AWE & GRÁ for MNÁ

AWE

&

GRÁ

for

MNÁ

Rebecca Cheptegei. 

Gisèle Pelicot.

Over the course of one week last in September 2024, the news stories of these women struck many chords in me.

The former, a Kenyan Olympian who had ‘dazzled’ at the Paris games in August, was immolated by her abusive ex-partner, and promptly died after sustaining burns on more than 80% of her body.

The latter, a 72 year old women who was systematically drugged and raped by roughly 83 men - her husband of 50 years the sadistic puppeteer behind this decade long deluge of devastating violation.

Different cultural contexts; different races yet both ‘victims’ of patriarchy in its pinnacle, vice-grip expression.

Let’s take rape. Around 1400 years ago, circa 697 an Irish church synod* joined a royal assembly to enact Cáin Adomnáin (English: the Law of the Innocents; Latin: lex innocentium), a legal text that imposed sanctions on perpetrators of violence against women, children and clerics. We even in our most basic senses, know it to be morally defective to be violent to others – especially when that violence comes within a pre-existing power-imbalance, such as that historically entrenched between men and women. If this baseline understanding extends very far back into the annals of our social history, then why this year when EU announced its first directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, had to include a perplexing aside. It will not include the crime of rape. Cén fath? Because various countries (including Ireland) couldn’t agree on a legal definition.

To me, it seems that Domestic, Sexual & Gender-based Violence is so salient. It’s so pervasive. Everyday another woman tells me another story..

Observations on the prevalence of DSGBV in Irish society: 

-       The normalisation of obstetric violence: (usually male) consultants will far too frequently perform non-consensual episiotomies on women during late stages of childbirth. Radical birth activists refer to this as ‘obstetric rape’.

-       Traditionally & typically low sentences for perpetrators: Natasha O’Brien as a recent example, where the man who beat her unconscious in 2022 received a light-touch, suspended sentence in July of this year.  *cough..probably from a ‘good’ family

-       The number of sexual offences has doubled in the Republic since 2003 when there were 1,572 offences. In 2022 there were 3,688 reported. Meanwhile in the North, the volume has doubled in the last 10 years.

One in 5 adult women have experienced rape. This makes it far more profuse than the exception it is sometimes dressed up as. We are far away from few-bad-apple territory. Why does the prevalence of DGSBV seem to be soaring, in parallel to the attempts to curb it? Ineffective policy? Defunct legislation? A gendered justice system? Or is it simply that know that we have more terminology and frames-of-reference for phenomena that have long plagued our most societies across time and space: misogyny, victim-blaming, rape culture, coercive control, femicide.. We are more readily able to identify things that we have words for.

While it seems anomalous that the instances of rape seem to be increasing, this may in fact be due to our increased awareness and literacy on these forms of violence. However, it is quite startling to consider that according to a 2022 Central Statistics Office (CSO) Sexual Violence Survey, “only 5% of those that experience sexual violence as an adult have reported it to the police”. As a survivor of rape or sexual violence, you will be more than aware that these statistics are crushing. We can kind of glaze over when people start firing numbers around to try and get their point across. But when you’ve been on the receiving end of abuse/violence, and you have journeyed through the shame, somatic distress and trauma within what feels like society’s gaslit chamber – you carry the weight and wreckage for each individual person that is contained within these statistics.

This isn’t a moment for “not all men”, don’t worry I assure you: I think men are amazing. Love them. Of course - violence, sexual & otherwise, isn’t perpetrated exclusively by men, but it is predominantly. That’s not speculative or intended to be provocative, its factual.

This post is emerging, partially because of a sentiment that I have detected in some male-friend social circles which has never really been externalised but it feels something along the lines of:

“I think the MeToo movement had its time and place but that’s enough. Stop making a mountain of a molehill. Feminism and your whining has worked – equality is real. In fact, gender quotas are actually putting me at a disadvantage.”

I implore you to cross-check any latent sense of agreement you may have to that line of logic. Patriarchy hurts us all. 

I think what we have to take from the experience and bravery embodied in Gisèle Pelicot, is the conviction to rebut false narratives about ‘certain men’ being inherently more dangerous than others, the heightened risk usually being associated with particular colour, religion or class.

Violence against women and girls can take place at a gross or subtle level. I think this musing, heavy as it may seem is an invitation to call out any behaviour that you see or know is happening that falls within its multiple expressions. We must cultivate a zero-tolerance culture, in order to be able to deoxygenate insidious misogyny, and this culture is non-spatial, non-temporal specific.

Together, we can be that sea change.

We Are One&Other.

 This post is a bow to all survivors of abuse, violence and subjugation.