My column in The Kerryman. 31 July, 2013

There’s a joke about we Irish not doing big street protests because of the weather. It’s a joke I thought hid a germ of truth. As I basked in the sun this last month I realised I’d be even less likely to protest in sunshine than in rain. Unless of course, that protest is at the beach.

The reason we don’t do big protests is because we don’t want big changes. We want tomorrow to be a lot like today, but a little better. It’s not easy to make that point in a big angry crowd, waving placards and staring into the faces of geared up gardai. Protests tend to be organised by people who are less invested than the rest of us, in tomorrow being pretty much the same as today.

Does that mean we are satisfied with the state of our country? No. Poll after poll may show the usual suspects still dominating the political landscape, but they also show increasing numbers of people unable to choose anyone they could vote for. In some countries that increasing uncertainty might indicate scope for a radical new party.

In Ireland it shows that the parties who’ve traditionally been trusted by the majority to be competent, are now increasingly thought of as either a bit too soft or a bit too tough or a but too unsure or a bit too certain.

We don’t do radical because we’ve already answered the most important question facing a relatively prosperous European nation. We’ve already decided that yes, we do want to be looked after by the State. The only debate is how much help should my neighbour get and how much must I pay for it. Any party that suggests we stop looking after our neighbours would be greeted with scorn. And parties that suggest we should all be as poor or as rich as our neighbours, tend to be so small they have to form ‘technical groups’ in the Dáil.

With the biggest question answered, what point is there then in getting involved in our political system? If all the main parties differ only in emphasis rather than principle, why get involved? If tomorrow will be same as today, then why even vote?

Do you remember the Fianna Fáil Tent at the Galway Races during the ‘boom’ years? This annual event was where the rich men of Ireland rubbed shoulders with the stout patriots of Fianna Fáil. The rich men of Ireland did this not because they were stout patriots like Bertie and his gang, but because rich people know something a lot of the rest of us have forgotten.

Rich people know that politicians don’t always need bribing to be influenced. Just spending time with them can be enough to make a difference and the rich continue to get richer. Does that make you angry? Then join a party. It doesn’t matter which one, toss a coin if you can’t decide.

If you want to help shape the policies of a party, have a say in the candidates it chooses and the leader it has, join a party. Casting a vote every five years isn’t enough to have one’s voice heard.  If you want tomorrow to be the same as today but a bit better, join a party. Be it Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour or Sinn Fein, just join one of them today.

My column in The Kerryman. 24 July, 2013

I wrote here recently about the lack of useful anger in Ireland. I worried that we didn’t have the energy required to even just keep an eye on the people we’ve gifted power to. Then we had the spectacle of an all night sitting of the Dáil. I thought myself an energised and interested person as I sat up all night to watch our TDs make endless speeches, debate and vote on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

165 amendments were proposed. Every last TD was allowed speak. More and more time was allocated, so every little grievance, suggestion, opinion and plea was heard. In the end, not a single amendment, not first proposed by the Minister of Health, was passed. Not one.

Yes, it was a wonderfully entertaining event, if one is a political nerd. It was also a vital piece of legislation, if that is, one identifies as very strongly pro-life or pro-choice. I’m a political nerd and I’m very strongly pro-choice, yet the entire exercise has left me feeling profoundly empty.

There was a debate during the long hours of argument and counter argument about whether a woman, who was pregnant because of being raped should go to jail for five years or 14 years if she procured an abortion in this country. Five years or for fourteen? That was one of the highlights.
There was much talk of principles. Much talk of protecting our most vulnerable. Conscience was mentioned. Conscience? Did you know that the person who won the €93.9m Euromillions jackpot, barely makes it into the top 100 richest people in Ireland? Principles and conscience, when discussing legislation that will only impact on women too poor or too ill to travel to the UK.

Principles and conscience when 40 teenagers in 2011, raped while under 18, were made pregnant by their rapist. Nine of them had abortions. Today, unless they can jump through the hoops laid out by this legislation, they’d still have to travel to a foreign country for a termination.

From a pro-choice point of view this legislation is a step in the right direction, but a step so minuscule, it’d require specialist equipment to measure the distance gained.

