So Roderic O’Gorman, Memet Uludag and TJ Clare are known to be Prochoice.
So Ruth Copperinger and Louise Bayliss are known to be Prochoice.
If you have any more info about candidates, leave a comment or catch me on twitter.
Tag Archives: feminism
Voting Prochoice in your local Elections.
This is very hard to do it seems. Each county Council is meant to have a list online of candidates who are running and how to contact them. But from talking to friends, it’s spotty at best.
However as I have stated in my other blog it is easier for us to try and communicate with them and to pool resources with each other to ask the questions we think are important and that for me is who is ProChoice. If two candidates are weighing up for me equally this will be the decider, or may rule out someone who other wise I would vote for.
So here is a link to a list of all the candidates I could find who are running in the local elections and how to contact them.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E386rHzLnsrlaejUzin63ImWBfOb8APm7xMCkcrUsfY/edit?usp=sharing
Also that really well funded lobby group had the time and resources to get a bunch of local election candidates to sign thier pledge, so here’s the list of who not to vote for https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B954SdlrGC2lc1dQVkN0cmtLN2s/edit?usp=sharing
I will be doing a round up of the EU Candidates tomorrow.
Why I am Voting Prochoice!
This week I will be voting in the Eu elections, local elections and a by election in Dublin West.
So why am I asking Candidates to the EU parliament, if they are pro choice?
Policies set in the EU parliament effect us here in Ireland and it is to the EU court of human rights Irish women have to go again and again to try and get access to the health care we need in our own country. Currently there is report, called the Estrela, which sought to make clear that reproductive rights are human rights and
the importance of making contraception widely available, comprehensive sex education and quality family planning services. It also says that women have the right to decide freely and responsibly the number, timing and spacing of their children and underlines the importance of safe abortions.
http://reproductiverights.org/en/press-room/EU-parliament-fails-to-back-women-rights
It was rejected by an anti-choice alliance, will the candidate you are voting for join that anti choice alliance or will they work in Europe on your behalf to ensure that Ireland moves to give women the health care we the need here?
So why am I asking Candidates in the local elections if they are pro choice?
The majority of candidates who are running the local elections to be members of the County Council are members of political parties. They get to have input to party policy and to the debates and discussion which happen before a party adopts a stance on any issue. Often those who get elected to the County Council go on to seek election to the Dáíl, so it’s good to know what their stance is.
Also over the last 12 months we have seen County Councils passing motions in support of a referendum on the issue of Marriage Equality, hopefully we will see County Councils passing motions in support of a referendum to Repeal the 8th Amendment.
So why am I asking Candidates in the by elections if they are pro choice?
The Dáil is one of our legislative bodies, we have seen the how important it is when we have has several bills come to be voted upon in the Dáil chamber that our elected representatives be willing to vote in accordance with the wishes of the people who elected them. We need to let them know we are pro choice, that we will not wait 20 more years for the next abortion legislation and we do not want them to wait either.
So why I am Voting Prochoice ?
Because I don’t ever want to give any preference to someone who thinks women like me who have had abortions are murders, who think that they can be the gate keeper to the abortion rights which the majority of people in Ireland agree we should have. I do not want any one who thinks it is ok for women to have to travel to get the health care they need to be voted in to a position of any significance via my vote.
Voting and why I do it.
I have mentioned before that I read this book around the same time I became a teenager.
It is the story of the fight for women’s suffrage in the USA. It made me aware of the countless hours women of many generations worked so hard for to get the right to vote some suffered horribly in vile prisons and some even died.
Women in Ireland did not have the Vote until 1928.
Yep 1928 which means we have not had the right to Vote yet for a 100 years.
Suffragettes including our most famous ones Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington seemed to think once women had the Vote the world would be radically changed as we would be then equal with men and able to change laws and make the world and the country a fairer place.
While I think if those brave ladies were to travel forward in time there are many things they would be pleased with but I do not think that the level social change and ‘equality’ would be something they would be happy with.
Women having the Vote did give us a certain amount of power but as we all know well now it was not the Pancea for all ills the suffragette had hoped it would be. But that does not mean it won’t be as we move forward and with the internet making it easier for us to communicate and collate information, making an informed choice and being informed on whom to vote for has gotten easier.
Every time I get a polling card with my name on it I think of the women who dedicated themselves in the fight to get women the right to Vote and didn’t live to get to Vote themselves. 86 years of having the Vote, I don’t think women have done enough with it. The old boy’s club is still very much the way things are in our houses of parliament. We deserve better.
I am refusing personally to vote for any candidate who is not pro choice to some extent. I will never give a preference to any candidate who considered women like me to have committed murder. I will never give a preference to a any candidate who does not see the need for a separation of church and state esp in our schools and health care system. I will never give a preference to any candidate who does not see the need for a comprehensive universal sex and sexuality education program in our schools.
I have had people ask me why bother, well that just means things stay the way they are. Often less then 55% of the people who are on the electoral roll turn out to vote and we have people who are eligible to vote who are not even registered to do so. If there is a low turn out in an area, which politicians can tell, due to the numbers being low then they don’t feel the need to work so hard on the issues being raised in those areas. You want to make a difference, get active, get informed and vote.
It is a lot easier to do so now, then it was when women first got the vote in 1928, it’s easier now then it was 50 years go even 20 years ago.
