16 days, 16 ways…

There’s been a common theme in many of the news stories in the last week, starting with November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The ongoing news-worthiness is connected to the 16 Days campaign which seeks to raise awareness of the various types of violence perpetrated against women across the globe.

So, the stories that stuck out in my head. That of a young girl in Saudi Arabia who has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail. That of the 40% of Irish women who have at some point experienced rape or sexual assault. That of a former Rape Crisis Centre worker who chose the occasion to publish a book about the inherent sexism of the organisation.

Are these really stepping stones that fit together? Perhaps.

The first story is the one that got most headlines, and perhaps rightly so, though the headlines might be for the wrong reason. Ian O’Doherty wrote about it today and while the points he makes are valid the responses show the potential for misinterpretation and worse. The fact that the punishment of the girl is based in Sharia law should not be the issue and certainly should not become the issue. The focus needs to be on the fact that a woman is being tortured because she is a woman. It’s hard not to think that maybe people are getting distracted because focusing on violence against women just isn’t something that comes naturally. Or is it that it’s an easy solution to blame Muslim culture?

The second story is perhaps simpler - the fact that 40% of women in Ireland have experienced sexual assault of some kind. The fact that you can’t read that headline on the radio without getting texts in saying “duh that’s nonsense I know loads of women and none of them ever got assaulted”. Science vs Spam, who wins?

The third story is the one that really stuck with me though. One day last week I listened to two different interviews with the same two people. The morning talk show on Newstalk, where Ger Gilroy spoke quite calmly with the former Wexford RCC employee, and the evening show on Today FM, where Matt Cooper asked a few more difficult questions.

The gist of the story - the author of a new book, ‘A man in a woman’s world’, has claimed that in his 8 years working in the Wexford Rape Crisis Centre he was exposed to institutional sexism - the promotion of what can only be described as ‘man hating’ authors. The current CEO of the Dublin RCC came on the air, and suggested that she had never seen anything of that kind and would not be happy with it if she did. All grand.

Then a few hours later (I have to wonder what Jackie Hayden did in between), on a different station, the same two people had a very different conversation, during which Hayden went to a whole other place which I’m not sure I could follow him to. Like that he can understand a man becoming violent if his pride has been hurt by a woman who convinced him he was about to have sex with her and then changed her mind. He called this abuse of the man (the hurt pride thing), and seemed to justify it. I can only assume he didn’t mean to justify it, but he did.

He also said that he was once in a club and that when a woman groped him and ran away laughing he was offended by the laughter of other women around him. The point being, in that situation, if it was a man groping a woman, nobody would laugh. I don’t know what reality he’s living in, but last time I checked  women get groped by men in every club in every town and city all over this country every night of the week. And there are almost always a group of ‘the lads’ nearby watching and encouraging and yes, laughing. And the gropers in this scenario almost never run away laughing with what was probably embarrassment.

But the most important difference is that if a woman gropes a man, and the man says no, chances are that’s the end of it. Basic physics. If a man gropes a woman, and the woman says no, there is no guarantee for them that that will be the end of it. There’s a fundamental fear there, one that men will almost never experience. One that most women experience on a daily basis, particularly if at some point they have been victims of assault in the past. Which 40% of them have been.

While I fully respect the point Hayden was making - the one about sexism in the RCC needing to be eliminated if it’s there - and while I would agree that it needs to be made, I’m not sure if this was the way to do it. Will it sell books? Hell yes, I for one will probably go and buy it just so I can see if he meant what he said on TodayFM or if it was an unfortunate slip of the tongue. Will it help eliminate the aforementioned sexism? Maybe. Will it undermine the public image and thus the work of the RCC? Quite possibly.

I suppose the common thread in all of these stories, is that the fundamental issue of the chronic physical, mental and sexual abuse of women across the globe still isn’t being dealt with. There’s always a different slant, a distraction, or an excuse.

What will it take?