [small], the abuser gets away with that and so on and so forth until they hit the boundaries…”

“This is a remembrance by women that they are right to be afraid.”

 

Merely by nature of Ashling being a woman, and her perpetrator a man, this case forced us to think about what can happen to women, what does happen to women, at a disproportionate rate in our society. We were forced to consider the fact that she was “doing all the right things”, and still fell victim to an attack. This consideration alone is indicative of injustice. We rarely apply these expectations to male victims in similar circumstances, which in itself tells us that while we don’t know exactly what happened, we make assumptions based on a history of entrenched gender inequality. 

 

“I suppose because we hear about [misogyny] so much, we immediately assume certain kind of factors, when obviously as the story unfolds we get more details” (Matthew, 22)

 

Deirdre reminds us that in trying to assess how and why Ashling died,“you can’t draw a straight line from one to the other, it’s a spider’s web.” It could have been random, psychotic, as likely to happen if it had been a man going for a run. But it also could have happened because Ashling was physically weaker, because there are patriarchal, implicit biases that rendered her an easy target, microaggressions that have an array of consequences; whether that’s upholding traditional, religious values, perpetuating stereotypes, normalising violent behaviours, or making it harder for men to access mental health support. We “jump to the conclusion that this [happened] because she was a woman” because we have no choice but to consider the likelihood that that could be true. We don’t have the privilege of ignoring gender-based factors that could have contributed to this case, like we do with other murders. We don’t know why this happened, which means we can’t really rule any motive or influence out. 

 

“It’s not a nice outcome that her death has sparked this kind of conflict between people.” (Serena, 22)

 

That being said, cultivating constructive conversation around these complex ideas is easier said than done, especially through media platforms. The way we talk about this specific case in the wider context of GBV can still have adverse impacts. Even seemingly positive campaigning can swiftly turn sour. Respondents highlighted how our reaction could affect other victims of GBV, victims who aren’t in as ‘worthy positions’. Those who are wearing the wrong thing, who are out at the wrong time, who are sex workers or domestically abused. The way Ashling’s death was sketched implied “that she didn’t deserve this to happen”, as though others conceivably do. 

 

“Sometimes with domestic assault or cases of rape… they might say [the victim] was walking down a dark alleyway or you know, a young girl had sexual intercourse with her uncle instead of saying, you know, an uncle raped his niece.” (Serena, 22)

 

Sarah regarded our quick reactions as dangerous in this context; “maybe there’s merit in attention being drawn to [gender based violence] here, but I think it hurts those conversations more.”

 

“Saying there’s a continuum of male behaviour that leads to murder, I think that pushes men away from wanting to talk about misogyny, because you’re basically saying I could end up there… and if I’m not addressing that I’m okay with murder, which is not the case… I don’t think that’s a good tactic.”

 

She hoped for more practical discussions around the prevention of stranger assaults specifically and making space for these strategies to be heard. She admitted that voicing this opinion was daunting for her, especially online; “if it is a conversation, don’t use her death to have it – then I can’t disagree with you.” It’s true that at times like this, inaccuracies can be perpetuated by the media that spark temporary fear rather than long term reform. Ryan Hart, an advocate against domestic violence whose father abused and eventually killed Ryan’s mother and sister in a murder-suicide, informed me that 11% of women are killed by strangers in the UK, while 89% are killed by someone they know.  “One thing that really annoyed us about our [case] is that we didn’t know we were victims… domestic violence and homicide was portrayed as one off – out of nowhere.” “That’s why we didn’t know what was going on… [nobody thinks their] father is someone who is going to hurt them…very little attention is paid to true risk areas for women. If the media is not doing a good job at portraying the truth about what is going on, you have a distorted viewpoint [about the] red flags of domestic homicide… I’d like to see the same amount of attention when people are killed by people they know at home.” Noeline explained how the privacy and complicated nature of domestic violence cases mean they’re less likely to be reported on, despite being more prevalent; “one of the attributes of this [case] is its absolute simplicity.” Matthew echoed her thoughts;

 

“there’s a [need] for the media to start [making this issue] omnipresent until a point that it is eradicated… There are so many issues in Ireland in the last few years that become like Ashling Murphy, like ok, it’s really sad, next problem… [there are others] not given enough attention at all…”

“It shouldn’t be as quick. I know, obviously, there’s an issue of trying to sell news, [but] there should be that moral question of there’s a general problem here, what are we, as a media outlet, as the framers of all these stories, what are we going to say about it?”

