A thought on St. Patrick's Day

I don’t really care about St. Patrick’s Day. I remember being in high school and our vice principal would always use my sister J and I as examples when everyone would ditch for the parade, “If these two can be here, everyone can be here.” But that’s the thing, my family didn’t go to the parade. I could imagine dad making us go to mass if we were going to miss school for St. Patrick’s Day. However, I have a summer birthday, and my friends took to decorating my locker on St. Patrick’s Day. So it isn’t like I hate the holiday or anything, it just isn’t my jam. 

We’re pretty Irish. My dad’s family is from County Mayo, and we have a crest in our house. Actually, we may have kidnapped St. Patrick at some point…family legend, because every family in Ireland has some connection to St. Patrick. But today everyone is Irish, wearing their green, and a few idiots their orange, which will get you an ass kicking from me. So in a moment when everyone wants to share our heritage, let’s talk a bit about what that means…

I’ll never stop someone from having a good Irish drink, hell, enjoy yourselves. Part of Ireland is colonized by the British. The Great Famine (Potato Famine) was a direct result of English greed when they exported all the food and left the Irish to die. To starve to death. The Irish Catholic were prohibited from owning property so all the crops and people were subject to the landlord’s tyranny. Exporting of food continued, while the previous famine the ports were closed and prices dropped. Bodies were buried without coffins a few inches below the ground.  John Mitchel said, “The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine.” Some estimate that the Irish population decreased 20-25% during the Famine. There is debate as to whether this was a genocide, because a specific race and religion were targeted by policies to destroy them. This caused many to flee Ireland many coming to the US. 

The English also destroyed our language, by not allowing laws or schools to use it, as a means to forcibly assimilate the people. They murdered people organizing for equal rights on Bloody Sunday. There was so much violence…

I guess it would just be nice if tonight when everyone is drunk and screaming “Body of an American” they remember like any other racial and ethnic identity there is some baggage to care with it. Take up the banner if you want, but there is more to being Irish than being drunk and violent. I guess, I'd also take a minute to remember the colonized and invaded peoples of the world right now, I'm looking at you Putin and Obama.

This was voted (through a campaign) the world’s most popular song according to a BBC World Service poll of listeners in 2002.

Woman shaming, as usual

I’m pretty sure people have been giving and getting head since ancient Egypt, but don’t quote me on that. I feel like there was some myth about bringing a man back to life after a woman blew him. So people have been doing this at least since the beginning of civilization, it isn’t exactly new. Though, people haven’t always been practicing safe oral sex. With the rise of abstinence only education and the belief that women are only worth their hymens, we’ve seen an increase in oral and anal sex because it isn’t considered by some idiots to be sex. Quite the heteronormative view. Regardless, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been on the receiving and performing sides of this.

So why talk about it at all? Because Ireland is back in the news. I guess people still go to see Eminem perform in Ireland, and there among the romance that can probably only exist at an Eminem concert a woman was photographic giving head to some guy, allegedly she performed oral sex on two men. And like that a meme, a #hashtag, and many a post were born. Naturally, the woman was deemed “dirty”, “gross”, “slut”, “rank”, and I’m sure the list goes on and on. Nothing about the dude though, probably because men, they can’t keep it in their pants, amiright?

Sarcasm aside, we’ll come back to the way men are treated in these situations verse how women are once we get through a little more of this. About 80,000 people were in the crowd at the show, and more than fifty attendees were arrested.

Jezebel cited The Daily Dot on the story:

“In one photo, the girl locks lips with a man in a neon-green hat and matching pants. In another, more explicit shot, the same man is almost totally nude. He raises his hands victoriously in the air. He has not been harassed or bullied or had his identity broadcast to the Web.”

Oh course, the tweets about all of these have been pretty disgusting largely of the victim blaming variety. And yes, even if it was consensual, even if she is of age (there is some debate), she was victimized once that photo was uploaded. I’ve written about the use of photos to victimize people when the whole Anthony Weiner thing came up. Essentially, if you photograph someone without their consent or knowledge and use that image to sexually exploit them you’re victimizing them.

The woman obviously is distraught; she had to be sedated at a local hospital. Additionally, she had made a separate complaint of being sexually assaulted at an event unrelated to the photos.

We can all stand around shaking our heads about the state of the world, where people gleefully rejoice in someone else’s pain, but I’d rather talk about how this happens. How do we decide it is ok? Part of the problem is the obvious double standard where men are supposed to enjoy all sex all the time, and women aren’t. But also there is more given not only the shaming of the girl, but the complete lack of interest in the boy. Sarah Ditum wrote a piece for the New Statesman that I highly recommend entitled, “Why it’s different for girls: slut-shaming in the digital age.” Here is an excerpt:

“In the world of popular sexual mores, public oral sex is apparently seen as pretty much neutral for men. It’s the women who gets to the be repository for everything deemed shameful or disgraceful about sex. If a a man gets caught in some non-socially-sanctioned screwing, he’s just being a man, and his reputation is unharmed.

