Oh Do Shut Up, Dear: The Silencing of Women in Public Life

An all male panel make a presentation. A woman in the room spots some gaps in their argument and seeks clarity. Her questions are interpreted as a threat and attempts are made to silence her. She is spoken over, sneered at and ultimately shouted at for a sustained period of time, by another man in the room, without any intervention from the [male] chair.

Afterwards one of the people present expresses outrage to a colleague that someone could be treated so disgracefully on their organisations’ premises. To which the colleague responds, “If she had kept her mouth shut she wouldn’t have been subjected to a barrage of abuse. She provoked them [the men]”. The message is clear. A man, or group of men, can shout at and subject a woman to a barrage of verbal abuse but it is not the mens' behaviour that comes under scrutiny, but the woman’s.

The woman, in this case, was me and the conversation was relayed to me by the person who initiated it. The discourse is instructive. There is no attempt to deny that the behaviour of the men was “disgraceful”, rather the prevailing social transgression was deemed that of a woman, first speaking out, and then refusing to be silenced when attempts were made to do so. For exhibiting such willful disobedience, I deserved, in this person’s mind, to be punished, taught a lesson. It is all the more galling (though sadly not surprising) to know that this person was a woman, who unlike me, chooses to acquiesce to gender biased social mores.

The fact that I wasn’t deterred from my line of questioning and attempts to silence me were thwarted does not diminish the actions. Being on the receiving end of snide, rude remarks and being spoken over is never pleasant. It forces the person into, either submission/silence or having to exercise uncharacteristic rigour in ensuring they are heard. It’s a no win situation. You’re either cast as a mouse or “strident” or “combative”.

When I watched the esteemed Mary Beard’s incisive lecture, "Oh Do Shut Up Dear", on BBC4 last week, I recognized the irony. Her lecture addressed the historical aversion to women being afforded a voice in the public sphere. For example, In Homer’s The Odyssey, written around three thousand years ago, Telemachus tells his mother Penelope: “Go back to your quarters… Speech will be the business of men, all men, and of me most of all, for mine is the power in the household.”

In the early 4th Century BC, Aristophanes wrote a comedy about women taking over the running of the state. The men thought it was uproarious, since women were “unable to speak properly in public.” In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Zeus turns one female character into a cow therein reducing all her utterances to “moo.” Zeus’ wife, Hera, punishes Echo, by reducing her speech to that of repeating what others say.

Women remain silenced and gagged in modern life. The emergence of social media has turned the abuse of outspoken women into a veritable past time for some. Caroline Criado Perez’s recent success in securing a female head on a bank note incurred the wrath of Twitter’s thriving misogyny community. Death and rape threats were her comeuppance for not knowing her place. For the audacity of having a voice and daring to use it, and with such powerful effect.
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Beard recounted her own experiences of abuse. When she objected to an abusive tweet she replied that she was “gobsmacked,” by one male commentator’s behaviour. He responded, "The misogyny is truly gobsmacking," she whined.” The same commentator, she said, runs a “lighthearted” sideline. A contest to find “…the most stupid woman to appear on Question Time.”

I’ve documented my own experiences of death threats in the past. To some, a woman with a voice is the equivalent of storming the pentagon with a Kalashnikov. Wielding such a lethal weapon makes her a threat to civilization as we know it. Brutal force, including water boarding, should not be ruled out in a bid to disarm women found to be in possession of a voice, especially where there is known intent to use it.

*Are you struggling to find your voice/inner kalashnikov? If so & you’re a woman, I’m now scheduling dates for another women’s empowerment course. A number of you have been in touch asking me to run another one, which I’m now doing. For anyone who hasn’t been in touch before, if you contact me via my website contact page I’d be very grateful (tessfinchlees.com).

It's St Patrick's Day: There'll be Humour & Heartache in Equal Measure

[A more evocative/historical piece I wrote for the Huffington Post was published today. Variations thereof were also published in US outlets].

Fifty years ago signs such as, “No blacks, dogs or Irish” were commonplace. Nowadays, [well behaved] Irish and dogs are welcome in most British establishments.

As recounted previously, before I left my native Dublin to live in the UK I took elocution lessons and words like “feck” were banished from my vocabulary. I dyed my carrot red hair black and reduced my daily alcohol intake from 10 to 8.5 pints. You won’t find U2 or The Script on my ipod. I changed my name from Mary Gobnit O’Reilly to the more British sounding Tess (short for Tessandra) Finch-Lees. My assimilation was complete.

As a people we Irish have learned to lighten up a little. Not take ourselves so seriously. In the past we would be incensed at acts of oppression and injustice. The literary elite would compete to capture the political pulse of the people. Each vying for a place in history with arty alliteration and perennially portentous prose (what can I say, it’s in the blood).

The Irish genius for creativity didn’t stop at the door of literature. Their ingenuity knew no bounds when it came to circumventing the 17th century equivalent of austerity measures, known as the penal laws. Just as today, the penal laws provided a legal framework to steal from the poor for the benefit of the rich. The tax on chimneys was resisted by making a fire in the middle of the room. The tax on outbuildings saw animals brought into the house and tethered to the wall. We resisted glass tax, or tax on light, by using horse placenta and splitting doors in two, hence the expression, “day light robbery”.

