Cover up? Hijabs in Irish Schools

This has been a hot topic this week, among the chattering classes and the earnest pundits. News stories abound: Principal calls for guidelines on wearing of hijab in schools and Muslim Headscarf Row Hits Irish Schools to name but two. Joe Duffy has spoken, Morning Ireland has opinionated. And the debate has of course polarized.

If you object to the wearing of the hijab or  khimār  you are a racist. If you accept it you are a woman hater. The truth as ever lies somewhere in the middle.

I have little objection to Islamic women wearing the Hijab outside of working or school environments.

Personally I think it’s a pity; I think it is a symbol of repression of women and I resent its presence in a country that has famously had to fight for basic women’s rights perhaps harder than in any other developed European modern country. I see it as a step back.

Personally I despise the weakness of women who adopt it and who effectively opt out of the difficulties of life. Yes, a man might look at you. Yes, it’s easy to hide behind a scarf or a veil. Yes you’re less likely to have to face issues of sexuality and gender politics – but it’s hardly living is it?

And personally I am impatient of the hypocrisy that calls it “freedom” – if the Hijab makes you so free how come you can’t let other Islamic girls choose not to wear it? And as for the hypocrisy that says it is not part of the repression of women – it’s entire validity in Islam is based on a passage of the Koran Qur’an 24:31 and it’s primary function if to instruct women not to “inflame” men. It strikes against the fundamental principle of Irish and European laws governing sexual assault – that principle that makes men responsible for their own actions, and rejects the plea that a women “led him on” by provocative dress. A principle that women had to fight damn hard for.

And the argument that it’s cultural and therefore by default, must be accepted is belied by the Islamic world’s lack of reciprocal respect for Western Culture: -   the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for example, who insisted the grieving mother of Simon Cumbers wear a full burka type covering before allowing her (finally) to see her son’s body. Western female visitors to fundementalist Islamic countries are not offered the choice of wearing their own culturally acceptable clothes

But, having said all that, if some woman is silly enough to buy into the propaganda and make herself a scapegoat for men’s irresponsibility, then fine. On her own time, she is entitled to do as she pleases, it is actually a free country. I can’t have my own way about it.

But in work, and in school, I don’t believe that anyone should flout the rules. I have many Hindu friends who can’t send their kids to school in a sari. Mind you they don’t think they should. I have Jewish friends whose children somehow manage to get through school life with a skull cap. I have Atheist friends and Pagan friends whose children attend primarily Catholic schools without taking offence at either the dress code or the underlying ethos. Their attitude is, if their children wish to take advantage of the Irish school system, they conform to that system.
And therein lies the rub Ladies and Gentlemen – we can’t all have our own way. I haveto put up with grown women wearing the Hijab, despite my dislike of all it represents. I accept their right to do so. But in return the Islamic community has to  accept that they can’t always have their own way either. If they wish to attend a mainstream Irish school they have to bow to the primary culture. Just as if anyone wants to live in Ireland they have to bow to the host culture. Luckily for us all the host culture is a democracy – not a theocracy. Democracies let everyone have their own culture as much as possible. But there is a compromise that has to be made

 - our culture has to have the same consideration as everyone else’s. Bummer, eh? 

Disclaimer: I equally dislike allreligions’ strictures against women from the Catholic Church to the Budhist I am an equal opportunity refuter of inequality!

The Naked Truth…

ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH?

Internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Spencer Tunick will be offering the chance of a lifetime to become part of his first back to back city art project in both Cork and Dublin this June. Multiple groups of nude participants will be photographed outdoors by Tunick as part of his series of installations that have previously taken place in cities around the world including New York, Amsterdam and Mexico City. Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Cork Midsummer Festival are delighted to present the first Irish installation by this celebrated artist.

Participants must register at www.spencertunickireland.ie to take part in the installations.

YEAH right…..I’d be paid to keep my clothes on but part of me really admires folk who have the “bare” cheek to do this! So if anyone is brave enough, go for it…I’ll be cheering ye on in spirit…

Tell the truth…

..and shame the devil?

