Slim / fat, the image and the dictatorship of weight

A lot of you know how I look. I am slim. Very slim say some. There is a strange phenomenon when you are slim: you are harassed about it.

No, I am serious. I am getting sick of hearing things such as "oh but YOU shouldn't complain about anything, look how slim you are", "of course you don't know what it is like to feel uncomfortable, you're so slim". It even happens at work. Once, I was heating my lunch in the microwave and a lady manager was heating a soup. I told her while we were chatting about lunches (what was I thinking?) that I needed more than a soup to keep me going for the whole afternoon. She looked at me from top to toe and said "well, yes, you don't have to starve yourself, you're just lucky to be slim". Another person, a man this time, told me once I was so slim I could sit on the toaster without any problem.

So I have a question: who is this world, would dare saying to an overweight person the equivalent that would be "you are so big you would need two chairs to be able to sit properly"? It is almost like, because you are supposed to comply to a certain social image and fantasy (being thin) that it is acceptable to comment on the way you look.

Well, it is not. It is offending to be described, looked at with despising or envious eyes (plus the comment that generally goes with it), told things about your physical appearance, something that is totally private. Nobody knows but you how you feel about yourself. it can be hurtful, slim or not.

And there are always criticisms about the way you look anyway. A lot of my exes told me I was too slim. Some of my friends told me that they prefer looking the way they look because at least "they have breasts and a sizable ass". Well, good for you. I didn't know there was a competition there. I feel good with myself too, thanks very much.

It is sad to see how much the image, competition (especially between girls) and the dictatorship of beauty puts pressure on everyone, and there especially for women. You're too slim? you're anorexic! You're too fat? How can you let yourself go this way? And also, shave your legs, put make-up on, have a slim waist, be tanned, eat healthy... HEEEEELP! Just leave me alone!

And the next one who says anything intrusive about the way I look has to be warned that I have just started kick-boxing lessons....

Lesbian murderers

C'est le nom que nous donnent les gens qui font partie des lobbies "pro-life" (des especes de tares extremistes qui pour montrer leur attachement a la vie exhibent des photos de foetus morts... allez comprendre...) lors de nos manifestations pour demander la legalisation de l'avortement. Et ca prouve leur progressisme et leur haute tolerance de considerer que le terme "lesbienne" est une insulte. Mais c'est aussi une phrase (avec "bitches", "frustrees" et je ne mets que les polis parce que je sais que ma mere lit ce blog et qu'elle executerait ces gens sur le champ si elle les entendait traiter leur fille comme ca..) qu'on entend sur le feminisme en general. Alors c'est une mauvaise action que j'ai deja faite, mais ma copine Anne-Laure a ecrit un truc super la-dessus pas plus tard qu'hier, et je vous invite donc a lire ce constat ici. Pendant que vous y etes, allez voir dans sa rubrique Irish Stew, vous y trouverez des posts tres droles sur l'Irlande et les irlandais.

Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin

We did it! I have to say I was extremely pessimistic about this stuff, especially about the number of people who would turn up. We were 120, 150 even more according to the persons in the group. The event, the booklet, the band afterwards (fantastic, check here ), everything was a success. The women's history in Dublin is no longer a secret for me, and I discovered so many things that I would never have guessed.

If you want a good summary of what happened during this day by somebody who was there, click here.

if you want to have a look at the booklet (it says a lot of interesting things about women, Ireland and Dublin, please let me know I can send a Pdf version to you.

And just for the beauty of it, I am going to quote Pat Robertson, US tele evangelist (I think it is worth it just for the enormity of the stuff he says)

"Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians. " Yeah!

Gay revolution?

This country is, you have guessed, quite conservative on social subjects. There are numerous examples in the very recent past that would reflect reality in the 1960's in Scandinavia. For example, until 1966 female civil servants had to quit their job when they were getting married. Condoms were banned up to 1973 (there are several testimonies about how the Irish customs were searching people's bags when they were coming from abroad), homosexuality was prosecutable until 1993, divorce was legalised in 1996, and abortion is still forbidden.