The legislation itself however, being so poor, is less interesting than the actual process of its passage through the Dáil. To watch was to learn a great deal about what is wrong in this country.
When we vote for our TDs, we are electing a committee who are charged with the appointment of a government. We don’t choose the Government; the fellas from whom we beg Medical Cards, demand that potholes be filled and ask if they can speed up passport applications, choose our government.

What do they do with this awesome power? Watch how this legislation was passed. The process began last November when reports of Savita Halappanavar’s death first went national. Dáil Committees sat, experts were questioned, a draft Bill was published. And all these months later? Every TD who wanted to make an amendment was allowed propose one. Every TD who wanted to speak was allowed to do so. The Government sat and listened and then enacted the legislation exactly as it had always intended to do so anyway. That’s worth paying attention to.

My column in The Kerryman. 17 July, 2013

I can’t imagine anything scarier than having and raising a baby. So scary I’ve avoided becoming a parent. Having and raising children is both the most natural thing in the world to do and the most complicated and daunting enterprise one will ever face. Fortunately there are some things a new parent in Kerry will not have to worry about; diseases like smallpox, polio and TB are all but gone.

There was a time when it was thought measles would be added to the list of things parents could stop worrying about. This highly contagious virus was responsible for over half a million deaths worldwide in 2000. By 2010 deaths had fallen to just under 140,000, but an untruth told by a disgraced former doctor, means measles has still not been eliminated from our part of the World.

In 1998, the disgraced former doctor, Andrew Wakefield, claimed there was a link between the MMR vaccination and autism. Within months this nonsense had been dismissed by medical experts all over the world. Too late, as the false claims made by this disgraced former doctor had already found a foothold in too many imaginations. The damage has been done. Doubt has been seeded. As Terry Pratchett said: “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.”

Doubt once seeded is almost impossible to remove. Especially when that doubt is on a subject as intensely important as our children and as complicated as medical science. Throw in our new found mistrust of authority and you have a hardy weed indeed.

Our species produces babies that are ridiculously helpless, children who are hopelessly dependent and gloriously hapless adolescents, because it takes all the time between conception and adulthood to learn every little titbit of information and trick, that keeps us at the top of the food chain. In the wildly competitive environment that is Earth, our species bet on being the smartest. And we won. We won big.

What is the price paid for this investment in intelligence? We now have to trust strangers with the care of our children. We have to trust experts we’ve never met, speaking in a jargon we don’t understand, who tell us that vaccinating our children is the safest and most responsible thing we can do for the wholly vulnerable beings in our care.

Measles was on its way out. Now many parents are scared that this disgraced and discredited former doctor may have something worthwhile to say. There have been measles outbreaks in Europe and America, all because one disgraced and discredited former doctor managed to push emotional buttons that all caring parents have.

We live in a rational age. We no longer accept anything on faith. We saw how our parents were treated by those they trusted without question. No longer will we be the gullible and spineless playthings of those who would tell us how to behave, how to think and how to raise our children. So when somebody hints at another lie from the authorities, it’s hard not to take notice.

Would I give my child the MMR vaccination? On one side there is the united opinion of scientists, governments and the UN that the MMR is a safe, lifesaving measure. Opposed is a disgraced former doctor. Would I give my child the MMR vaccination? In a heartbeat.

My column in The Kerryman. 10 July, 2013

We were part of the British Empire for a long time, but since leaving it we’ve remained part of a network of former colonies which share a language and similar political systems. This relationship has rarely been to Ireland’s advantage. If there has been a benefit, it’s having English speaking countries to flee to every time our politicians destroy the economy.

Every year since Independence, we’ve been heading to those English speaking countries in our thousands and hundreds of thousands. Emigration is as much a part of the Irish experience as pretending to be a Catholic or pretending to be able to speak Irish are. We’ve a culture of seeing loved ones forced to travel to the other side of the planet in search of work, and it has been spirit crushing.

This experience of Irishness appears to have robbed us of our ability to be angry in a publicly useful way. Those of us who’ve listened to the recordings of the Anglo-Irish executives may be furious with these men for laughing at us as they led us into ruin, but it’s a powerless anger. It’s an aimless fury and I fear it’ll disappear with the next plane load of defeated men and women, leaving in search of work.

We’ve half a million unemployed people in this country. We should have closer to a million. Imagine that. One million people without jobs and without any investment in keeping things exactly as they are, exactly as they have always been. Look at the social strife in Greece and the street protests that took place in Iceland. Or the Catalan and Scottish independence movements in Spain and Britain. The ominous reinvigoration of extreme right-wing parties in some European countries.