I don’t believe in the devil, but I believe there is a certain amount of truth in the old adage about honesty. While I despise those who mistake rudeness for being honest and offer unwanted criticisms under the guise of being blunt there are times when you wonder if being “cruel to be kind” isn’t the best way forward!

Someone recounts a tale of woe involving a fiathless boyfriend and some random slapper – don’t you just long to say “No, it won’t be ok, dump his lying arse now before you regret it for the rest of your life?” Or a friend demands to be told that it is normal for her and her fiancé to argue relentlessly and that all will be well after the wedding – it would so liberating to reply “Well, no, you are ill suited and communicate through snide childish passive agression.” I confess to feeling a tad jaded today. I’ve overdosed on women online in various fora.

Especially recently, at the herding mentality of women particularly on the subject of relationships. An entire body of females exists which relies on other similar females to support its every decision and which views with suspicion any deviation from the shallow definition they call the “norm.” All couples argue, all men are lazy, all men are thoughtless, all relationships have bad patches, all women like shoes and shopping, all women want to live like them, eat like them, reproduce like them, replicate their every emotion. The Stepford gene is alive and thriving.

Outrage occurs when they spot difference outside their ranks; near hysterian and accusations of treachery of from within the species. Anyone who has a calm, or happy relationship is “delusional” – they gather to shriek and complain that these other women must be making it up. No one’s husband is that thoughtful, that kind, that loving. They cannot empathise outside their narrow experience, they cannot admit of any value system other than their own.

The problem is of course that like the rest of us they constantly come up against real life and people who don’t live according to their rules. I’m a rebel, I am  

Negativity…

Well I got my first BFN – in tcc-ing terms (see any Trying To Conceive or TTC website or forum) a Big Fat Negative, on a pregnancy test. And I was surprised at how it affected me.

I really didn’t think we’d get pregnant straight out of the traps, I was quite realistic about it all, but staring at that very plain, and very uncompromising single line was quite depressing. I felt surprisingly disappointed and realised somewhere deep inside I was not quite as prepared and rational as I had fondly imagined. It kept striking me over and over again how there was no getting around it – it was “no”. Up til then i could secretly examine every twinge of my traitorous body and try to pretend it was an early symptom of pregnancy. But once you test, there it is in black and white – or rather pink and white. The fantasy is over for another month.

On the bright side however, once this cycle ends, the first “real” cycle since coming off the pill begins and the Clearblue Fertility Monitor can start earning its keep  

With friends like this….

Ever noticed that some days have themes? Something keep cropping up, a sort of emotional zeitgeist? Well today’s theme is friendship.  I just found out a lovely person, a good friend, has been stabbed in the back by her so called best friends. Another acquaintance has been telling me a sorry tale of friendship betrayed and here I am, mulling over a friendship that seems to be dead if not quite buried.

Friends. I love mine, I’ve had most of them for years. I am a good friend – I am loyal and I’ll do anything for them that I can. In return I do expect loyalty; I value friendship very highly. So as a result I have some incredibly good friends. But also, I’ve been horribly let down by people I thought were friends. You can  have light friendships and never get hurt or you can have deep ones and run the risk of being very hurt. I have always chosen the latter.

Two years ago the person I thought was my best friend, like a sister turned against me. This woman shared a house with me for 6 years, was a “best friend” for 10 years, was treated by my family as if she was a daughter, a sibling, an aunt. I nursed her when she was sick, kept her secrets for her and trusted her withotu reflection.

Then she decided that I was in her way and she dumped me as a friend, overnight, spectacularly. She left me holding a lease on a house I couldn’t afford and looking after things that were as much her responsibility as mine. And I still tried to keep our friendship.

I don’t regret that but now, after weeks of being ignored despite texts and emails – has the time come to let it go? It’s giving up on ten years of friendship and shared memories but – if I email ehr again it’s like stalking her. I keep making excuses for her but in the last year she has not shown one iota of interest in anything going on in my life. When she emails she gives a bulletin newsletter type email about her life. I used to reply to each point, asking about things she was doing but I gave up. In reply I would get an email three weeks later with a new list of news items, and no reference either to the previous one or my questions. Call me thick – many have – but even I can take a hint.