But this society is changing at an extremely fast pace. Since the country opened up and began developping economically, a dramatic evolution has taken place. For example, Ireland is becoming more secular. The Church, who had the power over all matters has been losing its influence for the past 15 years. Fewer and fewer people attend mass for example. The abuses on children stained the outrageous prestige that the Church had had for so many years, the priest is not seen as the pillar on any family gathering or main counsellor anymore. In short, Ireland is becoming more tolerant, more opened (I don't want to show off but I would like to think it is thanks to immigrants too ;-) and a revolution in such a traditional country is in gear: gay couples will soon be recognised by law.

The government announced at the end of last year that they would legislate in order to give rights (inheritance, taxes and all administrative matters) to same-sex couples (I don't know if they are thinking about introducing that for straight couples who don't want to get married but that is another story). There are a couple of (important) issues:

- The legislation will not be marriage. As the campaign MarriagEquality is pointing out, the government is actually going to legislate in favour of discrimination. Straight = marriage / Gay = civil partnership. The PACS in France did exactly the same though, but it doesn't make the whole thing right
- Children: there was no talk about this at all. Apparently the Irish way of ignoring an issue is actually.. ignoring it, until it becomes big enough for the media to talk about it.

For a country like Ireland, the step is absolutely huge. Some might say that gay people are never happy even when a law is passed to recognise their rights. But is a law supposed to create a category of second-class citizens and say basically "no, you're not good enough to get married"?. "Sorry man, you are not entitled to drive a car because you're blonde, but you are allowed to try the bicycle". This is (far-stretched I acknowledge) the kind of inequality the law is going to allow. This is preposterous.

To treat the subject a lighter way, I found this on this:

Ten reasons why Gay marriage in Un-American

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

The fallen women

I am currently working on a feminist walking tour of Dublin to celebrate the International Women's Day on March 8th. I am in charge of taking pictures of some monuments remembering Irish women's history. One of the saddest part of this history is the Magdalene laundries.
Maybe you know about it because you have seen Peter Mullan's film, The Magdalene sisters (if you haven't, try to have a look).

During 150 years (the last one closed in Ireland in 1996), around 30,000 "fallen women" were admitted in those homes. Those girls and women usually spent their whole life in the institution, paying for their "crimes". The laundries were given this name because of Mary Magdalene, a woman of "bad reputation" who confessed her sins and became a devout.

Those women were imprisoned for behaviours severely condemned by the extremely powerful Church: getting pregnant outside of marriage, leaving their abusive husband, being raped etc. You could even find yourself there if you were with a mental disability. Those women were then condemned to do all kinds of work like cleaning the clergy's laundry, cooking, cleaning and looking after ageing nuns. This work was not paid, and the conditions were appalling, the women often abused and badly treated. The women were sometimes losing their name too, the nuns giving them simili biblical repentant names (such as "Magdalene St Teresa"). They were usually admitted to the asylum (another name for those prisons) on one parent's request. A lot of them remained in those houses all their life and were buried in the convent's garden.

In 1993 (I do say again that the last laudry had not been closed at this time yet), remains of 133 bodies had to be removed from one of the laundries' garden because the nuns were selling the property. The permission to take the bodies was given by the Department of Environment. The undertakers discovered 22 additional bodies that had never been declared. The authorities, instead of opening an enquiry on the matter, gave permission to the nuns for the 22 additional bodies. Those 155 bodies were later cremated and reburied in a mass grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, on the North Side of Dublin. This triggered a public scandal and revelations about the conditions of work and detention began to appear. Relatives to women who had been in a laundry began asking for the truth, and a lot of documentaries and testimonies were produced. We still don't know though who the women buried now in Glasnevin were. Their cremation prevented any hope for identification.

The victims of those asylums are numerous and a lot of them are unknown. Their illegitimate children were stolen from them and given for adoption or sent to "indutrial schools" or orphanages, ruled as well by brothers and nuns, and there as well the children were badly treated (the sexual and physical abuses were common).
The buildings, the graves, the stories of those women are still standing. The only monument in Dublin commerating those women's memory is this plaque is the centre of St Stephen's Green. They would deserve so much more.





If you want to know more:
http://www.adoptionireland.com/magdalene/background.html
This is the detailed story around the graves discovered in Drumcondra, Dublin
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/08/sunday/main567365.shtml Another article by the American press
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/so-much-for-church-remorse-over-the-sex-abuse-scandal-1280595.html This is on the various sexual abuses scandals. The former arbishop of Dublin refuses to give away documents relating to those.

