“Are you f*&king serious?” she asks, looking at me in that angry / scared / amused way that only teens can do.
I like this girl, this young woman. She’s valiant, honest and has a righteous rage.
I am serious I tell her. Really serious.
Moments earlier she’d whipped out her phone to show me an article she read on the way to my office. The grim headline read: “Ireland has the highest rate in Europe for young girls taking their own lives.”
And I had asked her why she thought this was the case.
I saw the piece myself on Twitter that morning, even though it’s a couple of months old now and it was still bouncing around in my head when she arrived. She’s the age, the profile. Yes, I am serious. This young woman has a history of self-harm, as do many of her friends, many of my clients.
Beloved friends and family are lost to suicide every year. It is serious.
And she is serious. “Here’s maybe why,” she says:
The last few years my friends and I have learned a few terrible truths about what life probably has in store for us. We can expect to be harassed pretty much everywhere. Then we get blamed for being harassed. We get judged for wearing too little clothes or make-up or tan or whatever. And too much. We are sluts, we are ugly, we are too fat, or too thin. We have to look hot. We’ll probably get paid less than boys. We might not be listened to if we complain about anything. We’ll get dragged through a court if we are attacked or raped. We can’t send pics or say things to boys cos it’ll be all over the place the next day and we’ll be blamed. But they still want them. We’re supposed to like porn and it’s gross. I HATE that boys watch it. We have the worst sex-ed. We might get beaten up by our partners. If we are the police mightn’t even be nice to us. We have to go to England for abortions. Even if we’re sick or our baby is sick. People don’t care. Everyone is fighting over our bodies and lots of us won’t even have a say. We can’t be honest about how we feel about sex and babies and stuff. We have to wait for months to talk to professionals. And Instagram. And periods, FFS. Periods.
She cry-laughs at the periods. (They’re no joke though. No, I know, God.) She cries properly. Spent.
“Will it change,” she asks?
Honestly? I don’t know. But I have hope. I do, even though I am also afraid. And have been afraid, and attacked and judged and dismissed. But she is a very, very bright part of our future. I know many like her.
They are like sunrises.
We have the loveliest young people walking among us, they are wise, they see, they hear. They are relying on us until they can take over.
Will it change? Will we?
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Since first writing this, my fingers have been crossed so tightly they were blue. As I write, the exit poll results of one of the most divisive referendums we’ve endured in Ireland are rolling in. On the same day as Harvey Weinstein was charged with rape.
A New Irish Revolution:
It’s worth checking out the #repealthe8th on Twitter. It will give you a flavour of what Irish women have endured. How we feel devalued, unsupported, unworthy. So many Irish women have felt afraid, judged. Were we heading towards The Handmaids Tale? I certainly felt like that at times.
The campaign has been bitter and so very, very painful. But things are indeed changing. There is hope. Nearly 70% of us believe that women’s lives have value. That women can be trusted. That mental health is health (yes, you wouldn’t believe some of the unsavoury s*^t that’s been said). That unnecessary pain, anguish and torture might soon end.
I am confident that what will now emerge is a just and compassionate law which will bring with it a sense of safety and worth. All will be well. All will be better.
We are now a step closer to equality. We have voted to decriminalise abortion.
To give you a flavour of what I’m talking about here—we have been living in a country where the penalty for rape is less than the penalty for aborting the rapist’s embryo.
Thank about that.
I hope that our younger girls and women can feel that change, learn to love themselves, and will take heart. As I do.
Last night I was out socialising and did a sneaky google of the exit polls to see how things were looking. I thought it would be tight, I thought we might lose. When I saw the word “landslide” I nearly got sick—but then quickly my eyes landed on the word “Yes” and I cried. Happy tears rolled down my happy face and I thought of all the women—my friends, my new comrades, my clients, myself.
And for the first time in a long time, I feel safer.
A version of this piece was originally published on SallyOReilly.com. Republished with permission.
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