“The woman, though? She’s disgusting, and deserves all the humiliation people can find to fling at her….

“Or rather, no one got hurt until afterwards, when some people tried to use the pictures to shame, trash and demolish a young woman. The lesson from misogynists is this: ‘We will come for you.’

“And not just for being a woman and having sex, but for being a woman and not joining in the condemnation: women who asked why the boy didn’t get the same judgement have [been] called man haters, told they need to be raped or threatened with a ‘kick in the flaps.’ A culture that hates women for having sex is one that simply hates women, and that is the grotty truth photographed at Slane.”

There is such an uncomfortable truth to this. It feels like Steubenville and all the other cases involving photos of women performing sex acts (voluntarily or involuntarily) being used to exploit and shame the women involved.

Below are some tweets I pulled. They range from shaming to defense of the young woman. But all of them are indicative of the rape culture we live in:

This one feels like the girl needs to learn to respect herself. How about the people posting the photo learning to respect her by say not posting the photo?

Can't bring myself to excuse #slanegirl's behaviour :/ but I hope she's learned her lesson to respect herself
— Kristine (@KristineNiland) August 20, 2013

Thankfully, this one points out that the woman being someone's daughter has little to do with not shaming her because she is a human being and should be treated with respect based on that alone. The idea that women are defined by they relationship to others is offensive, and I've written a lot about it.

Why avoid shaming #slanegirl because she's someone's daughter? We should avoid shaming her because she's a person in her own right
— mollydot (@mollydot) August 20, 2013

Shaming the woman alone. This guy's a winner. 

#slanegirl said she got "assaulted" and people are putting pictures up on the Internet? You gave a blowie in front of 83,000 people you dope
— Aaron (@AaronDonohue94) August 20, 2013

These last two are Jessica Valentia's perspective, which is pretty spot on. 

@JessicaValenti I haven't seen 1 comment 'admiring the guy,' so stop making this a gender issue through your subjective feminist view!!
— Lee Dunphy (@leed316) August 20, 2013

A hashtag shaming a teen for being sexual goes viral, but it's FEMINISM that makes it a "gender issue." Cool story. https://t.co/X0KRhw7KrB
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) August 20, 2013

Ireland ready to concede women are living people and not just breeders

Ireland is getting ready to allow abortion in certain cases where the mother’s life is in danger. So they are really, really, sorry for killing a woman for the sake of a dying fetus, and would love if the rest of the world would forget about it already. Jezebel has a piece written by Katie J.M. Baker on the whole thing.

Dr. James Reilly, the Irish health minister told The Telegraph, “…we will clarify in legislation and regulation what is available by way of treatment to a woman when a pregnancy gives rise to a threat to a woman’s life. We also will clarify what is legal for the professionals who must provide that care while at all times taking full account of the equal rights to life of the unborn child.”

Apparently, the Supreme Court rule that abortions were ok when the woman’s life was at risk back in 1992, but the government never got around to creating a law to that effect. Digest that for a moment. So now they are repealing legislation that makes abortion a criminal act and instituting regulations for when a mother’s life is at risk. The new law will comply with the Supreme Court decision and the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights from two years ago. Yeah, so there were at least two court decisions Ireland never bothered to get behind.

Risk of suicide also counts as danger to the mother, which is mind blowing because a woman in Indiana was arrest for trying to kill herself when she was pregnant citing that she tried to kill her unborn child. Wrap your mind around that. In Ireland, the Supreme Court decisions 20 years ago overturned an injunction that prevented a 14 year old girl from having an abortion in Britain. The girl was suicidal after being raped and then prevented from obtaining an abortion. But this just confused everyone and no legislation was drafted.

The Catholics are in a tizzy that the government would legalize some abortions even though they were supposed to 20 years ago. Catholic Cardinal Sean Brady and the archbishops of Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam said: “The unavoidable choice that now faces all out public representatives is: will I choose to defend and vindicate the equal right to life of a mother and the child in her womb in all circumstances, or will I choose to license the direct and intentional killing of the innocent baby in the womb?”

So, politicians may make it ok for limited reproductive choice, but remember the women are second to their unborn children. Innocence prevails over the guilty. Ironically, the Catholics believe we are born into sin with Original Sin so I’m confused. If a pregnant woman receives reconciliation and then aborts the fetus wouldn’t she be without sin or of lesser sin than the fetus? Then she could be forgiven again. I think I’m onto something here. This is how sex abuse works in the church, right?

The bishop of Kilmore Leo O’Reilly was a bit more dramatic claiming the slippery slope argument, “to a culture of death.” When it is the woman it is ok though. Naturally, some politicians (the Fine Gael Party specifically) are worried about the suicide clause. Because you know, the women folk will threaten suicide to have abortions.

I don’t suppose we could treat women like people who are valuable as people instead of just breeders? In 2012, why are we just now allowing women to obtain abortions when their lives are at risk? How do they not have a rape exemption? It will be a cold day in hell before a pregnant me goes to Ireland.