Abortion in Ireland

The title is a pure product of my imagination since it is forbidden to have an abortion in this country. Totally forbidden you'll ask? Well, here are the facts (I advise feminists to take a cigarette or a drink as this is extremely infuriating):

Like in a lot of countries at this time, laws were passed in Ireland in 1861 to outlaw the "procurement of a miscarriage", whether one oneself or somebody else. Similar laws were passed in France in the 1920's. All abortions are then liable to very severe sanctions (death penalty or life imprisonment).

In 1983 the Irish constitution was modified and included the 8th amendment, recognizing the "right to life of the unborn". This is the core of the legal issue in Ireland, as the legalisation of abortion will have to be done through another change in the Constitution.

Between 1986 and 1991 a legal battle opposed the SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) to counselling agencies and students' unions on the information disclosure. The latter were actually providing information on abortion, i.e. where and how to get it when women were confronted with an unwanted pregnancy. The SPUC won the case: it is since then forbidden by law to provide direct information on abortion if it is not requested. If the person wants to get this information it will have to be done during a 1 2 1 session, through generally a counselling agency (I will come back to that as there are loopholes in this law which don't prevent charlatans from giving false medical info). This is as well an extremely sensitive issue if you are a member of a feminist group wanting to advice women on abortion, as it is prosecutable to give this information over the phone, to distribute leaflets if not requested by the person in front of you and so on.

In 1992 the "X case" was brought into court. In brief the Irish authorities wanted to prevent a 14 year-old girl who had been raped from going to the UK to have an abortion. This was overturned by the Supreme Court which recognised that the high risk of suicide of this young girl was a sufficient reason for her to travel. However, when no such risk existed it was possible for the Irish authorities to prevent the women from travelling as it was for them contradictory with the 8th amendment.

At the end of the 1990's a series of cases (generally under aged girls pregnant as a result of a rape such as the "C case") reiterated the ban on abortion, and put the X case legislation at stake. It basically put at stake the right to travel even in case of suicide risks. The public opinion being supportive of the girl the risk of suicide is still a "sufficient" reason for the Irish authorities to allow women to travel abroad.

In 2001 the government held a referendum to try to reverse the 1992 X case, which enables women to travel if they have suicidal tendencies. The referendum's results were appalling: 49.58% voted yes (to restrict this right to travel) while 50.42% voted no.

In 2007 we are still living in a state where 17 Irish women travel to Great Britain each day to have an abortion, and this doesn't include the Irish women not giving Irish addresses and the ones travelling to other countries. We live in a country where it is forbidden to give out information on abortion but where the counselling agencies are not regulated if they don't fall under a certain category, which means they can advertise as counselling agencies and give false medical information to women in distress (I will write about it another time, meanwhile go to http://www.indymedia.ie/article/81414), a country where a young woman with a non viable foetus had to go to Court to be able to travel and abort and it is impossible to know the extent of distress, desperation and frustration of all the women not authorised to have a choice in their own country.

A list of websites if you want to know more:

http://choiceireland.blogspot.com/ (the pro choice group I belong to)
http://www.ifpa.ie/

http://www.safeandlegalinireland.ie/

Teaching sex?

You're going to say I just have one reference newspapers and one subject of conversation, but this article of today's Guardian is presenting a highly debated subject: sex education in schools (see www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2221466,00.html)

First question: should schools deliver sex education? Isn't it parents' role to actually do it? Well, considering the amount of dialogue in the average family (I don't know if it is the same in the UK, but I know that the word "talking" in Irish families doesn't generally exist), that would lead to a generation of ignorant young people, risking their lives just for the sake of not being told the right thing about this body that they are eager to use in other things than PE (referring to my own experience there). So, yes, maybe school is a good idea

Secondly: Is teenage sex a moral thing? Well, I don't have such a high opinion of this notion of morality applied to sex, the only rule in this matter being mutual consent. It is actually shown that the more informed young people are about sex, the later they have their first sexual experience (I was well informed myself I'm tellin' ya). So sex isn't something compulsive as such if you know what it is all about. If you don't want your kids to discover sex a nasty and precocious way, teach them!