I Vote because I believe I have an honour and a duty to do so. I have never failed to do so in the last 21 years and I hope I never do.
Ladies who lunch? Part 2
So I found myself wondering who is it I would like to hang out with and have a long leisurely lunch.
The type of ladies with whom, I could talk life, the universe, sex and sexuality and not have them bat an eye lid at anything I might say. Laugh their heads of yes, but not be made uncomfortable.
As ever when one starts along such a train of thought, it is wishful thinking, so why not pick anyone.
So I guess Amanda Palmer, Margaret Cho, Joan Jett, Betty Dobson. Laurie Penny.
Each of which are amazing women, who have broken new ground in their professions spending a couple of hours in their collective company would be so invigorating.
But thinking about it I am lucky to have such women in my life who are just as kick ass and I think I am going to have to organize a get together.
Lora O’Brien is a writer, manager of Rathcroghan Heritage center in Roscommon, how she manages to get so much done in a week still baffles me.
Coral Mallow whom I meet when she was over doing a series of workshop, she had a boundless sense of fun and what makes people tick. She also makes amazing jewelry and will be returning to Ireland to continue her work with 4elements theater company.
Bon who is also know as deannawol and under that name has write some wonderful RPG games, which I have been lucky enough to play at conventions, and her work ethic when it comes to her writing is something I am frankly jealous of.
Ailish Farragher who’s tribal belly dance workshops are a delight to take part in and who runs a Tantra salon in Dublin and is one of the Organizers of the Bliss festivals and circles/
Tara also know as @MsFrugalone who had organised so many wonderful meet ups, is caring compassionate, has such a wry sense of humor and always ready to burst out laughing and even when she’s admonishing me I know it coming from the best of places.
But a handful of wonderful women there are more the ladies I have meet at pro choice events and so I guess it’s not that I don’t fit in with women, it’s finding women I fit in with.
“Feminism is nonnegotiable.” Margaret Cho
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.
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
Bread and Roses.
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for — but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
By James Oppenheim inspired by Rose Schneiderman who coined the phrase
“The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”
March For Choice 28th Sept 2013
Death shows need for abortion services, family planning organisation says
“Mr Behan said the IFPA frequently had clients who experience difficulties raising the money to travel and to pay for an abortion and who had later-term abortions as a result.
“If they were resident in the UK and there was a serious health issue the abortion would be available to them, free of charge on the NHS.”
He said the case underlined the need for abortion legislation which protected the health and not just the life of a woman.
The National Women’s Council of Ireland too said the case “points to the needs for safe and legal abortion services in Ireland” and to the “artificial and unworkable distinction between a threat to the health and a threat to the life of the woman”.
“It also shows the devastating impact being forced to journey overseas has on women emotionally and physically,” said Jacqueline Healy, women’s health and human rights spokeswoman with the council said.”
It is estimated 12 women a day travel to the UK for abortions, I wonder how many don’t due to the cost. All other maternity related services in this country are free. Where a woman needs an abortion due to the impact the pregnancy is having on her health she should be able to have it here.
The abortion support network takes calls everyday from desperate women who can’t afford to travel who are trying to scrape together the money needed. One of the volunteers who answers those calls, wrote about some of thier stories here. http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-the-debates-on-abortion-in-the-dail-wont-change-the-reality-irish-women-face-every-day-993657-Jul2013/
Given the cost it is no wonder that women traveling from Ireland put their lives at risk to return as soon as possible and with the stigma many do not get the aftercare they need, esp if things don’t go as best they can.
Abortion after care, is free. Both the physical check up and counseling if women needed it.
http://www.abortionaftercare.ie/ lists services around Ireland which are funded by the HSE.
But beware some of these are how ever pro life, esp the Cura branches.
Personally I would recommended in Dublin http://femplus.ie/services/crisis-pregnancy/
Micromachismo & Lapgate
So last night despite the fact I am on holidays I found myself camping out in front of the tv in the house we have rented for the week.
So I was up and watching when what is being called lapgate occurred.
Tom Barry FG had apologises for ‘horseplay’ with Aine Collins FG.
It is more then that is was an utter lack of respect for a fellow TD and party member, for the people they both represent and the country as whole as it happened in the Dáil voting chamber.
He would not have done it to a male T.D.
So the lead word in the title of this post is micromachismo which is defined thusly.
“micromachismo”, as defined by Bonino (psychiatric working on promoting equality between women and men ) :
For the author these are ” small, almost imperceptible controls and abuses of power quasi normalized that the males execute permanently. They are skilful arts of domain, maneuvers and strategies that, without being very notable, they restrict and force insidiously and repeatedly the personal power, the autonomy and the psychic balance of the women, committing an outrage in addition against the democratization of the relations. Given his invisibility they are exercised generally by total impunity ” (Bonino, 2004: 3).
Last night we watch aghast as a TD grabbed another TD with out their consent and restrained them while the Dáil was in the process of finally trying to pass a bill to legislate for the Supreme court ruling on the X case.
21 years after that 14 year old girl was raped, ended up pregnant and wanted to end her life rather then be pregnant, there are people some of whom are members of our government who think during the debating session that accosting a woman in her place of work is ‘horseplay’.
What it is is horseshit. I have had mixed feelings on the bill and was by turns encouraged and disappointed by the debate last night but Lapgate shows us how far we have to go still in this country in treating women as equals and respecting them.