Category Archives: Activism and Agitation

If I can’t have My Reproductive Rights, then it’s not My Revolution.

Activism and Agitation

“Feminism is nonnegotiable.” Margaret Cho

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Twitter is something I use just about every day, I enjoy the engagement, the information streams and the sharing of things which I think are important and need changing. I usually ignore the number of followers, cos frankly if I think about it, I get self conscious. Often blogging and being on twitter for me, is something I do in the ‘dance like no one is watching’ mindset. Now and then things happen which make me go, woah! one of those things was happened last night and this was it.

Capture

But I don’t know if many people here in Ireland are aware of Margaret Cho, her work, her comedy, music, writing and activism. For me she is a like minded soul and someone who has made me feel less alone in the world. On the surface it would appear we have very little in common, she is after all Korean American but it was her bawdy sense of humor as a comedian, brought her to my notice, and the shared narrative of being a fat, feminist, sex positive, queer outspoken woman has me me revere her. She is the first person I think of when people (usually guys) say women aren’t funny or good as comedians.

Her comedy breaks down barriers, it is kick ass, sex positive, feminist, taboo breaking, queer, irreverent. Every tour is about what is going on in her life, as she strives to be who she is, not who the world, or her cultures or media says she should be. Her last tour in Dublin was 2003 it was the Revolution tour. Her current tour is Mother but there doesn’t seem to be plans for her to come and play here unfortunately.

There are feminist comedians which I think are wonderful like Joan Rivers and Lily Tomlin but I would not consider them to be of a same generation as me but Margaret Cho is. She also grew up in a Gay bookshop in San Francisco so the fact she is openly bisexual (and will make the point of saying so esp due to the fact she has a husband) and is a LGBT activist/advocate is not surprising.

There is a wonderful series of short interviews with here here:
http://on.aol.com/video/margaret-cho–sexism-still-exists-518011313

I know she is not everyone’s cup of tea, there are people who don’t understand why she would do a burlesque act tour or that would not be comfortable about how explicitly she talks about certain topics, but there is no way for me not to adore her, esp as she wrote my favorite song about oral sex called “Eat me out” which she preforms unabashedly.

 

http://margaretcho.com/
https://twitter.com/margaretcho
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Cho

Activism and Agitation

May is the month of M…….

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May is the month of Mental health awareness and Masturbation*.

NationalMasturbationMonth2 Mental-Health-Ribbon-148x150
The fact that both these causes are being celebrated in May makes me happy as I do believe that they are very much intertwined. Our brains are the biggest sex organs we have, it is not surprising then, that our mental health impacts on our sexual health and our sexual well being impacts on our mental and emotional well being.

I do believe that you the best way to learn to be a good lover is to start with yourself. That masturbation should be mentioned as part of sex and sexuality education. Often people’s sexual hang ups can start with themselves and how masturbation is spoken about or more often not spoken about.

The right to sex and sexuality eduction, contraception, information about safer sex and to not be stigmatized for our sexuality, are important and when we don’t have access to these or when our choices are not respected it has a negative impact.

Today also sees the a launch of the International Planned Parenthood Federation campaign to have such rights placed in part of the goals for 2020.

“We want a world where all women, men and young people have access to the sexual and reproductive health information and services they need; a world in which sexuality is recognised both as a natural and precious aspect of life and as a fundamental right; a world in which choices are fully respected, and where stigma and discrimination have no place. This vision must be realised within a context of sustainable development that seeks to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” said the IPPF, a global network of 152 member associations working in more than 170 countries.

This is also a big issue for those of us who are Queer, LGBT and those who are asexual. When people expect others to live in a certain way or conform and the mainstream narrative and services do not include us it causes stress. Finding counselors, drs, therapists who are alt/queer friendly with whom you can go see and not have to educate them is difficult.

Loving yourself means accepting yourself and finding joy in who you are, be it in self pleasure or sexual expression. I honestly do think that if more people were having daily orgasms they and the world would be in better shape.

Knowledge is power, and we dis empower people when we deny who they are and deny them information, education and access to the services they need.

The Slogan the IPPF are using the slogan “I Decide” which is all about empowerment, to call for sexual and reproductive health and rights to be adopted by the UN and are asking for us all to sign their petition to make it happen. http://www.ippf.org/vision2020 I have signed it I hope you will too.

Wether you do it before or after some stress relieving self loving is up to yourself.

*Yes the title of the blog post was totally intentional, how many of ye ended up with that hymn in your head? “May is the month of Mary, month we all love so well….” how to spot those of a a certain generation who had an irish catholic education. You may confess in the comments 🙂
Activism and Agitation, Press

One week on from telling my story @Ireland.

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This time last week I was curating the @Ireland account. It is a twitter account which changes curator each week. I had applied for the account before Christmas and was chosen for the week of February the 10th to the 17th. The plan was to talk about the things which I am passionate about, to get people to talk about their passions to talk about love spells, our Irish God of Love. I am a pretty diverse person, so I knew I would have a lot to talk about.

My first tweet on the Monday morning was “Hello World”, delighted me to do as it’s a old coding joke. My bio on the account read “pagan, feminist, activist, gamer, geek, and a parent with two teenagers.” From Monday morning up until early Thursday afternoon I hadn’t tweeted anything which was pro choice or Abortion Rights Campaign related. Then I RT some of the Irish Family Planing Association, tweets about their safer sex workshops in colleges.

