There are times I am forced into English and times I am forced into religion. This post must be written in English. It bothers me but it is necessary. A time will come when it is not, I hope.
Let’s talk about consent.
What? You taught us we have no choice and now you are blaming us for not telling you our choice, for not screaming aloud? We are not allowed to scream aloud. We have no choice. You taught us that, Ireland!
This weekend I am getting greetings of Happy Easter and I will reply in kind. The ones accompanied by crosses will be a trigger to me. They remind me of the almighty power of the church in Ireland that has me in exile. I have no objections to religions that respect human rights. I embrace a love of nature and genuine friendships. I find solace in sacred spaces; not ones people have told me I must respect, but those I discover. Inside, mostly I’m screaming. A long scream that is held in place and covered up with moments of genuine happiness. I keep busy because I must. Stopping and thinking about reality breaks the mask of life being grand.
SILENT SCREAMS
Mostly this post will not be my words but others’. Because I do not scream alone. I have heard the stories of those who silently scream too. I am NOT an exception. I am the rule. They don’t burn witches any more in Ireland but they have other ways to keep women down. To make our lives a waking hell. The important thing to remember in all of this is that when we start talking about consent to women in Ireland, that is a foreign concept. We have been groomed by a culture that lets us know strongly that WOMEN HAVE NO CHOICE. Men dominate. We understand that is how it is. We are screaming inside.
Not just in Ireland. Of course. In movies, in novels, in business, in church, in schools etc. But boy, in Ireland we sometimes even beat Saudi Arabia! Think it has changed? I watch my nieces go through the same crap I went through. Some of it is global. An American corporation telling one highly educated niece what to wear and the suitable length of a skirt. Another bound by an Irish education system that will never give her a choice on whether or not to teach religion. Be honest. People know. You need to say you are on board with ethos to get a job. To be clear, she has no objection to that. I do. It silences all those around her from criticism of the church for fear she won’t get a job.
BUT, it was the Belfast Rugby Rape Case that did us in. We who have lived through horrors of Magdalenes, Lovett, Tuam Babies, Savita, thinking each time that this will change everything.
So, strap in. Here we go. Some required reading to understand why we are screaming inside follows. Thank you to all who shared your stories, triggered by a court system that just made all of us go through the pain of rape again. Thousands of us. That’s what you did, guys below, when you denied your guilt:
That broke us in desperation. That sent us a message that was chilling as bedamned. It told us us we are damned. And we are, in Ireland: north, south, east, west, midlands, everywhere in a cruel patriarchal system.
‘The trial was on a par with the rape, but I’m glad I testified’
The trial is another rape. Instead of helping a woman heal, it rapes her again in public.
UNDERSTAND THIS!
Those of you who believe in the law and think it is to be respected, UNDERSTAND THIS!
We are damned by laws that enable rapists and humiliate and ruin the lives of those who dare to challenge their rapists in the court of law. You have trampled on all women and we are angry as all hell. You condemn us and all women and girls to a life where we can be used and abused and know there is no point in protesting that. You are not alone in your guilt, lads. The whole legal system is guilty with you and my contempt for the judge is MASSIVE! What she allowed and how she steered it is unbelievably cruel. The final nail in crucifying the victim is referring to the group above as decent. Did she ever refer once to the victim as decent? How bloody brave that rape victim was!
Tá an córas lofa, ní amháin in Éirinn.
Féach anseo
Judges fail miserably to communicate properly to jurors. They make matters worse.
Right, Twitter, do your stuff. Here’s reality.
We live with the guilt of not protecting other people from those who raped us. Because NO ONE is protecting women from those rapists (or children from child molesters for that matter, in a country that gives the whole education to an organization that protects child molesters, for God’s sake!). If we try, we will be raped in another manner in court. If we don’t, we live with trauma and guilt and frustration ALL OUR LIVES. We scream inside. The Handmaid’s Tale hit home strongly. The men who hurt us do not feel guilty. We do. The victims do! That is seriously screwed up and torturous.
WE NEVER HAD CHOICE
The fact that we can only change things by a referendum is sick and a remnant of Mc Quaid’s cruel strategy to keep his tyranny alive supplying him (and priests after him) with young boys and keeping women shut up. We should NOT have to march and work so hard for rights. That’s insane! They are rights. We should have them. The government FAILS in not giving them to us. The whole system is utterly corrupt. By keeping us in this constant fight for basic rights we lose the chance to contribute to our country in so many other positive ways!
Consent? The law tells us our bodies are not ours, for God’s sake!
The following is from this article
Consent? YOU STOLE THAT FROM US, Irish State of Mc Quaid!!! Theocracy of Ireland.
Until every guard who kept Magdalenes locked up instead of helping them is prosecuted, until every school and hospital is free of the church, until every politician and church member who aided the theocracy is prosecuted, until church land is seized and church and state separated, until we get quotas of 50% women in government, until we have human rights instead of ethos in out constitution, until we put all criminals in jail, until we treat mass murder of children as the diabolical crime that it is and prosecute those who did that and allowed that, we will not be free. We will have no choice and Irish women will be damned. As they are now.
Because it always has been a fight against the church and patriarchy.
No one is government is willing to see what is most obvious and deal with it. But WE MUST! Separate Church and State everywhere! Ethos is a cruel excuse for oppression. Choosing rights and justice instead of patriarchal domination is the only chance for freedom, the only escape from the eternal hell of internal screams. Empire is male. Whether under the control of the British Empire in the north or the Vatican Empire in the south, we are not free.
So, while we silently scream, will even one politician or one party stand up and say they will separate Church and State? That they will make all criminals accountable? Until then, you can talk all you like but you are all screwing us and we did not consent to that.
Féach ar seo
agus seo ar fad.
