Louise O Neill

El Caffo wrote: »

Incredible that actual feminists are "fans" of this spinster and her deluded ramblings.

When they use terms like, it's not beyond the relms of imagination, it's time to unfollow.

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

She is the reason I stopped reading anything but the sport sections on The Examiner.

Some of things she has made up are truly mind boggling

her articles should be evaluated for what they are, short fiction stories.

Car crash writing, an absolute car crash. You know it's bad, you know your brain is telling you to stop looking at it, but morbid curiosity over rules and you push on anyway. I feel dirty after reading these rantings of astronomical bollixology.

pone2012 wrote: »

"We — the women, the gay people, the transpeople, the people of colour, the people with disabilities — have to find a way of living, no existing, within this world that is intrinsically hostile to us"

I read this and arrived at the conclusion that she has the intellict of a parsnip

How someone can spout such nonsense and be given a national platform to do so is beyond me

That quote from her above is generation snowflake in a nutshell. Nobody gives a **** what victimised label you place on yourself, reality is a cruel place and the sooner you learn to deal with it the better.

If I facepalm myself any harder I'll break my own nose. Embarrassing ****e

pone2012 wrote: »

"We — the women, the gay people, the transpeople, the people of colour, the people with disabilities — have to find a way of living, no existing, within this world that is intrinsically hostile to us"

I read this and arrived at the conclusion that she has the intellict of a parsnip

How someone can spout such nonsense and be given a national platform to do so is beyond me

Pretty much. My sister is blind, has cerebral palsy, Asperger's, the mental capacity of about a 5 year old and a myriad of other problems.

She's also a baker! And it's in no small part due to the generally very kind nature of Irish society . After spending nearly all of her teens and early 20s locked away from the world in her room listening to music (the nuns at St. Mary's Marion were not so kind and caused a lot of psychological damage from things like pushing her down marble staircases to 'prove' she wasn't able to walk down them on her own; they have since sold the place to pay for defending and hiding paedophiles), my parents made the awfully difficult decision of moving her to a community for the disabled in her early 20s - which I hated them for for a while, thinking of it as a 'home' in the negative sense.

Well it turned out to be a lovely place with a lot of ground and open space, outdoor areas, facilities, etc. My parents wish incredibly badly that they'd done it earlier, but there was such a deep seated mistrust after the school incidents with the nuns, but it couldn't be any less the case with this place.

Unlike people with strong cases of Downs Syndrome and such, my sister is also in that awful, awful space where she is smart enough to know she is heavily disabled and aware of how much it limits her. Before I type this sentence I know there might be backlash because of how awful it will sound, but at times my family and I have wondered would it be better if she were more mentally retarded, as in just to the point that she wasn't aware of being 'different'. Because anyone with a disabled family member would know how crushing it is to see it get them down, and to know there is nothing, and never will be anything, that you will be able to do to help. Won't repeat it here, but I overheard her having a tantrum 25 years ago when I was 5, and one thing in particular that she said sticks with me and breaks my heart nearly every single day of my life. So it's partly selfish, and partly wondering if it would make her happier given how desperately lonely and sad her teen years were. It's one of those sickening conundrums like wondering if a friend who has been in late stage cancer for a long time would just be better off dead.

Well anyway, it turns out that because of that space she finds herself in she is also one of the most functional people in the entire community she lives in, and in that sense is seen as someone to 'go to', to act as a middleman, or even as a leader among her peers to quite an extent. So thanks to people, communities, and organisations in Ireland she has gone from a secluded hermit who refused to leave her room for anything but dinner, was developing what were looking to be huge and serious personality & psychological disorders, and worst of all was only-just-barely smart enough to know she was hugely disabled and never stood a chance in life... to an actual baker and community leader than people look to for help and advise.

The way Irish people are in nature too means we (typically) don't go over-the-top with disabled people, at least in my experiences, and again that is actually a very good thing - it makes those who are disabled pay less and less attention to it themselves, and feel more confident and part of society. It's more an accidental part of our culture, but it's a very good one in that sense. Not to sound preachy, but just to all - please keep that in mind next time you ask where something is from the disabled guy at the local supermarket or whatnot. Treat disabled people as if they were normal right at the start the first time you talk, and use the conversation to figure out how much you might need to 'gear it down' - not the reverse, which only serves to remind them of problem(s) if they are aware enough of everything to know they are 'different' in a bad way, and not at all 'special' (sad truth: many disabled people know that truth only to get told they are 'special' over and over and over and over through life, like a sick insult).

So my point is... on that front, Louise O'Neill, her agenda, and her claiming people who in large part have no coherent voice to lend (or retract with) themselves, can have my hostility, and can go f*** herself with it.