Made in Kentucky; Crafted in Ireland. Trying to write my first book. Trying in general.
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Oct 15, 2023 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Recently @JohnSimpsonNews wrote about when he went to cover the trial of Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon. He was interviewing a man Barbie had arrested and he asked ‘How did Barbie know about you?’ ‘My neighbour betrayed me.’ ‘What happened to him?’
‘He’s still my neighbour.’
50 years later, and the neighbour was still listening in from his garden and only ran inside when they turned the camera on him.
Apr 27, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I still think about the large number of QTs on the @NWCI's thread about the dangers of prostitution from self described leftists railing against the demonisation of sex work. There were absolutely excoriating and severe in their denouncements of the NWCI and their abandonment
of the "true" feminist ideals; the ideals that "TWAW and Sex Work is Work," both an affirmation and catechism requiring a suspense of reality, and they were tarred with the bigot brush.
Apr 26, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The idea of diversity is negated when thoughts aren’t allowed to differ. Inclusion can never be achieved when societal discussions that should be broad in orientation & scope are replaced with those that are narrow. Inclusion does not mean open; it means involvement, engagement.
It's hard work because true inclusion requires the greatest effort to be as right for everyone as possible. It requires dialogue, examination, debate, fact, convincing. It requires the kindness that Conor so woefully and lazily misplaces here.
They have no escape anymore; in sports, in school, in the spaces in life that they had to fight to carve out for themselves in order to give them places of safety, opportunity and confidence. They are constantly facing social pressures to conform to a hypersexualised
Apr 14, 2023 • 30 tweets • 5 min read
A great indicator of the moral or ethical veracity of an idea or movement is in how it deals with those who disagree. 🧵
Classic Liberalism cherishes diversity of thought. Differing voices are important in order to do the hard work of building a common world in which we can live together amidst our real and important differences. It values rationalism, reason and science. It seeks to uplift.
Apr 13, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Misogyny takes many forms, from dismissal to gaslighting to censorship to verbal and physical harassment/assault. All forms are despicable. Also shameful is the complete negation of a woman by speaking directly to her "man" about her as if she were a subclass of human.
Today I a message request from Martin Howard the owner and CEO of @KeyPropertiesU1 in my FB Messenger from the end of Feb. Martin had an interaction with my wife that he didn't like, because she rightly called out some really problematic things he was saying about
Apr 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The acceptance, tolerance & support for a sustained, malicious effort to degrade, silence & intimidate women who don't agree with the negation or dismissal of their shared female experience & the removal of sex based rights is dangerous & the true definition of word: bigoted.
You can't claim righteousness while denying women their right to voice & agency in issues that affect them. If you do, you're not the beacon you think you are.
Seriously, women lift far more of their share of the mental load than men. According to the 2017 Modern Family Index, women lift far more of their share of the mental load than men. It's a heavy burden that sees women having to take on the role of
In the 1970's there was an autonomous women's movement in Italy with particular focuses on wages for housework, struggles against violence & unpaid reproductive labour.
[a very long thread]
One of the chants they used as they demonstrated in the streets was "Tremate, tremate, le streghe son tornate!" "Tremble, Tremble, the Witches are back!"
The return of the witches. It was a reawakening, in a sense,
Jun 16, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Tell that to the women & guards in Limerick Women's Prison, dealing with ultra violent male bodied prisoners. Imo, if the average person understood that Self-Id allows for the reality of something like this, as just 1 example, they'd balk & want an alternative solution.
Self-Id is inherently corruptible. Why? Because it enshrines in law that the possibility of male violence is a fantasy. It removes the safeguards that women & children need in vulnerable spaces to protect them, not from the Whole, but from the Lowest common denominator.
Jun 16, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is beautifully made. The ingenuity of language, the commonality of its appreciation & respect. I hope everyone has happy #Bloomsday this year, wherever you are. I will celebrate it as I always do, by staying home & doing nothing.
This passage has been one of the greatest influences on me as a would be writer, not in style but in the possibility & magic of language. For as difficult as Joyce can be sometimes, we are eternally rewarded with moments such as this.
Jun 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
When you change the definition of a protected political class to include everyone, then you remove that protected class's ability to raise objections to ensure that their rights are upheld.
