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Going out to lunch on international women’s day.
It’s international women’s day so I went out to lunch with the woman who has inspired me the most, my Mam.
She had 5 kids and in the 80s when my Dad was not working she went out to work and he became the stay at home Dad. When having a gang of kids and a husband with so many illnesses he was eventually given a disability classification, she found she wasn’t coping she went and sought out counseling and took on parenting classes and certified to give to classes to other parents who were struggling.
We have had some spectacular falling out over the years, she’s not always agreed with my choices but she always loved me and tried to be there for me, to encourage and support me.
I am very grateful that we are at the stage in our relationship that we talk together as women and no longer just mother and daughter. So I rang her up this morning and we went for lunch to celebrate international women’s day and to talk about life and the world entire.
Some of her words of wisdom.
“Ireland is a young country, we are not 100 years old yet as a nation and a society, we are growing and hopefully soon we will reach the sort of maturity that brings with it acceptance.
Acceptance of the choices grown adults make about their lives and with that making sure they all have the same rights and access to what ever serves they need. And why shouldn’t gay people get married, it’s about love, why shouldn’t they have a blessing and a ring and a cert just like everyone else?
That this acceptance will hopefully throw away the restrictions due to gender, people can do so many things, people need to be given the opportunities to do those things, to develop their talents and never be told they can’t because they are a man or a woman.
Hands have no gender and working together we can make the world better for the generations to come, but it has to start at looking at and naming inequality. Women have to work harder then men to prove themselves and that is not fair and it holds women back. It is moving forward, there is change but we have to make sure we work to make it happen.
And to change society it’s not about talking to people ‘in power’ it is about conversations with people, everyday people, talking about why things are the way they are and how they could be different I have seen a lot of change in my life time and I hope to see a lot more.”
She likes to say I am more like my Dad then her but honestly some things I certainly got from her, I didn’t lick it off a stone!
Why write this today and not on Mother’s day, cos this is about the woman I know who happens to be my mother, a woman I respect and admire who is my friend and more then just my Mammy.
World Book Day 2013: Where I found Feminsim.
I was reading about the rise of the teenage feminist today and while I didn’t have the internet at that age I had books, these two in particular had a huge impact. My Mam got them for me when I was 15, they were bundled together on a stall outside a secondhand bookshop and were a bargain she couldn’t pass.
The first is Never Jam Today by Carole Bolton, it deals with the struggle for women suffrage in the USA. The main protagonist is Maddy Franklin is a seventeen-year-old middle-class girl in 1917.
She gets swept up in the tides of change, between her arch conservative father and her activist aunt, it tells of her leafleting and picketing, and even being arrested and held in appalling conditions; going on hunger strike and being forced fed, all cos she wanted to be able to vote and choose her own future. This period in American history was later made into the film Iron Jawed Angels. It made me aware of suffrage and how women world wide fought to get the right to vote and to throw off the restrictions of having to be ‘Ladylike’.
The second is C. C. Poindexter by Carolyn Meyer written in 1982 about a 15 year old who’s parents are getting divorced and how much her world is changing for her, from hitting 6ft in height and all the self consciousness and not fitting in that brings, to her mother setting up her own business and her father getting re married. The only unchanging constant in her life is her aunt, who she previously didn’t have much time for, but is an ardent activist feminist.
When I read this book I had never seen the feminist symbol of the clenched raised fist within the female gender sign. The description on it on her aunts van was hard to figure out what it was and the slogan with it was “up from under” it was several years later that I saw the icon and then it made sense. Her aunt talks about feminism to her and so do her aunt’s friends when she spends time with them, in an easy and accessible way; even if C.C. could not bring herself to read The Feminine Mystique, I managed to do so after ordering it into the local library.
C.C.’s story is not as dramatic as Maddy’s, but they are both trying to find out who they are and what they want to do with their lives in face of their worlds changing. Each of them figuring out that no one else has the right to define them or make decisions for them.
In an Ireland which only had suffragette and women’s libbers it was the stories of two American girls living at either end of the same century which introduced me to feminism.
World Book Day 2013
There are a series of World Book Days which happen around the world, here in Ireland we celebrate it on the first Thursday of March, which is today.
