Monthly Archives: November 2014

On Ireland and gender quotas

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From the usual rotation crop of controversial issues, it was the return of gender quotas for petri dish analysis last night on Prime Time. When I heard the topic advertised, I turned to my fella who was already wondering how he could delicately extricate himself from the room without making it too obvious. That’s what the bathroom in our house is for: a safe passageway from another debate on wimmin. Or rather my participation in the debate with comments audible to no-one other than myself. I made him wait to see if I was right in my predictions that the panel would likely comprise a fairly homogeneous group of women in terms of class, ethnicity, and success. Guess what? He went to the kitchen. I don’t always get it right.

The host was joined by two business women, one barrister, and a politician. Presumably they represented not just the divided views on the merits of quotas, or the savvy articulate Irish woman, but the broad interests and experiences of women in terms of the barriers encountered and the rounded view their respective positions as well as life experience affords them. So far, so run-of-the-mill.

Consideration was given to the need for interventionist gender quotas to re-boot the political system and encourage participation from women in politics and the board room. Those in favour (the politician and one business owner) cited the successes in Scandinavia and the political imperative to build a government reflective of the people it represents. Counter arguments from the other two panelists (the barrister and another business owner) challenged the assumed successes in Scandinavia, and pointed to the risk of undermining women by accelerating them into positions and systems for which they are not adequately experienced, and so on. All were unanimous in recognising the need for better childcare to create and sustain the family conditions necessary to help women overcome the barriers to participation in the boardroom and the ballot paper.

Like the elusive representative government that will unlikely exist in my life time, it would be impossible for a discussion panel to be wholly representative of the gender group being discussed. But at some point during the discussion, it was not unreasonable to expect someone to pick up on the mention of qualifications strewn throughout like conversational confetti. Ireland may have an impressive number of women with a third level qualification, but its record in supporting women in working class and low-income families into third level education is abysmal, and they are still heavily disadvantaged and excluded from getting on a rung on the ladder where the issues of childcare and family supports are the only issues that matter. If we’re serious about mobilising a diversity of women into the boardroom, then that must include commitment to paving their way into the higher education classroom, whether as young students or mature return learners. ‘Career’ and choice can’t be the preserve of those with letters already trailing their name.

Additionally, the near obsessional over-emphasis on those qualifications in Ireland as a benchmark for ability and experience further compounds the status quo for women on the margins, and for those whose qualifications have gone past their sell-by date through participation in the home. Talk of women’s qualifications speaking for themselves is all very laudable, but it is not representative of the reality of a vast majority of women. The higher educational and class biases within these debates often serves to erode the quality of them. And the neat equation of qualification equaling the right to – and the demand for – employment, with little value placed on education for its own sake is worryingly Tory.

In highlighting the risks of appointing women beyond their capability, the barrister panelist pointed to the new Arts Minister, Heather Humphries, as someone inexperienced who came into office on the back of preferential treatment based on apparent gender and geographical factors. And it shows. I couldn’t help but feel Humphries must have surely been hanging her head in defeat knowing that the only person present to defend her appointment was her colleague, Mary Mitchell O’Connor. An elected representative who proves that irrespective of quotas, the electorate are not to be trusted.

Perhaps Ivana Bacik was already booked last night, but given she has been driving legislation on gender quotas, her input would’ve been timely. Whether or not the audience agreed with her, at least she would’ve been relied on to broaden the discussion to highlight the need for other critical supports necessary for the participation of women in politics as well as childcare etc. Because politics is not the preserve of ballot seekers or political parties, it belongs to all citizens in common. Jump-starting women’s politicisation begins in schools, where politics and philosophy occupies minimal curriculum time, if at all. Another missed opportunity to cite the inarguable strides made in Scandinavia. Political reforms don’t happen in a vacuum. It is no accident that gender equality there is head and shoulders above its European neighbours. They have a systematic approach to citizen engagement with the inclusion of critical thinking from a young age upwards.  Building maturity takes investment and effort. Ireland lags embarrassingly behind on many fronts.