Words matter. For millennia Woman, in word & meaning, was a commodity for men; a literal repository for life, of which we men controlled. Just as the word & the power of the real life representation of that word was finally in grasp, to suddenly say that it &
Jun 16, 2022 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
My mind still boggles that RTE is being brought before government to explain why it allowed for a balanced conversation to be had around issues that many women feel affect them & their rights as citizens as well as the counterpoints to those arguments.
independent.ie/irish-news/tds…
The poet John Milton philosophised that restricting speech wasn’t necessary because the truth would prevail "in a free and open encounter.” Thomas Jefferson argued that it is safe to tolerate an ”error of opinion-where reason is left free to combat it.” Fredrick Siebert said
Jun 15, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This is a terrible & sad decision. Homophobia isn't gone, this we know. Two gay men have been brutally killed this year alone. Yet Dublin Pride have terminated their contract with the biggest provider of exposure they have, compromising the social benefits of the whole group.
A perfect indicator of the moral or ethical veracity of an idea or movement is in how it deals with those who disagree. If your movement castigates instead of speaking to a better judgement, if fire & brimstone is the innate reaction to disagreement, if the doling out of physical
Jun 15, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
A very interesting article about Collective Narcissism & its societal affect. Collective Narcissism: '“a belief that the exaggerated greatness of one’s group is not sufficiently recognized by others,” in which that thirst for recognition is never satiated' theatlantic.com/family/archive…
'Groups may differ in their narrative about why they are superior...Regardless, collective narcissists are resentful of other groups, and hypersensitive to perceived intergroup threat. As a result, collective narcissism often breeds prejudice...'
Jun 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
My wife says this all the time too. She was a tomboy who developed early & got the wrong attention for it. She hated her breasts, cut her hair short, wore big jumpers, her dad's blazer. & in many ways, she'll admit how she was disassociated from her body until she was an adult.
Only yesterday we were talking about how much the idea of femininity seems to be influenced by drag these days. She said if she was a teen now knowing how she was back then-& this was the face or the ideal of femininity & the only or popular or suggested alternative to that was
May 18, 2022 • 26 tweets • 7 min read
A story.
Tomorrow I’m going to be seeing a friend of mine that I knew back in college, someone I’ve not seen since 1996. At one time or another, we were neighbours, shared a dog and were roommates. We've remained friends for years in the ways of online followdom, (1/25)
the faces in old memories continually updated with every new peripheral post. But we lived and moved around together in a very seminal and formative time in my life, my University years. There are a few people from that period who probably also deserve thread, (2/25)
Nov 17, 2021 • 21 tweets • 4 min read
Disappointed. An acquaintance unfollowed me yesterday after I tweeted about language I find a bit dangersome & an ideology that I don't agree with. A person I've met in real life & one whom I respect.
& this isn't necessarily about this person- who I like & wish nothing but the best for- but about being able to have a constructive conversation about incredibly complex issues involving multiple vulnerable groups that we have to do right by.
Nov 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Girls being erased. Girls being taught that their very being is only in relation to men. That their starting point is a negative, they are non-men. Instead of promoting what they are & could be, they're defined by what they're not. Non-men.
How we define the world for young women who are beginning to find & question their place in the world, their values, their identity, their own value & self-worth they take into adulthood, matters. They will deal with the insidiousness of sex inequality their whole lives.
Jan 22, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The support of women's equality on the basis of their sex-class isn't bigotry. Women have been discriminated against for all of history based upon it, why shouldn't there be true equality be based upon it as well?
Instead we get acquiescence demanded as kindness, biological reality equated with bigotry & critical thinking abandoned for subterfuge or outright rage. But the support of women's equality on the basis of their sex-class isn't bigotry.
Jan 17, 2021 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
In just over a month, I've witnessed two distressing moments in Irish culture, the airing of The Hunger on @RTEOne & the release of the #motherandbabyhomes report. Two gross wounds; one inflicted, the other self inflicted.
Thread.
#TheHunger was harrowing; heartbreaking. I was incredibly moved by it, forced to imagine with much more clarity the struggle my Gr Gr Grandad went through as a child-what he must've seen, smelled, feared, felt. The sadness that must have permeated his life. It's near impossible
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