So i looking at my mobile phone and thinking…will I do it? Will I give her one last text and see if she replies?

Or should I just let this one go….? Are some friendships just not worth it?

 

 

 

By the Book, Baby.

My usual approach to any project is research, research and research. So planning a family is no different for me – before we even came off the pill I had Zeta West’s books stacked in the bedroom. Mr BB is tolerant of this nerd-like behaviour (as he admits half our wedding would still be in planning stages if we hadn’t got ourselves organized and read up on what we were doing.) So when I heard about an irish book on TTC I had to get it – TTC The Irish Couples Guide by Fiona McPhillips - and an interesting read it’s been.

The first pages were not promising -the main thing that grated on me, and on anyone I to whom I showed the passage, was the patronizing admonition to potential fathers to be on hand for tlc and extra housework etc etc It was couched in a way that might be approved by a certain type of reader but it made me cringe and Mr BB was pretty incensed. A lot of modern couples will find some of the comments just a little patronizing and alienating. There are a few too many assumptions made.

Having said that, if you can plough past some of the clunky language and slightly grating comments  this is a very worthwhile book. Criticism of the language and style fades in the face of good information, interesting practical suggestions and in fairness to the author what seems like a genuine attempt to be of use. Many TTC books (including Zeta West’s books) are founded on the principle of trying to sell something, a course of treatment or a range of supplements whereas McPhillips seems to be honestly imparting information.

Definitely worth the money, if only to point out that I’ve been living in shameful ignorance of my own body for years!

Zeta West’s books, Guide to Getting Pregnant and Fertility and Conception are eye openers – I learnt more abot how the menstrual cycle and fertility works by reading either of these books than from any other source. Her holistic, slightly new agey approach may turn some off but for most women the emphasis on being proactive, preparing your body for pregnancy, doing anything you can to strengthen your chances of conception will come as a welcome relief in the face of the frustration of infertility. As a devotee of all things natural and holostic myself, these books were excellent; and the sales pitch is kept to a dull roar.

Now, off to research Clueblue Fertility Monitors and Preeseed oil. Don’t ask.

Lisbon….are you voting Yay or Nay?

Just listening to the debate on RTE Radio one and – am more confused than i was before. If you believe one pundit it’s doom, doom, we’re all doomed! and if you listen to the other pundit (AKA AN Tanaiste. so perhaps a tad biased) we must vote yes for continued peace and prosperity.

Like many of my peers I suffer from fear of rocking the boat. So far Europe has been good for Ireland, so I feat that refusing to progress with its plans for world domination will wreck the economy, leave me homeless and jobless, and let those skangers from number 44 run riot through the streets. Otoh, I fear that voting yes will bring a flood of new mad EU regulations, not the Banana straightening ones we all love to laugh at but the really scary ones, where thousands of newcomers to the EU will take over and impose mandatory 80s fashions and outlaw smiling on Sundays.

I would love to think that Lisbon will bring us all closer to the kind of Europe we want, and I believe that the EU is our best hope for a vibrant Europe, a cohesive market, with accepted and common rules of engagement. But the terms of the Lisbon treaty are so insanely obscure, I feel like I’m being asked to sign a particularly nasty hire purchase agreement that will cost me dearly in the long term. And What price an EU that can’t enforce it’s own rulings (Motorway through Tara? Here let us slap your wrists but only after you destroy it.) What use is the Eu legal system if it is so ineffective even in a civilised and euro-centric country such as Ireland; what will it do in Romania? How will it enforce itself? Questions, Questions.

Lisbon….coming soon to a voting booth near you… 

 

They went and built over a hellmouth…

I wrote before about one of the several encounters I’ve had with Nutters on South Great Georges Street especially around Dunne’s Stores; but up til recently I’ve sort of accepted that it’s me. I attract nutters, I really do. If there is a sad little old man ready to talk about the ghost in his attic or a neurotic lady of a certain age determined to discuss the sexual mores of today’s teenagers they seek me out like ticks smelling blood. If anyone is going to catch the eye and subsequently the ire of the druggie ranting on the street, it’ll be me. But recently I’m beginning to wonder if it’s all my fault.