I got replies from what I assume are anti abortion people slamming the IFPA, I didn’t address anyone in particular, but I did state that I was Pro Choice, had an abortion myself and worked with the Abortion Rights Campaign. The furor and outrage this caused was considerable.

I did my best to ignore it and get on with my day and the topics I had intended on talking about.
But the tweets kept coming, none of them addressing me directly but discussing what I had said including @Ireland. I got my kids to bed and looked at the tweets and I had already decided that
I would talk about my involvement with ARC, and was going to mention it late Thursday so that it
did not become the focus of my use of the account. But the shaming language being used to hopefully silence me made me mad.

Irish women generally don’t say I had an abortion, and they don’t tell their story often.
And when we do hear stories they are about women have been raped, or who have died, or have cancer or a pregnancy with fatal fetal abnormalities. We don’t tend to hear from women who say
I didn’t want to be a parent, it wasn’t the right time for me to have a baby. Women who make that Choice. That choice which to some is unacceptable, unforgivable and selfish, and they say that loudly.

So just after 10:35pm last Thursday, I having asked a few friends to be online if I needed them for moral support I started to tell my story. That I was in secondary school when the X case happened, to finding out I was pregnant, having to travel, what that was like, coming home, keeping secrets, supporting other women who needed access to information and support when they came home. To my dismay at the national poster campaign which was around the country in July 2012 and how that brought pro choice people together and finding commonality and solidarity.

The mainstream media don’t cover stories like mine, I am unrepentant about having had an abortion, my only regret is that I had to travel and the extra stress that caused.
Mostly online I had an out pouring of support, people who were listening and thanked me.
I would say less then 10% of the tweets I got were negative or abusive, and they only came from a small number of people.

When I signed off Thursday evening from the @Ireland account the number of followers were up, it was a relief that they didn’t go down but they had actually gone up. I knew I had broken taboos and the silence and refused to be shamed and stigmatized. I was happy I told my story on my terms, I didn’t expect what happened next.

What happened next was news outlets picked up on the story, my story and published pieces on it.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/82271/woman-takes-over-ireland-twitter-account-and-tells-powerful-story-about-her-abortion

http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201402150020-0023477
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-26224885

http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/irish-woman-tweets-about-abortion-to-raise-awareness/

And then the Swedish National Broadcaster got in touch for an interview for their leading current affairs program and this happened.
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/vu-sur-le-web/20140218.OBS6773/une-irlandaise-trouve-le-courage-de-raconter-son-avortement-sur-twitter.html

The same french paper who printed Simone de Bouvir’s Manifesto of the 343, about her abortion and the women who signed it, printed my story.

It hasn’t all been unconditional support there was an article today which slated me
http://www.catholic.org/hf/family/story.php?id=54291 questioned my Choice, my Sanity, my Spirituality. Pretty much displaying the type of rhetoric which is used to shame and silence people. That isn’t going to work on me but then again it’s not aimed at me, it’s aimed at stopping another woman or more women from sharing their stories.

Invisible people have invisible rights, I know I am one of 150,000 people who traveled to the UK for an abortion, I know aprox 12 women day travel to the UK and others travel to Belgium or Holland and there are some who don’t have the money or the option to travel and risk the 14 years jail sentence as per the new law, by talking the abortion pill.

Until people can speak out with out fear or shame, it will be an uphill struggle to force change
and to repeal the 8th amendment, because until that is done we can not legislate for the abortion rights most of the people in this country agree we should have. Never mind those who make the Choice for the same reasons I did.

Some of the most moving things I have seen this week, are tweets from women to me with just two words, just saying “Thank You”. Just two words but they convey so much and seeing people I am
friends with on Facebook linking to the BBC article and saying “I am Janet, I had an abortion”.

There has been international media coverage, as well as coverage from, the UK, France and the USA but as of yet none by Irish media. I can’t say this surprises me. 20 years ago RTE commissioned a documentary in which 3 women told their stories. It was considered to controversial to show. To this day it has never been screened.

It will be screened by the Abortion Rights Campaign on the 1st of March. This is the trailer
it features 3 women who were as brave as me 20 years ago but no one got to hear them.

promo 50,000 from hilary dully on Vimeo.

There are limited seats for the screening, if you want to see it, you will have to book a ticket.
http://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/2014/02/14/too-loud-a-silence-abortion-and-censorship-in-irish-media/

I have been called infamous, notorious, selfish, immoral, misguided, brave, honest;
but I can but my hand on my heart and say, I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to tell my story.

Activism and Agitation

Abortion Support Network takes it’s 1,000th call.

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Abortion Support Network is run by a group of volunteers and is a registered charity. They take calls from people in Ireland who need to travel to the UK for an abortion and can’t afford to.

They offer help & support, from a place to say to a grant towards the cost. Needless to say with austerity they have had many more desperate people ringing them.

They recently took their 1,000 call. 1,000th desperate pregnant people have rang to talk to a complete stranger to beg for money so that they could try to travel to the UK. They have already done things like, returned presents, not payed bills, sold what ever they could to try and raise the money.

Abortion Support Network can only help if it keeps getting donations. The Abortion Rights Campaign has often had collections to try and help, there were donation buckets at the March4choice after party. But if you can please consider donating to Abortion Support Network over the next few months. You never know when someone you know might need their help.

https://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/get-help

Please call, text or email us to get more information, or discuss your circumstances:

Phone: +44 (0) 7897 611593

Please leave a message and we will call you back if there is no one to answer when you call.

Email: info@abortionsupport.org.uk