Pathways to politics no longer rely exclusively on higher education, though those in office have traditionally emerged from places of privilege. In drawing gasps at the mere suggestion of quotas, the amnesia concerning our long tradition of tinkering with democracy through political family dynasties never fails to amuse.  Perhaps it informs the resistance towards them from some.

Whatever one’s view on quotas, meaningful civic democratic politics are built from the ground up through effective consultation with women, open debate in which policies and issues concerning them are rigorously scrutinised and torn apart to flush out the range of competing views as diverse as women themselves. Add to this, community development programmes and empowering leadership opportunities that seek to inform and support the participation of women from all backgrounds in politics and ensure the labours of working class women undertaking critical work on the ground in their communities are converted into a place in public debate in the round. Women whose political labour is often invisible, unpaid but heavily depended on, or insecure, underpaid, and a form of employment in a sector subject to the most catastrophic funding cuts.  Severing commitment to grassroots political participation guarantees the further exclusion of swathes of women from having their voices heard and assuming their rightful place at the high table of decision-making. Whether that is as an elected representative, or not.

Gender quotas – always worthy of debate, but a more rounded discussion would be worthy of refraining from shouting at the TV for. There’s only so many times my fella can read the paper.

Where have all the teaspoons gone?

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I get asked this at least once a week. Usually in a high octane voice accompanied by outstretched arms brandishing cupped hands to emphasise the gravity of the situation. The same way an average person would respond if they were to return home from work one day to find their house wasn’t where they left it that morning and/or had been replaced by a gigantic billboard advertising sausages. Any situation that would have your hands on standby next to your head in case you needed to bury it.

That this outbreak of apoplexy comes from one of the most unflappable, calm, men on Earth makes it even funnier. Christ knows he would need to be considering he’s married to me.

It all started back in the early days after I moved in. He would politely inquire about the possibility of me returning the teaspoons I casually exported from the cutlery drawer to work under the auspices of a packed lunch. Who the fuck notices teaspoons going missing? How…cute. Yes, we were at that early stage when the other person’s barely concealed neurosis is mistaken for an endearing idiosyncrasy, which is probably why I didn’t make every effort to prevent it from getting out of hand.

Over the years the teaspoons have taken on the life-cycle of socks, and dreams for the future. No sooner have new ones crossed the threshold than they’re swiftly sucked up by that great domestic vortex we call The Kitchen. Consequently, his voice began to veer close to the Joe Pasquale end of the scale when six went missing in one week. I know. What the fuck? *buries head* It turned out our toddler was dumping them in the bin after polishing off a yoghurt. I know what you’re thinking – that’s a lot of yoghurts, but this is not the time for any of your sneering judgements on my parenting. Actually go ahead, I don’t care.

So now, we’re back to an average loss of three or four a month. Stop looking at me like that. It’s not me. Unsurprisingly, this hasn’t curtailed the outbreaks of panic, or the intensity of them, but most times I nonchalantly avert the crisis by pointing out they’re on the draining board. Smugness moves in mysterious ways.

spoons

The secret to a happy marriage

My guess is he couldn’t give a monkeys about the teaspoons either. Deep-down we both know if he did, a psychiatric assessment would not be an unreasonable suggestion. Unflappable and calm on the surface, but he stills needs a valve to release the odd bout of pent-up of steam one adult accumulates from living with – and enduring the habits of – another. I positively encourage it, and might even accidentally hide a teaspoon occasionally. These outbursts are preferable to being challenged on any of the following:

“Why are you such a disaster at cleaning the house?”

“Why do you procrastinate so much?”

“Have you seen the phone bill lately?”

“What are you in a bad mood about now?”

“Do you want to get a divorce?”

“Did you eat all the cheese?”

“Where’s my other sock?”

Long may the teaspoon anxiety continue because “Well, you always put the empties back in the fridge” wouldn’t be a great line of defense against any of the above. And it would inevitably inspire him to ask “what do you mean?”