 

In considering the impact of what we say and how we say it, it’s easy to see how this conversation can become overwhelming, fast. We recognise how complicated it can be to speak up, to engage, or simply to listen and learn what to do next.  Staying silent isn’t an option either. In fact, many of us can’t afford not to have this conversation. This leads us to the ‘how’? How should we talk to each other in a way that is open, conscious and inclusive? How can this discussion best be mobilised to effect positive change for gender equality in Ireland and elsewhere?  One thing we’re lacking is adequate data to help us understand the “web” of causes underlying gender-based violence. Participants struggled to grasp the roots of this issue, theorising patterns of misogyny, suppression of men’s emotions, and a patriarchal “sense of entitlement” as possible reasons for why this keeps happening. An issue described by our government as an “epidemic” and which Noeline observes is relatively class-less compared to other crimes, efforts to “understand what’s driven someone to do this and how we can stop it” appear futile if we are not collecting enough evidence around cause and effect.  Practical and policy responses were suggested, with UCD Student Union’s Darryl Horan citing the need for increased refuge accommodation across the country and SAFE Ireland’s Miriam Kivlehan welcoming the announcement of a single ministry to tackle women’s safety. This is something that the organisation has advocated for years, to address GBV holistically across areas including justice, health, housing and social protection.  Preventative approaches included earlier interventions in education systems to ensure everybody understands the intricate, historical depth of gender inequality, in Ireland and internationally. Within politics, there could be greater female representation and within the media, better portrayals of gender-based violence, domestic abuse and potential innovative solutions. Within the justice system, greater accountability for crimes may be necessary.  Most evidently, we need to re-assess how we speak to each other. When asked about these barriers to communication, Ryan Hart contends that it’s “not helpful to tell people what they can’t do.” It’s actually more effective to tell people what they can gain. 

 

“Any abusive man is miserable… [our father was filled with] resentment, paranoia, he was jealous and bitter, never proud of us or himself… he missed out on a huge amount because of the way he chose to behave.”

“Life without responsibility is dull… without it, you will never [achieve] meaningful happiness. It’s not entirely selfless – men have a lot to gain from understanding gender-based violence.”

 

The way we behave affects everyone. It can benefit everyone, or it can harm everyone. There’s no way to avoid having this conversation, so we’re going to have to try our best to manage it. To take our time, to take away the blame and the boundaries. To accept that we may say the wrong thing. To include and at the same time, hold each other to account. Ultimately, to respect each other. In every domain, every relationship, every way.

At UCD’s vigil in remembrance of Ashling Murphy, Darryl Horan paid heed to the amount of people who approached him and “asked frankly, what’s next?” Men and women alike. Despite divergence, heartache, anger and frustration, there is also hope. There is a bigger picture, within which we are all integral. There is a call to action, if only we choose to listen.

 

Continue the conversation:

Write for STAND News here

Read more articles for International Women’s Day here

Talk to us on: Twitter @stand_ie

Instagram @stand.ie

If you are affected by the issues raised in this article, reach out to:

Women’s Aid here 

SAFE Ireland here 

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre here 

Men’s Aid Ireland here 

UCDSU Welfare Officer here 

 

 

Imagine Equality Campaign Link

Featured Photo from Pexels .