Yesterday in Dunne’s I had to fend off the woman at the salad counter who took offence at my being there in front of her, and who poked me in the back and snarled at me to move so she could “look at the salads”; the Drunk De Jour, a hulking beast wandering around in stinking clothes clutching a can while security and counter staff alike tried to avoid making eye contact with either him or the customers fleeing out of his way; and the two drunks roaring at each other outside the main entrance. And it’s not as if Georges St. is a particularly bad area. There are fabulous streets off it as well, Like Stephen’s Street and Exchequer St where you’ll rarely hear so much as a raised voice.

 However last Saturday on Aungier St began with two unfortunate Garda trying to restrain four of the area’s most vile and violent drunks and ended with a fist fight between a drunken English stag group and some of the local skangers, also drunk.

The Salvation Army wet hostel nearby has of course created most of this problem – it comes to something when the unfortunate homeless for whose sake the hostel was  - ostensibly- built, tell you they are too afraid of the drunks using it to go anywhere near the place. The drunks incidentally are not homeless, they have council houses outside the city centre but they travel in on their giros to drink and socialize. The SA hostel is their preferred city break hotel.

But I do suspect that Georges St and in particular that Dunnes has been built over a Hellmouth. it’s the only real explanation.

 

 

Snooping, Prying and Poking My Nose In.

Heavens I am a bad person. I really am. I just  can’t resist a snoop if I have the chance. If I believed in hell I’d be going there, no two ways about it.

I haven’t heard from my erstwhile “best friend” in a while, not since the wedding and I thought I would check to see if she’s been in touch over the weekend. She hadn’t been but another friend emailed and with that strange synchronicity that mimics Zeitgeist said he had seen her profile on a dating website. And he gave me the username. So I went and had a look.

Now I want to email her and say Get That Profile Down. This is a woman who regularly complains that she can;t meet anyone. Or that the men she meets are after one thing only. Well describing yourself online as “sexy blonde” and marking “thrill seekers” and public nudity among your “turn ons” isn’t a good start. She’s a bright, attractive, intelligent girl except when it comes to men. She will write a profile that makes her sound like a slapper and then, dump the guy after one date for being too forward.

SO my punishment for being so nosy is that I am dying to tell her, an honest straightforward profile will attract honest men, and pretending to be something you’re not will attract d$%kheads!! but I can’t. So I’m telling ye instead.

The Next Big Adventure…

Well married life has barely started (one month married last Friday) and we have the great baby adventure ahead of us. We have always planned to come off the pill and start trying asap after the wedding. I’ll be 40 later this year and Mr BB is 38 so…we’re not assuming anything. This thread may well lead us down the route of assisted fertility or indeed, we have discussed not being able to conceive at all: but we’re being as positive as possible about natural conception and so (stuffed to the gills with folic acid and vitamins) it’s off down the road of temping charts, cycles, clear blue monitors and more.

So…what now? well isn’t it the weirdest flaming thing? I like to be hands on when i have a project; i buy magazines, I research on-line, I read books. So far I’ve read two Zita West’s (very good) and The Irish Couple’s Guide, by Fiona McPhillips (excellent) and in so far as I can follow them (my brain shuts down after a while, when i try to remember is it B12 or B6 or Vitamin A or what I should be taking) I’m doing all I can.

And waiting.

I have found some websites that are good but…well I’m not sure I fit in. I can’t sympathize with women who post about being jealous of pregnant friends and co workers. I can think of few things so abhorrent as to begrudge another her child. I have the sense of competition – some people announce pregnancies as if they have triumphed over their barren sisters. I don’t want to be one of these women, but most of all, I fear that they started off as normal sane reasonable people and that the process of TTC turned them into walking biological clocks. I can sympathise; gods know I gave up on having kids until I met Mr BB, and may even now have to accept that it won’t happen. But I can’t bear to let it diminish us, either of us. And I believe that walking around seething with jealousy at others fortunate enough to conceive, does diminish one.

on the other hand there is an undoubted comfort in hearing other’s stories and especially reading answers to questions you would love to ask yourself.  

Ah well, all part of the journey of life. Wish us well