I have mentioned how in searching out about my name I ended up reading lots and lots about the witchcraft trials but the first book I ever read with the goal of starting to work towards becoming a witch myself was, A Witch Alone by Marion Green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Witch_Alone
A Witch Alone is the best-known book by the prolific pagan author Marian Green. Subtitled Thirteen moons to master natural magic, it is a teach-yourself course for people wanting to rediscover and follow the path of the old village witch or cunning man.
The witchcraft described in the book differs from modern Wicca in two main ways. Firstly it is solitary rather involving participation in covens. In this respect it is similar to paths advocated by authors such as Rae Beth and Scott Cunningham. Secondly it avoids complex rituals for a greater emphasis on the natural magic of the old crafts and contact with nature.
Originally published in 1991 by The Aquarian Press, the latest edition, still in print, is from Thorsons (2002).
I got my copy when I was 17, so a little over 20 years ago, it made me look within and without in different ways and ask so many questions. It also I think is why I separate witchcraft from Wicca so easily, from the start I knew anyone could become a witch by themselves but Wicca was a priesthood you have to be brought into.
It is still a book I recommend to people who are starting out and want something helpful and practical which is overly academic.
21 years of Delay, the ActiononX Rally
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
This appeared in my social media feeds over the last week, I’ve tried to track down who’s work it is, as it is a wonderful piece. If you know, do let me know.
It succinctly makes the point about single mother’s which I mentioned in my piece about The Snapper and Ireland’s attitudes to “unmarried mothers” and unplanned pregnancy..
Connecting with Pro Choice people on the Streets of Dublin
Last Saturday the 2nd of March as part of the 10 days of Action which is part of the
Abortion Rights Campaign I was doing my bit by taking to the streets to help run a stall and hand out leaflets.
Basic street politics, and I must admit it has been a while from when I last did that sort of activity, I’ve had a busy few months taking part in meetings,photo ops, rallies and marches but I hadn’t stood handing leaflets.
Specifically these leaflets for the Action on X rally
So I was a little apprehensive about doing thing and what reaction I may get and then I watched Amanda Palmer’s Ted talk. In which she talks about connecting with people and part of the talk was about her 5 years of being a living statue and connecting with strangers on the streets and how it was about eye contact.
You can watch it here if your interested. http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking.html
So get out to hand out leaflets and make connections with people, I’ve found it easier to be upbeat when you have some theme music for the day, mine was baby elephant walk which always makes me smile, so with a song in my heart and a smile on my face I was ready to reach out to people.
I stood at the underpass of the Central Bank as people passed through heading to Dame St or Temple bar, it was a busy enough afternoon. I held up my stack of leaflets in one hand so people could read them as they pass and offered one for them to take with the other. Some people didn’t take one but read what I was holding in passing.
I had one group of American tourists tell me I was going to hell, but 7 other American tourists over the two hours I was there told me to keep up the good work. I had some parents steer their children away from me and some quietly take a leaflet form when where they kids had passed me by.
We all have our preconceptions about who is interested in abortion rights, but I had has many young men take leaflets as young women and they were more inclined to stop and talk.
I had one old man admonish me for handing out the leaflet stopping to block me from people passing by and tapping my hand down which was handing out leaflets, while saying “You do know abortion is murder, dear” I told him I disagreed and went to hand out leaflets again and again he tapped my hand down, like I was a naughty child saying ” But dear women who have abortions are murderers” I told him that if he touched me again I would consider it assault and that calling me a murderer was slander. He walked on telling me I was going to hell.
I had several older women talk leaflet and stop to talk to me. One asked me quite bluntly “is this about Abortion” not being sure how the exchange would go I explained the rally is to get X Case legislation in place, as it has been over 20 years and we still don’t have legislation. “Good” She replied and asked were we working for more rights as those who have been raped should have the right to an abortion, I was happy to tell her that yes the Abortion Rights Campaign is working towards securing that right for those who need it.
I had another older woman take the leaflet, stand reading it and say ” Tomorrow is it?” I replied yes “Great, I don’t do the internet thing, but I will let my girls know, can I have some more of those?” So I handed her 5 more leaflets.
Over all I had mostly positive encounters with people smiling, giving me a thumbs up or waving a leaflet they had gotten from one of the volunteers, so the next time I take to the pavements it will be with a lot less trepidation as I did feel that the majority of people I encountered were pro choice bearing out the recent polls.