And more recently, the spontaneous anti-government protests in Turkey, Brazil and Egypt.

What do we have? We have emigration and when we’re really annoyed, we call Joe Duffy. Ireland wasn’t uniquely screwed over by a class of rich men, who remain better off than the rest of us. It’s not as if taxpayers all over the western world aren’t right now paying for the mistakes of their bankers, just like here. What’s different is that we either leave or ever so slightly change how we vote.

One could argue that this isn’t a bad thing. Despite our economy being destroyed, despite rising poverty and the attacks on our public services and public sector workers, despite families being broken up by emigration or buckling under the horrible stress of debt, despite the incompetence and our thwarted desire for revenge. Despite all this, the only difference a foreign visitor would see in Ireland today from ten years ago, would be the number of vacant commercial properties.

I am not saying that only the best of us are leaving or that only those who can cure the institutional corruption and stupidity of this nation have left. No, but we do have to recognise that anger requires energy. Action requires energy. Change requires energy. And most importantly, just paying attention requires energy.

And everyday as more people leave this floundering nation, we lose more of that vital energy. So we have a choice. Be angry enough for both ourselves and for those who’ve left, or accept that of course the bankers and pensioned politicians have no need to fear us. That they are even free to laugh at us.

My column in The Kerryman. 3 July, 2013

Sometimes you have to applaud the hilarious levels of paranoia of some people. Did you know there’s conspiracy theory called Chemtrails, which believes the vapour trails left by airplanes are full of chemicals? Worse, the chemicals are put there by governments to; sterilise us or pacify us with mind-control or halt our continued evolution or something equally terrible. That’s what some people believe.

It’s such an embarrassingly silly belief, that no one really discusses it. Except those who believe it of course. It does bear a quick look though as it highlights both a problem and, despite the stupidity, a necessary skepticism.

The problem is that it’s so ridiculous it can discredit anyone who wishes to ask serious questions of those in power. Now that we have discovered that the US and UK governments have been spying on everyone, we require like never before, recourse to question the power we give politicians and the organs of State.

Our private phone calls and emails to our friends and families in America have become the property of American politicians, spies, soldiers, judges and even worse, the property of multi-billion dollar hedge-funds that run the whole snooping business for the American government. We know they are doing this, they’ve admitted it, yet it is still difficult to not come across as anything more than a paranoid conspiracy theory freak, when expressing alarm at such intrusions.

I’m alarmed, but just like the chemtrail fools, the only other people who share my alarm are on the internet. The majority of people appear to be wholly unconcerned that politicians have given themselves such power. Most people appear to think that because of 9/11, it’s perfectly acceptable to let the politicians who allowed the world economy to be destroyed, to eavesdrop and peep into our lives.

This can seem to be a wholly irrelevant issue to someone struggling with unemployment, mired in mortgage debt and slowly losing self-confidence to encroaching poverty. My mortgage is OK at the moment, so perhaps I can afford priorities that are less immediate, less real. Would I care as much about people accessing my emails and phone calls, if those phone calls were from my bank manager looking for his money?

I honestly don’t know. Am I as bad as those idiots who genuinely believe in the Chemtrail nonsense? No doubt some people may think I am. I will however ask you to consider one thing. The German sociologist, Max Weber, defined the State as having “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order.” In short, the State owns all the lawful violence.

Who runs the State? The civil service, the judges and the government. Who hires the civil servants, appoints the judges and elects the government? Politicians, politicians, politicians.

The only thing that restrains the politicians is us, the people who choose the politicians. Now we can be ever vigilant of these people or we can trust them to always have our best interests at heart. Call me paranoid then, because I can’t think of anything scarier than trusting a politician to not only have my best interests at heart, but to even know what my best interests are or how to meet them. And I’ve yet to meet a politician, judge or garda, I’d share my private phone calls with.

My column in The Kerryman. 26 June, 2013

It’s not easy to be pro-choice and defend the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill. So restrictive and mean-spirited is its interpretation of the Supreme Court decision on X and the two resulting referendums, that one could deem it an insult to the Irish people. I’d still vote for this terrible piece of legislation if I had a say in the matter. I’d vote for it because I cannot imagine any government in Ireland, really standing up to the vested interests that wish to keep Irish abortions in the UK.