Uh oh.

eHomogeneity

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Yesterday, it lashed rain for most of the day so I was condemned to the local soft-play centre for a few hours with our one to run off some energy (her) and try to hide behind the Sunday papers (me). No sooner had I opened a supplement to partake in some mildly bitter lifestyle envy, when the first of three parents landed in with a brood, shortly followed by the other two.

It quickly transpired they all knew each other and their collision was a random surprise. The chat about their children took off as they were waved off; each of them taking it in turn to spring up momentarily to warn one of their off-spring to refrain from inflicting pain on another.

Each politely and engagingly inquired how each other’s children were doing. They spoke about the challenges of getting them to focus on doing their homework. Confidence levels between girls and boys were sized up with two registering worry that their girls exhibit greater reluctance to assert themselves in contrast to their boys. After-school programme options at their respective schools were listed and enthusiastically reconciled with the interests and talents of the little folk attending.

It was a familiar scene no doubt cascaded across the nation on a hostile Sunday morning; when one parent is relieved of getting up while the other shepherds their children out of the house to leave it in peace. Unremarkable in many ways.

It shouldn’t be remarkable that these parents were in fact fathers, but I’m rarely in their company so it was both a novelty and an affirmation of what we already know about the centrality of fathers in contemporary child-rearing. I wasn’t watching them while wearing rose-tinted glasses. We know the economic imbalances that characterise the roles and responsibilities in the home and workplace of women and men with children. It’s fair to generalise that the brunt of financial loss and decision-making gain is borne by women. That’s a given. But that doesn’t negate from the evolution of child-rearing as a joint task compared with our parents’ generation. In the main.

Women shouldn’t have to perpetually gender check themselves when relaying their own parental experiences; but men don’t need to be stay-at-home-dads to scratch their heads over many of the same anxieties that have women exchanging furrowed-brows. It may not be the cultural norm for men to take to the keyboard to tease these things out; but in taking to the keyboard many of us are not doing so as single parents. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference. That’s not to suggest the existence of domestic utopia, but just an acknowledgement of child-rearing as a predominantly shared crusade.

For all the overlaps in the chat from yesterday’s ear-wigged on men with the worries of women, it’s impossible to imagine fathers being characterised in over-generalised terms in the same way mothers tend to be. There are probably competing answers to that from every academic discipline imaginable. But it doesn’t make it any easier to square with family life as it is. In the main.

On becoming a parent

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My dodgy pelvic floor serves as a reminder of my status as a woman who has given birth. All genuflect. There’s also a child knocking about somewhere. Last time I saw her, she was gazing up at imaginary stars through the net windows in her little circus tent from the discomfort of a bed of Lego, explaining her version of the solar system to Ernie.

My version of this form of relaxation is to hide under the bed covers and gaze up at the light-shade wondering what possessed me to buy one that resembles a tumble-weed. Then throw my eyes up at its aptness. Next time, I’m buying one in the shape of planet Earth.  A safer distance all round.

tumbleweed

Probably the most apt image for this post

In the invisible space that is my heart, I feel privileged to be her mother in the classic definition of the term.  And frequently hope I won’t spectacularly fuck it up.  Last count, I had a list of 563 potential ways this could happen.  A future blog post draft perhaps.

At home, I am known mostly as Mammy, or Mama, when she’s indulging in a bit of regression to wrangle something out of me that’s on the list with the other 562 not-to-dos. Her Dad will refer her to her Mum when chickening out of saying no.  Lately, she has taken to addressing me by my first name.  At four syllables, this was one of her more impressive feats of speech until it was overtaken this week by Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  She learned this at her childminders, where I am known as the colloquially hard-vowelled Mummy.  My own Ma refers to me as her Mam, while my best mate will order her into the frame with her Mom so she can snap a photo of us both.

