Women of Ireland - Your Saviour is Here!

I've been a fan of Geoff's blog for about a year now, ever since he started looking into the links between Youth Defence and American support (using some sort of technological magic to suss out their twitter followers and the like).

He offered to write a guest post for my blog, and here it is - an insightful exposé into the American man who will save us Irish from our biggest enemy - ourselves (with free-thought coming in at a close second).

So, enjoy and don't forget to check out his blog and follow him on twitter.

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Few can have escaped the focus gained by the abortion debate in Ireland over the past year. Caught at the intersection of old colonial laws, the softening of the Roman Catholic hierarchy's grip on Irish society and worries that we might be losing our cultural identity, efforts to provide the legal clarity required to allow doctors to save women's lives has caused widespread debate.

Newspaper columns, radio waves, TV shows and coffee break discussions have been overwhelmed by those wishing to tease out how greatly we should value the lives of women and what caveats we should place on any desire they might have to avoid death while reproducing. But fear not. A Man has come to save us from ourselves. His name is Victor Bermudez:

We are supremely blessed to have him. Not only is he a man, he is a Californian man, and having reached the age of 21 he has decided to fly all the way to Ireland (sponsored by a group that expresses their commitment to defending life by opposing vaccination in Ireland) to save Irish women from that sinister opposing group hellbent on their destruction - Irish women.

Victor Bermudez, Man, Californian, Thinker, Hero,
Saving Irish Women From Themselves

I'm sure, like me, you are amazed that this man of admittedly tender years has found the time to fully brief himself on the Irish legal system, the decades long struggle for access to contraception, the niceties of the Irish constitution and existing legislation before coming to a firm conclusion that the Irish people are wrong and must be saved from themselves. Yet we find that Ireland is not the only country that has benefited from his generosity - he also knows what's best for Spanish and Australian women too, and has tried to help them see the error of their ways by marching across their countries and blockading family planning services.

You can find his biography amidst those of his fellow Americans on Crossroads Walk Ireland's page here, with a more extensive biography here. Elsewhere he shares his thoughts on saving same sex couples from their desire to wed.

How do they help us poor Irish see the error of their ways? Unfortunately we lack the intellectual capacity to fully understand the issue on the same level they do. Thankfully they have a simple solution. In much the same way one might place a fence in front of a stairs to prevent an errant child from entering, they simply stand in front of any premises with which they disagree and block entry:

Champions of the Irish people, these fine folk save us from ourselves by blocking entrances to buildings we shouldn't be in.

Do read more from Rachel Mary about their success in blocking access to the IFPA on August 13th.

Some cynics might say that it's inappropriate for those from another country to take such sterling efforts to correct our foolish ambitions at self determination. That folk who have not spent any appreciable time in Ireland are not best equipped to decide for its citizens. Without fully understanding the depth of research performed by Victor and his friends some Irish might say that they do not have the right to fix the boundary to the march of this nation. To those I say: read their blog. You will see nuanced distinction and profound understanding of every aspect of Irish culture. Take this post, where a contributor too modest to be named discovers that 'chips' are the Irish way of saying fries. Or read how Angie correctly identifies that we Irish refer to jelly as 'jam'. And I challenge you to read Caitlin's realisation that Independence day is 'just another day' in Ireland without both misty eyes and a profound respect at their unparalleled cultural research.

Pro life, pro lats - this strapping chap on Grafton Street displays Crossroads All Ireland Pro Life Walk and Family and Life on his fine, strapping back.

Ladies, gentlemen - for too long we have been fooling ourselves with these notions of self determination. These fine folk have come all the way from America to tell us that they know better. Who are we to tell them they're wrong?

On the Menz - EWTS Conference Part 1

Note - ‘the menz’ is basically the men who like/benefit/don’t see much wrong with the patriarchy. It’s intentionally incredibly patronising, and I use it to differentiate between men as a gender identity and those who are misogynist patriarchy loving dicks. Not all men are ‘the menz’, because I would have very little hope in humanity if this were the case.

So today I was able to attend the Empowering Women Through Secularism conference in Dublin due to being offered a free student ticket by a femmo friend/blogger (check him out, he’s fab). Lots of notes were taken and I’ll do proper posts on them during the week, but there was one massively depressing point during the day. The amazing Elida Radig was speaking and saying how we need to come together as sisters and not back down when we’re told we’re too loud etc. During the questions for that session, a young woman fangirled on behalf of all of us and made the point that we, as secular feminists, shouldn’t have to *ask* feminist men to help us - if they are going to call themselves feminists, they need to be proactive about it, they need to work hard to, we shouldn’t have to *ask* to be treated with equality and respect. 

And then a man got up and said ‘not all men are like that, most of the misogyny *I* see is women being misogynistic against other women’. Classic ‘what about the menz??’ and I feel this picture is very appropriate (see also feminazi stole my ice cream).

When someone says but ‘not all [men/white people/straight people/dominant group known for oppression others] are like that’, they effectively prove that they do not get the point being made. All they heard was their group being attacked, and instead of admitting that there’s a problem, they turn on defensive mode and shift the blame. In this situation, a man attending an empowering women conference shifted the blame from men to women. Like really, why are you even here?

After the questions were over and we had a little break, I went up to the woman who had made the comment to tell her that she’s a ledge and to give her a cuterus I had drawn for her. We were mid conversation when an older woman who had been sitting in front of me came up and berated us for believing that we shouldn’t have to *ask* men who call themselves feminists to actually act like feminists. Apparently, we need to make feminism accessible for the menz so they’ll come to our side - we need to show them how the patriarchy is bad for men. I made the point that the ways the patriarchy harms men is often attributed to feminisim, a point she immediately dismissed. Basically, not only should men who call themselves feminists *not* call out their guy friends when they contribute to rape culture/lad culture/general sexism, they shouldn’t be expected to be involved in feminism unless it directly impacts them as men. They shouldn’t want to be a feminist because the patriarchy adversely affects other human beings, if they don’t know that it’s bad for them, they’ll never be involved. 

Not only was this incredibly offensive, but it was shocking too. To hear this from a woman who, I presume, identifies as a feminist, at what is a feminist and secular conference, was the last thing I had anticipated. Again, I was wondering why she was there, not because she shouldn’t be there, but because she holds views which are at such odds with feminism. She essentially told me and another young woman that our belief that male feminists should be feminists for the good of all people, not just their own gender, was wrong. That our belief that young men who are feminist and feminist allies should be active, regardless of whether that activism is directly impacting their lives as men, is wrong. That we, as secular feminists, need to make room in feminism for men. And despite the truly wonderful day and all the amazing, inspirational speakers, I left the conference slightly more disillusioned than when I walked in that morning.