I support this terrible piece of legislation, even though it’s more than probable, its provisions wouldn’t have saved the life of Savita Halappanavar. The doctor who conducted the HSE investigation into the death of Halappanavar, Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, Professor Emeritus of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, stated that clinical practice in other jurisdictions is to terminate the pregnancy as early as possible if faced with the symptoms that she presented.
This legislation wouldn’t have helped in Halappanavar’s case because the transition from her condition being a threat to her health, to becoming a threat to her life, was so quick, that waiting for the conditions of this legislation to be satisfied, would’ve meant it would be too late to save her.

I support this terrible piece of legislation even though a victim of rape will now face a prison sentence of 14 years if she manages to procure a termination in this country, of any pregnancy resulting from that rape. In the unlikely circumstance that the man who attacked her is convicted of rape, he might get 14 months.

I support this terrible piece of legislation even though it ignores women who must endure the tragedy of a fatal foetal abnormality. Women whose pregnancies will inevitably end in the death of their baby will continue to be forced to access terminations in the UK.

I support this terrible piece of legislation even though it means a pregnant woman experiencing a medical emergency will continue to face the uncertainty of not knowing just what kind of doctor she is being treated by. Will that doctor offer her all the available options to save her life, or only those allowed for by his or her conscience? Worse, how much time will elapse between this conscientious objector washing their hands of the situation and another doctor getting up to speed?

I support this terrible piece of legislation even though if a friend of mine experiencing a crisis pregnancy asked me for advice, I would suggest a therapist and then if certain, go to the UK. Have absolutely nothing to do with the suicide provisions in this legislation.

I support this terrible piece of legislation all the more because of the pathetic hand-wringing of some Fine Gael TDs and Senators. They demand a free vote. They deem it a right to have a free vote. There was a time when Christians were made of sterner stuff, but they fear the loss of the Fine Gael logo from their stationery.

This is a terrible piece of legislation, but in certain, very limited, heavily monitored situations, it may save a life or two. The vast majority of the 5000 women who travel to the UK every year to exercise control over their own bodies, will hardly even notice its passage.

My column in The Kerryman. 19 June, 2013

I’ve always considered myself a bit worldly. Very few things can take me by surprise, but I was stunned to learn the Gardaí estimate that since 2011, eight people in Kerry have died due to heroin. These figures appeared in this newspaper, during coverage of the tragic death of Natasha Donovan, young mother to two children.

We can only hope that the widespread coverage of this tragedy and the bravely expressed grief of those family members she left behind, will in some way influence young people who may be considering that very dangerous choice to use recreational drugs.

Is hope enough? Are the efforts of our gardaí, locally, nationally and even internationally enough? Are our efforts to help addicts enough? Is our criminalising of addicts enough? Is our moral certainty enough?

Clearly not. Drugs remain available. People are dying. Facilities to treat addicts are inadequate. And we continue with the same policies that have been proven to not work. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different outcome. Our reaction to recreational drug use, our attitudes and laws regarding recreational drug use, result in continual and maddening failure.

When addressing the use of narcotics, one must decide which core principal will inform policy. Is one more concerned with preventing the use of drugs, or does one think saving lives is more important? Think hard on that one. Every decision made by our society and our State regarding narcotics, must necessarily stem from that choice; try to stop the drugs being used, or try to stop people dying.

No, we can’t do both. We do not have the resources for both our gardaí and health care practitioners to fight this war on two fronts. No nation on Earth does. Most countries have chosen to prioritise stopping drug use. Some even execute drug dealers. Others lock up their citizens for decades for possession of small amounts of the mildest of narcotics. Result? Worldwide there have been hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of people displaced because of this war on drugs.

It is estimated that there are 20 000 heroin addicts in Ireland. To treat these people there are 38 detox beds. The money being generated by this addiction is so vast and steady, suppliers are quick to murder their rivals in the trade. Guns are plentiful and gangland shootings have become routine. In response we demand more gardaí. More money from the ever decreasing public pot to be wasted on a failed mission to stop drugs reaching Ireland in huge quantities, being divided among the bigger dealers, then divided again among the smaller dealers, before distribution to the addicts and new users. Everyone taking a huge cut of money, except the consumers.