To the rest of the world, I am known simply as A Mother™. In the modern media definition of the term. A word that has come to be hyper invested with the overbearing weight of responsibility and sacrifice. Imbued with guilt and heartbreak.  Burdened with agonising decision-making, and persistent re-shaping of a sense of self. Subject of ninth degree scrutiny. Growth topic within the comment and publishing industry. Heart of the fall-out of social and fiscal policies. Line in the game of tug o’war between feminists. Guardian of the supreme human bond. Secular saint. Unpaid hero. Doer of her best. Battler for choice.  Holding-it-togetherer. Journeywoman. Protagonist in the mummy wars. Judged. Juror. High-fiving keeper of the flame of camaraderie.

It’s so exhausting; it’d nearly have me reaching for a bottle of wine. Oops.  A mother self-medicating. Quick, Morag! Shoulders up against the flood-gates.

It’s not that I can’t relate to much of it, or have any desire to deny the common experiences of many. In reality, the common denominator of sharing similar genitalia is the first and last time women who have children are at one. The rest of childrearing and the experience of being a mother is beyond consensus, but not camaraderie. Camaraderie still allows for difference of opinion, and difference of opinion isn’t tantamount to judgement of another.  A clash of views doesn’t constitute a mammy war. Not all contested terrains can be classified as bloody battlegrounds. Grounds for having a different point of view doesn’t equate to a betrayal. When views are relative to individual experience, there’s going to be a few curled lips among the thumbs up.

So, I’ve decided to stop passively letting the enormity of such a word define me. To unmoor myself from its double-edged function of acknowledging my role while ascribing all sorts of assumptions, many of which I’m not altogether sure about. Instead I’ve decided to stick with being a…. parent. It works for her Da.

Sorry you’re having a birthday

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There comes a moment in every employee’s life when panic strikes fear in to the most indifferent of hearts. Or the other way about. Fear, panic. Either works. No, not sending an email slagging off the boss to the very boss. Close. That’s right, you’ve guessed it. I’m talking about when one is required to Sign The Card. Oh fuck no. Not The Card. Yeah. The Card.

Hardly a week goes by but someone I half know/tolerate has had a new baby, celebrating their leaving, or being congratulated for going off sick. Occasionally, someone will have had a bereavement, which, while sad, is also the terrifying moment when you realise exclamation marks can’t be relied on as a substitute for an actual message. Even if that sentiment is “thank Christ you’re leaving”.

Here are the six universal steps to signing the office circulated card as observed over some painful years:

1. Ignore the card/Wait until everyone else signs it first.

2. Find the least eye-drawing spot remaining; usually one of the bottom-hand corners, or in between two loud messages with enough room your own barely decipherable font size 5.

3. Quickly skim over what others have written while straining to conceal the fact you’re doing this. (See number 4) Curl your lip at what a lick arse/dull/unfunny person such and such is. (optional) Admire the blokes for their uniformly succinct no-nonsense ‘Best wishes, Dave’, even when their name isn’t Dave. (also optional)

4. Attack the card with the nib of your ball-point in a confident manner that suggests you don’t have to think about what to say, the perfect witticism just rolls off your pen.

5. Try to avoid staring into the middle distance for too long with the pen between your teeth in a bid to come up with a witticism that just won’t roll off your pen. No-one likes a lick-arse, or a thoughtful, decent person. Where I work anyway.

6. Five minutes later, just write a variation of all the other bland wishes already down only with extra exclamation marks attached. (Welcome to the sleepless world of parenting!!! etc.)

It’s creepy using codified language for “you lucky bastard” right below the boss’s insincere request for the person leaving to keep in touch but it has to be done. If you’re feeling brave, you could draw an arrow up towards the boss’s comment and spray a lot of LOLs around the place. Be careful to avoid committing absent-minded faux pas such as wishing the person happy birthday on a sympathy card, or sorry you’re leaving on a get well card. (guilty on both counts).

Beware the get well cards. Always check its source. In one job, a particularly heartfelt card was circulated around the office with alarming eagerness by the boss. The intended recipient was on sick leave due to being bullied by said boss. So I shoved it behind the radiator and it remained one of the great unsolved mysteries, and an agenda item at the next staff meeting.