Third question: What should we teach? I do remember the lessons at schools being about geography and mechanic, but not at all about this thing that I do... well... regularly (all things going well). My point is that even though it was interesting to see how those things work, it is just unable to explain the complexity of human feelings and all the things implied by sex.

(First digression: these mechanic / geography lessons never talked about the clitoris. This is just appalling: how do you teach young women to enjoy their own body if you don't even tell them that they have the one and only human organ that is placed there ONLY for pleasure?? And that it is so easy and reachable that they wouldn't have to wait for Prince Charming to get to a high level of satisfaction. So people if you want to teach geography properly please include this small organ)

I am coming back to my third point. It is so easy to reach any kind of porn / degrading / false / not realistic image of sexuality (you just have, in your daily life, to surf on the Internet, read magazines, watch TV, watch films where people shagging always have flat bellies and have their orgasm after 5Min of vigorous sport and AT THE SAME TIME ahahaha. Isn't it the role of a developed country, quite secular, that wants to have enlightened citizens, to show the future citizens that sex means pleasure, respect, satisfaction but also STDs, unwanted pregnancies, frustration etc? If you teach maths in school and tell the pupils that 1 + 1 = 3 all the people will tell you that it is a scandal. All adults know exactly what is implied with sex, what is the big deal with teaching it the way it is? I blame the Church..

... And George W.Bush! I was about to forget this abstention programme his administration has been financing for several years now. It would be quite funny if it was not tragic at the same time. The young lads and girls who committed themselves into this bullshit (probably encouraged by their forward thinking parents) are now not only "unvirginised" (these young people have their first sexual experience as the exact same age as the rest of the population) but also ashamed of what they've done.. Frank success

Only breast

A new movement appeared in Sweden, the "Bara Bröst" movement, that you can translate by "Merely Breasts". It all came from 2 women deciding to drop the top of their swimsuits in a public swimming pool. They were thrown away, because it is indecent, sexual etc etc. Frankly, I support those girls so much.

What they say is true (see website http://barabrost.blogg.se/ there is an English section). Breasts are considered indecent and highly sexualised just because men decided it was this way! It makes me think to this marvelous film "Persepolis" I saw, where Marji is actually questioning the veil. Aren't men civilized enough not to be sexually aroused by some hair?? And by breasts? Aren't we aroused when they can walk and go on the beach and even in supermarkets (Southern France specialty, nice to go and shop for a steak!) with a bare chest? And what about the advertisement then? It is not acceptable for a woman to swim bare chest but it is if a half naked one does show a lot of her to sell yogurts?? What is the fucking logic of all that except another way of controlling women's body by declaring this part or this part is OK if you are an object (i.e. advertisement, prostitution), but not if you are an "honorable" woman. In Sweden the body is considered as natural, being naked is not shameful or to be hidden, it just is a part of yourself that you have to protect and that should be considered as yours and only yours. It is a very sane approach to the body, desexualised if you don't want it to be.

So I say, go sisters! Drop the top!

Feminism etc.

I read today that feminist women were better in bed and happier than the average (it is NOT propaganda, it is a study revealed by the extremely serious Guardian, see link http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2211202,00.html)

What I like in this article is the rehabilitation of a notion that is so taboo (she employs herself the "f word", and this is a very intelligent way of describing feminism as it is seen by the majority.. Just think about the way some women express themselves "I am not a feminist, but I think we should have equal pay" as racist people say "I am not a racist, but I think black people are lazy"): feminism is mostly about love, about respect and equality, not at all about war & opposition between the genders. It is a possibility for all human beings (YES people, men are not the enemy, patriarchy is) to get out from the roles and stereotypes that prevent us from being happy and mostly being ourselves. I always take this example of me not being happy because I should behave the way people expect from a girl (shaving your armpits, not swearing in public, you are obviously not complete if not married or at least with the providential man).. What about men then? Why shouldn't they be crying? Why do they have to be strong? My point is that if someone feels like doing something that is not acceptable gender wise then it is a struggle to be yourself and not being considered as a pariah or a weirdo. And this is what feminism is about. To my mind, the only reason why there was no masculinism revolt yet is just because this half of the population has power. Meanwhile they can go on getting killed in wars, being imprisoned and violent. And as said previously in my mind this is not inherent to men, it is patriarchy that creates it. Feminism is liberation. For all.