You need look no further than Kilburn to see the Irish solution to the bedroom tax. It involves minor demolition and open plan sleeping.

Contemporary Irish culture is exported in more palatable packaging. Focusing on personal relationships rather than political angst. Maeve Binchy is the literary equivalent of freshly baked soda bread, smothered in artery hardening butter and homemade jam, washed down with a nice cup of Barry’s tea.

Whilst Father Ted embodied a more anarchic, 7 pints of Guinness washed down by a Jameson chaser, approach to exposing cultural warts, Mrs Brown’s Boys is more a cocktail of mind altering drugs mashed up with boiled bacon and cabbage.

Humour is part of Irish DNA and, historically, has been a powerful bulwark against heartache. But, when the pain of a people is so palpable, jocularity sometimes demeans it.

There are haunting resonances between the Ireland of the past and present. A profusion of People begging in the streets, half built houses abandoned and boarded up. Rural towns, once vibrant are now jaded and deserted. Young people yet again are leaving in their droves to seek gainful employment abroad.

The window tax has been replaced by a roof tax. Anyone lucky enough to be able to keep their home is being punitively taxed for that. The burden of austerity is hitting the poorest the hardest. Ordinary Irish people have their begging bowls out again. The St Vincent De Paul occupying the role of soup kitchen for the homeless and destitute.

If ever there was a time for the Irish to recapture the spirit of defiance, employed so effectively by our ancestors, now would be it.

RIP Tony Benn

The last of the British conviction politicians died on Friday. Reading his diaries it’s clear that Tony Benn was driven, not by personal ambition, but by political conviction and clarity of vision. He never wavered, never compromised, never lost his way, ethically or politically.

He resisted Labour’s courtship of corporations and refused to prostitute his principles in a bid for power. He doggedly opposed the re branding of “New Labour” & recognised it as a sinister sop to the right & a betrayal of the working classes. He remained true to his values to the end.

His words & presence were always inspiring. I’ve chosen just one quote (below) but would highly recommend his incisive, warm, wise & witty diaries:

"For our greatest enemy is the fear that our opponents seek to instil in our minds to force us to accept the unacceptable, and so to paralyse our will and render us incapable of thinking out the alternative or working to bring it about,"

He added: "We all have it in our power to deny them that victory and to establish a better society by our own efforts, provided that we remember our own history and the lessons of unity and courage that it teaches us."

The loss of Tony Benn leaves a gaping hole at the heart of [what’s left of ] British democracy. He'll be sadly missed.

Co-Op Trust: A Positive Petition

The following petition is available to sign in Gwythers, Simpsons & the library in Bishops Castle:

“We, the undersigned, note from Appendix B of the consultation documents that it is currently proposed that the community “Trust Forum” will only be allowed to elect 3 Trust Board Members compared to the 4 External Partner Trust Board Members. We would like to express our support for the proposed Co-Operative Trust but only if the proposals are amended so that External Partner Board Members can never outnumber Trust Forum Board Members.”

After just a couple of hours on Saturday, 5 of us managed to secure 100 signatures.

The diagram on the back of the petition, taken from the consultation materials, sets out the situation very clearly. The trust is made up of 3 distinct groups; Schools (of which there would be only 3 full members), each one entitled to 2 votes, Trust forum (made up of the diverse range of community interest groups), which is entitled to 3 votes in total & External partners (there’s no cap on numbers & the intention has been expressed to invite private industry) who are entitled to a vote each. Given the diagram states that one of the roles of the Trust forum is to hold the other two (schools & external partners) to account, that task is rendered impossible. With just 3 votes they’ll always be in the minority.

This is being sold as being based on Co-Op principles of equity, fairness & democracy. Amending the distribution of votes to reflect this is the first test. I flagged this inequity on the local radio this morning but the 2 heads seemed to be confusing the issue. They argued that school votes would ensure external votes could never have the upper hand.

The school vote is not part of the community, even in their own materials, so to conflate the two appears to be misleading & disingenuous, albeit unintentionally. Their separation is crucial, not least because, should a school, or schools become dependent on any private sponsors, their ability to vote against said sponsor is compromised. That’s one good reason why the Trust forum is separate & needs enough teeth to safeguard the interests of the community.

One of the heads said on the radio that this isn't about finances. The other one in the same interview indicated it was. At the public consultation meeting the heads announced that the local authority funding was drying up and the words "jump before we're pushed" were used. As one of you commented in my previous blog, the communications on this are as clear as mud.

Why do the heads continue to package schools as part of the "trust forum" & why the apparent resistance to concede that the Trust forum is stand alone & needs as many votes as external partners in order to be effective in safeguarding community interests?

Apologies to my overseas followers for the recent UK centric entries, although galvanising community democracy is a globally relevant endeavour.