Some countries are entirely sick of this cycle of failure, this expensive mess. They decided a new emphasis was needed. They decided that saving lives was more important than making criminals of those who either dabble in drug use or who are mired in drug addiction. Nations like Portugal decriminalised all drugs. Drug use has actually gone down. Deaths have gone down. Infectious diseases have been reduced. Crime has been reduced.

Again, ask yourself this question, is stopping people taking drugs – something no nation has ever achieved – more important or less important than saving lives? I know I’d vote for saving lives every time.

My column in The Kerryman. 12 June, 2013

There’s a particular species of Irish person who’s very excited about a new referendum. These strange people are gleeful because of a vote on the Seanad. I know these people exist, because I’m one of them. I’m just not sure which type of weirdo I am.

Worse, this column won’t even be the last time I write about the Seanad. I know you’re normal people, so I have to try find some way of making good honest people, take an interest in something so dull, the majority of you won’t be voting. Most won’t even register the result. Your life will in no way change if the Seanad is retained or abolished. That’s just how unimportant this issue is.

As in any debate, there are two sides. On one side are the people who want rid of this pointless collection of overpaid windbags and political parasites. On the other side are people who want this collection of overpaid windbags and political parasites extensively reformed so that the Seanad functions as something more than as a repository for overpaid windbags and political parasites.

No one is arguing to leave well enough alone. So you know something is wrong. You know the Seanad is supposed to be doing something, but isn’t doing whatever that thing is. Again, that highlights another separation between normal people and nerds who care about the Seanad. We nerds know what the Seanad should do, sort of. But as only about 150,000 of us are allowed vote for the thing (I’m not one of those privileged few) hardly any of us spare its purpose or existence any thought.

Simply put, the Seanad, or the Upper House, should ensure that laws passed by the Dáil, are given the kind of care and attention, that only a collection of people, not slaves to opinion polls and party whips, can give. It’s a worthy ideal.

Our Upper House is based on the UK’s House of Lords, which was allowed to check the populist leanings of the Lower House, the House of Commons. Though the Lords is now only allowed to delay – not block – legislation, a power they lost because, among other things, they were not keen on Ireland being granted Home Rule. So we did help reform our neighbour’s Upper House. Why then can we not reform our own? No wait, our Upper House can hinder the passage of a law?

Well the Seanad could in theory delay the passing of a law, but it was set up in such a way, that the Government would always have a comfortable majority in the Seanad. And as politicians almost never vote against their party, the Seanad has not managed to evolve beyond being a house of overpaid windbags and political parasites.

Then there is the issue of size. The UK has a vast population compared to ours. It has two Houses of Parliament, or is bicameral, to be technical. Most countries of Ireland’s size are unicameral and they appear to do just fine.

So do we really need the Seanad? I just don’t know, but rest assured I shall return to this topic again. I just hope you keep reading as I try to decide which way I’ll vote.

My column in The Kerryman. 5 June, 2013

There are times in this country when our politicians are indescribably ridiculous; so buffoonish and petty and moronic, we risk despair if we look at them too closely. The recent nonsense concerning our politicians’ dodgy driving habits and our gossipy gardaí demonstrates how ill served we citizens can be, by those to whom we have lent power. If we look too closely at the scandal surrounding penalty points, there’s a good chance many if us would just give up on our democracy.

So instead of describing the depths to which our politicians have sunk. Instead of a close examination of how our politicians have made our institutions seem pathetic and grubby, I will write about some of my favourite phrases like ‘schadenfreude’ and ‘hoist by his own petard.’

Now don’t ask me how to pronounce schadenfreude. I guess at it every time I use it. A good hint though, is to remember it’s a word borrowed from the German language, like hamburger and frankfurter. So I like to give it a German twang.

Thankfully it’s much easier to define. Have you ever been in a pub and heard the loud crash of a trayful of glasses smashing to the ground? Well when we applaud, that’s schadenfreude. It’s taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune.

Like when a certain politician from Roscommon, with more facial hair than me, accused the Gardaí of corruptly removing penalty points from certain drivers. Only to be discovered to have had the same service rendered him. The snort of contemptuous laughter we directed at Deputy Flanagan, is schadenfreude.