This article was supported by: STAND News Editor Conor Courtney and Engagement Coordinator Aislin

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The Ubiquity of Violence: Our Cultural Blindspots are Costing Us Lives

The Ubiquity of Violence: Our Cultural Blindspots are Costing Us Lives

The Ubiquity of Violence: Our Cultural Blind-Spots are Costing Lives

Hand with 'Stop GBV' written on it
Sibéal Devilly initials

7th of March 2022

 

I cannot imagine the lived experiences of those who belong to marginalised communities. In a systemically racist and xenophobic culture, the fear I feel as a white, abled cisgender woman is minimal relative to the experiences of those who live in bodies even less respected in Ireland. I do not have the layers of fear many do, and I do not wish to speak on the experiences of others but on the systemic problems of gender-based violence (GBV).

The refusal to recognise the relevance of microaggressions in the culture of this country contributes to our inability to properly address gender-based violence. The idea that there is a relationship between cat-calling or rape jokes, and physical GBV, is one that the boys’ club of Ireland refuses to accept. The fact that 97 per cent of UK students surveyed reported experiencing sexual harassment seems to escape men who regard rape as appropriate material for a joke. That this actually may have happened to women appears irrelevant – as though the pain of others should not prevent men from doing and saying as they please. The reality is that these jokes normalise the compartmentalisation of violent rhetoric and the real-world treatment of women. Globally, one in three women have been subjected to violence in their lifetime, 65 per cent of women have experienced GBV either directly or indirectly, and 40 per cent of women surveyed reported feeling less safe in public spaces since the COVID-19 Pandemic began.

Again and again, as these stories of women being brutally and often fatally attacked come to the forefront in the media, sympathisers recite the same list of facts; those same lists we were taught as children would protect us. It was bright. She was dressed correctly. She texted a friend. She had headphones in. She was polite but not too polite. On and on it goes as though we must preempt reactions to assault with justifications of the victims’ own actions. As though it is the victims of assault who are responsible. As though women walking or jogging or running must qualify the living of their lives as well as doing the right things, following the right rules, doing what they were told was right. The truth is, women can and often do move through life doing what they are taught is right to protect themselves and still, those carrying out the violence are not centred in the conversations. Those attackers, those assaulters, those murderers: they are in the wrong. The reactions rarely highlight the wrongs carried out at the level of specificity that the victims’ actions are defended. Let’s be clear. Men shout at, grope, grab, assault and murder women. Men dismiss fears as silly, men use and abuse positions of societal and physical dominance to enact violence on women that keep us suppressed. And rather than justify their complicity in systems that uphold this power, they say, again and again, that it’s ‘not all men’ and perpetuate the need for sympathisers to justify the actions of a victim.

The truth is, as we have seen, heard, said, and screamed that the rules we were taught about staying safe are simply not working. They’re not working because victims aren’t the ones at fault. I’ll repeat that: women aren’t the ones at fault. Regardless of what they are wearing, where they’re going, who they tell, and whether it’s a scorching summer’s day or a dead winter’s night, nobody should fear for their lives in modern Ireland. No one should have to rethink exercising, socialising, grocery shopping, or anything else women already limit themselves to daylight hours to do. And where do these rules lead us? Don’t get the bus, get a taxi. And then you hear stories about rogue taxi drivers, so you should book a taxi, not hail one off the street. And even then, I have had countless moments of sheer panic when a taxi driver takes a different route than I expected. In the same way that you can dress modestly and be shouted at in the street, you can do all the right things and still end up dead. The actual problem is the inability of those who the system suits to see the connection between micro-aggressions and murder when it comes to women’s safety. The problem is the people enacting the violence.

