Ah I know they say don’t given them oxygen but read the last line of the article by Ruadhán Mac Cormaic on the latest reaction on the possible merger of the Equality Authority and the Irish Human Rights Commission. Laugh? Oh I giggled merrily otherwise if I had really spent time shouting at the screen I could have done myself an injury.
AMEN have been a bit quiet of late, nothing to do with Rachel O’Reilly or Siobhan Kearney or any of the 90 women killed in their own homes in the past decade per chance?
…However, Mary Cleary, the founder of the support group Amen, said the importance of some equality groups may have reduced, adding: “It’s mostly human rights for women we’re talking about here anyway.”
“I would imagine there probably was a good reason to set up the Equality Authority when it was set up. However, maybe they have fulfilled whatever they set out to do,” she said.
Ms Cleary also claimed that violence against women had become a “huge industry” that commanded funding of some €30 million a year.
“I do believe that that remit has been expanded to include anything that causes any displeasure to any woman in the country . . . It’s about banging doors and throwing the odd tea cup or whatever you do. It’s about a bad Monday or a bad Friday or whatever day of the week it happens to be sometimes,” she continued.
“But the slamming of a door or the banging of the tea cup, I would not interpret that as domestic violence.”
According to the Equality Authority’s annual report for 2007, approximately 50 per cent of cases taken across all nine grounds of the Equal Status Acts last year were taken by men.
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So Mary’s gone from being a dingbat apologist for misogynists to an expert on equality and discrimination-quelle surprise! Otherwise why would an IT reporter ask her for her comments on a merger between EA and Human Rights Commission- but it would appear Mary cant leave off her other hat – the one she wears as a muppet,- shame though that the IT call ANYTHING to do with that piece journalism.
Oh, now you’ve got me started!
More than apologist for misogyny, AMEN presents this slippery, completed flawed logic in the name of reclaiming patriarchal power. It sits out there with other groups like Parental Equality and Separated Fathers, etc., which want men to get patriarchal power back. So, legal cases, like those you mentioned Maman Poulet, are inconvenient truths to this strand of masculinity politics because they tell uncomfortable stories about men’s power when it goes awry.
Ms. Clery tries to rehash tired old dubious arguments about domestic violence. Her viewpoint perpetuates a viewpoint that continues to lend comfort men who are violent to their partners instead of taking them to task. Her quip about slamming a door/ breaking a teacup… is quite close to the defence I’ve heard by men who have said ‘I only hit her once’… you should be ashamed, Ms Clery!
While AMEN can be quiet at times, the organisation does have an over-riding mission. I see this latest salvo as not only an attempt to bring the good work of equality politics into question, but it also attempts (again) to delegitimize some good work being done with men on domestic violence (eg. by MOVE) and more widely on reskilling men within families in contemporary society (the South East Men’s Network). The “industry” that Clery mentions is really anything that interferes with/ threatens/ problematises men’s ‘natural’ role as head of family, etc. What really irks me is that while AMEN wants to turn back the clock on patriarchy, it doesn’t have a f***ing clue about really helping men.
Equality politics is a crucial way in which violence and harm is rendered into the public gaze. Given how men seem to be equally adept at using this apparatus to seek redress, you would think AMEN would let men who are experiencing domestic violence to speak for themselves but that would mean recognising facts…
And talking of smashing teacups, spent the morning with a woman whose husband is making her life a misery and while he smashed every cup and mug she had against the wall he kept up an invective of pure verbal hatred to her calling her every name under the sun, belittling her and threatening her.. and he didnt have to lay a hand on her, it was terrifying, and she had recorded it on her phone video… I was shook just watching and listening to it- but sure as Mary says, thats ” not domestic violence”. And as the It would have it- she’s an expert who’s opinion is of worth to be quoted…aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!
Its a bit much that SeanR would suggest men speak for themselves when Family Law operates under the In Camera Rule and that a male victim like me would be in contempt of Court coming out.
I was one of Amens clients and without her help I wouldn’t have been able to tackle what was thrown at me.
On the subject of murders committed by one spouse or another, in a lot of cases extra martial affairs and other indiscretions rarely are made known to the public. In some of these cases the unfortunate victim has been conducting an adultrous affair and using the advantages of certain gender hegemony to wage an unwarranted campaign of abuse and other dirty tactics against the other spouse. Men are not born murderers or killers and no amount of feminist propaganda should be allowed to view us in this light!