Another example is when a tax dodging politician accuses the Gardaí of being corrupt regarding penalty points, is then discovered to have been a beneficiary of some traffic Gardaí discretion. Our weary shrug of bemusement at Deputy Wallace, is schadenfreude.

What about ‘hoist by his own petard?’ A petard was an early explosive device, used to blow up gates and walls. The reliability of these bombs and the environment in which they were deployed, often resulted in the ‘petardeers’ being, dramatically, launched through the air by their own bombs. Causing Shakespeare to write the phrase, ‘hoist with his own petard.’ We tend to say ‘by his own petard’ these days.

A good example of this would be when a Minister for Justice uses confidential information to discomfort a political opponent and to cause some fun – ‘schadenfreude’. Of course confidential information then stopped being confidential and Minister Shatter was very quickly discovered to have questions to answer regarding his own behaviour as a driver.

In trying to embarrass Deputy Wallace, by telling us about the time Wallace was not given penalty points for using his phone while driving, Minister Shatter made it acceptable for someone else to tell us that Shatter himself once failed to provide a sample for a breathalyser test. We still don’t know why he wasn’t taken to a Garda Station so he could give a urine or blood sample. Hoist by his own petard.

Unfortunately the last laugh is on us. As contemptible as everyone involved in this pathetic display of hypocrisy is, the real concern is that we still don’t know when Gardaí should or shouldn’t use their power of discretion regarding penalty points. Worse, the Gardaí can take a life from us and they have given their lives for us, so seeing them involved in this dirty game of politicians, is far from a laughing matter.

My column in The Kerryman. 29 May, 2013

It’s not uncommon these days to hear young women disdain feminism. Dismissing it as an ideology for man-hating, joy-killing, angry extremists. What use is there for feminism now, when women have the vote, have jobs and can vomit on the street after a good night out, just like men? Sure they don’t even lock up single mothers anymore.

It’s easy to think that women have it made. Girls are excelling in school and in the universities. Plumb professions in Medicine, Dentistry and Law are increasingly dominated by woman. Respectable professions like Teaching, Nursing and Social Working are all but exclusively female. And ever so slowly, the upper echelons of academia are being infiltrated by smart and ambitious women.

Women live longer. Fewer women die by suicide than men. When separating from their husbands/boyfriends, women retain custody of the children, almost as if it is their exclusive right. At a glance, women are winning the War of the Sexes. Crushing we poor disempowered little frightened men. Surely Feminism would just be rubbing it in at this stage? They even have a gold medal for boxing.

And if feminism was merely about winning the right to vote and the right to act as stupid as stupid drunk men have always acted, then indeed, feminism has won. New livers and antibiotics for all in the sisterhood.

Feminism has barely scratched the surface of the violent inequality that afflicts women. Examples of this oppression can be dramatic. Gang rapes in India. They can be galling beyond bearing. An Australian woman in the Unites Arab Emirates, jailed for having sex outside marriage as she had been raped.

They can be uncomfortably close to home. The woman abducted in Limerick, who was repeatedly raped for almost a week. They can by too chilling to believe. Three women held as sex-slaves for ten years in America. A daughter in Austria, forced to live in a cellar as her father’s sex-slave.

And then there are the examples of such stupidity, one despairs. A Senatorial candidate in the USA claiming women who are ‘legitimately’ raped, can’t get pregnant. A Roman Catholic priest from Italy, saying women attract violent assaults because of how they dress and because they do not cook enough.

Then there are the dull stats. Only six of our 35 High Court Judges are women. Only 26 out of 166 TDs are women. Only two of the 15 members of the Cabinet are women. When it comes to money, among the top earners in Ireland, women make about 25% less than men. Which is understandable as women hold only a fraction of senior management positions and boardroom membership.

Then there are the insidious examples. The too thin and sexualised roles-models offered to girls. The not surprising fact that in the top 100 grossing films in America during 2012, less than 30% of the speaking parts were female.

Yes there has been progress in Ireland. Women are no longer the property of their male relatives. Woman can vote. Husbands may no longer rape their wives. Married women are no longer forced to give up their jobs. Single-mothers are no longer detained. That’s what Feminism has achieved so far. It will never eliminate all the injustices endured by women here and elsewhere, but at least it’s trying.

Forcing me to ask, if you’re not a feminist, then just what the hell are you?