The solution to this is not to bash men as a group. The solution is to tear down the systems which lead not only to male violence against women but also lead men to have so little space to express themselves and their vulnerabilities that they become violent and harmful to themselves and others. On the subject of solutions, however, neither does the answer constitute the asking of men how they would feel if it was their sister or girlfriend or anyone else in their lives experiencing such violence. We are not just sisters or wives or daughters or mothers. We are not our relationships to men. It’s time our society reflected on the idea that women are people regardless of how they relate to men and that nobody ever gets a free pass to act violently towards others. It’s not that you can’t be violent because you see your sister reflected in another person. It’s because it’s not okay to carry out violence on a person, whether you relate to them or not.

Often when issues in society are highlighted, people immediately demand solutions to problems. I would first like to say that we can point out societal issues without being experts on the answers. That being said, when I lived in Canada, I had a few experiences surrounding how we might address some of the routine micro-aggressions carried out by men. In one instance, a builder working in a different part of the building passed remarks about a young woman who was behind the counter of a cafe I worked in. A few of us as staff of the cafe put in a complaint with the construction company carrying out the work, and within a week we received confirmation that he had been terminated from the project due to the complaint. When I recounted this story to Irish friends, it was met with surprise. Somehow, the prevailing opinion was that because it was non-physical meant that he should not have been reprimanded. However, taking these incidents seriously is A) clearly possible through employment law or harassment clauses in contracts and B) the first step in addressing GBV in adults who are otherwise unlikely to engage with education measures proposed to address it.

Along with the need for changes in how we permit citizens and working professionals to behave towards women, we need a change in state systems that uphold violence against women and marginalised groups. An Garda Síochána was established upon the foundation of the state under the premise of Irish people policing Irish people. Since then, Ireland has changed. It has become a more diverse, more secular, and more accepting place. The Gardaí have not kept up with this development. The behaviour we have seen from Gardaí in recent years, from Dara Quigley’s treatment to cancelled domestic abuse call-outs, to a garda responsible for a rape inquiry receiving 15 reminders without taking action. These actions by Gardaí reinforce to women that our safety is not a priority and that our concerns are not taken seriously until it is too late. It is increasingly clear that the culture of Ireland needs to change, and the systems which currently exist are simply not working. They must be torn down and rebuilt.

The barriers to accessing domestic violence assistance are too high for all women in Ireland but are especially high for those migrant women who live in the country. Language barriers, immigrant status, and not having family support all contribute to difficulties in accessing these services. In 2020, 22% of women who used Women’s Aid’s One-to-One Support service were from migrant communities. 27% of women who contacted their Domestic Abuse Information and Support were from migrant communities. These figures are particularly stark when one considers that migrant women in 2019 made up approximately 6.3% of the population of Ireland. It is necessary to bear in mind that while women are all affected by gender-based violence in this country on some level, for some, it is far harder to get help than others. And in a country that is slow to recognise the experiences of those it doesn’t see reflected in the mirror, it is the hardest.

It is time for us to recognise the disregard not only for women’s safety but for the safety of those who do not fit the paper chain cutouts we made in school. It is time to recognise that the underbelly of aggression in this country extends far beyond the microaggressions we brush off daily. This ripples through to many groups who don’t see themselves represented in state or cultural systems in this country. They are not considered by those in positions of decision-making or power, much less included by them. It’s time to recognise that the culture of Ireland has changed since the foundation of the free state and that the systems that uphold the old Ireland must be changed if not torn down and started anew.

 

Further Resources:

Hush Dialogues: @hushdialogues on Instagram (and their team members’ Instagrams)

Gorm Media: @gormmedia on Instagram and Twitter

The Liminal: a book which ‘challenges all who read it to reassess privileges and socially ingrained biases that have allowed institutionalisation to repeatedly happen in Ireland’ Available at: https://www.tallav.com/products/the-liminal-notes-in-life-race-and-direct-provision-in-ireland

Women’s Aid Ireland

UN Women: https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/infographic/violenceagainstwomen/en/index.html#home

 

 

Imagine Equality Campaign Link

Featured Photo by Byron Sullivan from Pexels .

This article was supported by: STAND News Editor Olivia Moore and Engagement Coordinator Aislin

 

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