Finally, approach the leaving card with caution. A few of my former colleagues and I took the time to make a leaving card for a soon-to-be former colleague. The woman cheerfully accepted the gesture only to fix me with an evil eye twenty gin and tonics later to point out that the boat had both a sail and an engine, which was obviously indicative of our desire to make sure she left.

ahoy-ah003

Choppy waters for that particularly sexist colleague who’s leaving 

The Bar Exam

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“Same again”, gestures the customer waving an empty pint glass aloft.

“Sure. Eh, what was that?”

Two weeks on the job and Jimmy is struggling to command his side of the bar. The customer had already flattened a Guinness.

“Ah of course”, Jimmy gestures back with the smack of his palm off his own forehead. He should’ve known that. Any eejit looking at the glass would’ve registered the remnants of the creamy head sliding down one side; much like his confidence. He glances round to see if Sean clocked his latest cock-up. The thud of a barrel out back announces the arrival of the week’s deliveries.

He resisted his flatmate’s assurances before taking the job. “I don’t know anything about football. Or the weather. Or the tourist spots. Or how to bloody well get to Bono’s gaff”.  “Yeah, but you’re broke and you need the money so quit whinging and get in there”.

In the time it takes the kettle to boil for a hot whiskey, the chemical alchemy of the pint is complete. Ivory rises up to crown the black. Sean’s roaring can be heard competing with the stealth attack from another fifteen barrels but neither Jimmy nor the delivery driver can hear what he’s saying.

Jimmy runs the knife across the head of the pint, siphoning off the soufflé effect leaving it level with the rim of the glass. He thinks this unnecessary, the ruination of the perfect looking pint. But the others do it, and whatever they do he must, too. The surest way to pass what Sean proudly decrees “De Real Bar Exam”.

He slides a fresh beer mat onto the table directly below a headline cautioning against leaving the shopping too late. Landing the pint on top, he receives a fiver for his trouble. “Keep the change”. The request is made without either men’s eyes lifting off the newspaper one is holding.  “Thanks”, replies Johnny, wondering what he’ll spend his five cent on, fearful this might be a question on de exam.

“Never mind those boys with their fancy gowns,” sneers Sean frequently, pointing directly across to the sex toy shop.  Presumably he means the Four Courts half a mile further up the river. “This is where the proper bar exam is sat”. Jimmy is tempted to query if the real bar exam is possibly stood for, rather than sat. But he doesn’t, he laughs because that’s what the others do.

The growl of the lorry engine pulling out is deadened by the slam of the store doors. In shuffles Sean waving paperwork. “More bleedin’ heartbreak”. He pours hours’ old coffee into his Homer Simpson mug while helping himself to a Snack bar. The pink wafer one. Sean reckons the purple ones are over-rated. Like bacon fries and Love/Hate. “Give me a John Wayne film any day over that crap”.

“Have you not got any cloves?”, the voice small but determined. Jimmy looks quizzically over at the man in the corner. His aged frame bent over into a pose forever compatible with questions as if he is perpetually, but politely, looking for something. “For the hot whiskey like. Have yiz no cloves?”

“Top shelf above the kettle”, barks Sean. “These college boys wha’. They can tell me how many units of cloves I’d need to shift to make a profit but they wouldn’t know what to do with one”, eye-rolling his way backwards out through kitchen door, both hands full, invoices filed between his lips.

Jimmy serves another pair of hot whiskeys later in the afternoon. He studs the cloves into the lemon in the shape of a crucifix with no idea why; it just formed that way. He spends a few minutes giving serious consideration to the potential of clove art before curling his own lip at himself. Art college boys wha’, he thinks. Wouldn’t know what to do with symbolic clove encrusted lemons other than serve them up to unsuspecting American tourists.

It’s nearing five. Credits on the horse-racing bring it to a close. He braces himself for the dam burst of disgruntled workers eager to loosen their ties, determined not to take too many orders simultaneously and risk incurring the wrath of Sean by failing to flick the beer tap up in time. Before there’s a landslide down all sides of the glass. It’s still too soon for those flashy moves.

Looking around for the remote control, he feels the wind at his back before the door slams shut. The sound reminds him of the church doors from when he went to mass as a child, and the occasional Christmas Eve on the way to his parents’ house from the pub to hear O Holy Night with just enough drink in him to wring out all the year’s sadness and happiness in one sitting of tears. It’s been years since he’s done that, he thinks.  He would always try to leave it a few seconds before turning round to see who arrived in late so he wouldn’t appear too keen, or risk being recognised.  Looking around the congregation, he is always struck by how the little sisters of all his mates have grown into gorgeous women, and surely an age gap of five years is nothing now. Is it?

The screen falls dead before he turns to walk back towards the couple removing hats and gloves at the end of the counter.

“What’ll be folks?”

“Jimmy..eh..I didn’t realise..hi”

He hadn’t recognised her with the hat on. Loud and colourful.  The hat, that is. She was always colourful in that way her enthusiasm for cracking chat was as exuberant as the defense of her own seventies disco listening habits. Her passion for matters of justice as direct and unapologetic as all the reasons she stated they could no longer be together. That was three years ago. Actually, two years, ten months, and twenty-three days.

“Suzanne. Jesus. How are ya?”

“Great..good now. Eh this is Tom.”

Jimmy offers his hand but Tom is too busy stashing his gloves in his pockets to stretch his out on time. Two hands from two different pairs retreat, both out of sync with the moment.

“So, what’ll it be?”

Most of the time

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I don’t believe in an interventionist God. That’s another thing I have in common with Nick Cave along with the appearance of a receding hairline. (Nice one, nature.) Nor do I believe in an omnipotent creator to whom we owe everything and who watches over everything; to whom we owe a duty of worship and who will reward us with eternal life in paradise, with or without virgins, or a deathtime’s supply of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Consequently, I don’t believe in any of the organised religions that espouse that kind of deity. I can tell you what I don’t believe in more than what I do. I’m of no fixed faith. Except in humanity. Most of the time.

Still, that won’t ever stop me from occasionally claiming squatters rights in the back pew of an empty church seeking sanctuary from the rotation crop of head woes. Any branch of The Bank of God will do. But always the left-hand side. Force of habit from many a day-dreaming hour spent there in the company of other children in receipt of stern looks from arched browed parents threatening us with a clip round the ear if we didn’t sit up right.

I made it to fourteen before graduating to free-will. The age when being within a two mile radius of my parents became untenable due to the threat it posed to my teenage credentials. Credentials carefully crafted through back-combing, sulking and failure to cooperate with authority. I’d already lost patience with the Virgin Mary for not respecting my demands to appear to me. Or at least give me a sneaky wink from any one of the numerous ornate marble homages to her adorning the place. I gave her enough chances by taking her on in lengthy staring competitions. She always won, all the while appearing pre-occupied. Mary checking her phone for texts from Joseph. Mary looking slightly hungover. Mary taking yet another selfie etc.

virgin-mary-statue

“I really shouldn’t have had that tequila”

It’s impossible to conceive of those days now. Moving statues making headlines, Corpus Christi processions snaking through the streets, the Child of Prague going on tour round the houses for a few rosary gigs. And yet, churches remain the only indoor incubator of a rare quality of stillness. One dense with generations of special intentions. Most of the time, churches don’t register on my radar, but once in a while I get swept in to one by the draw of the candlelight and the need to flee my own muddle-headedness.

So conditioned am I, my hand almost reaches out involuntarily towards the water font. The coin lands on a bed of others. I straighten the wick on a candle and light it off another. Another born of hope or gratitude. Who knows. The flame gathers steam and elbows its way into the row with confidence, chattering back and forth to its neighbours.

Lighting candles is no substitute for thinking well of those you love. But chances are, the flame outlasts the time between slipping back out onto the street and a return to other things that occupy the mind for most of the time.