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Female TD's break silence on harassment

  • 17-08-2021 2:35am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 13,679 ✭✭✭✭



    Shocking details of what female TD's have to deal with in just doing their job. This is all perpetuated by an angry online mob who with glee always seem to enjoy going after female TDs that bit more. Plenty of evidence of that here on this forum unfortunately as well.



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Comments

  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    There is a general harshening and coarsening of how people interact with politics here and I’ve no doubt that female politicians are very much taking some of the worst of it.

    One of the better things about Ireland and Irish political culture was that we could all be civil, agree to disagree and find compromise and common ground.

    That’s rapidly being undermined, particularly with social media pile ons, bullying and name calling.

    It’s a bit like when trolls take over a forum and the whole things begins to disintegrate into a shouting match.

    The last thing we need to do is adopt the horror show that American and British politics have become.



  • Registered Users Posts: 23,448 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack



    The men you speak of aren’t being targeted because they are men though, they are targeted because they are public representatives, whereas women are being targeted precisely because they are women, who also happen to be public representatives.

    That’s the key distinction and motivation between the two circumstances and is a perfectly legitimate reason why the issue of being targeted based solely upon their gender arises. Men in public life to my knowledge are not regularly threatened by other men with being raped for example. Women are, and that in itself is enough to put them off entering public life, or see them exit public life.

    It shouldn’t be simply dismissed as “woman moans” or “I want special treatment because I’m a woman”, when the reason they are being especially targeted and singled out for the kind of treatment they are subjected to, is precisely because they are women.

    But, I do understand why some people might use the tactic of “but whatabout mennnnn?” when women raise issues based upon their experiences which affect their participation in public life. Nobody is suggesting that anyone be given special treatment, all anyone is suggesting is that they be treated with the same respect which is given to anyone else, as opposed to being targeted on the basis of their gender.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,088 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    I knew there would be one along to boo hoo about some man. Sure isn't it all the wimmin's fault anyway.

    There really are some deranged people out there.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,679 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    Is it normal for male TD's for a woman to rock up to your family home, asking to go on long walks, while commenting on how pretty they are?

    You missed the point of the article. It is not that men don't get abuse from people (look at Leo for example), it's that for women, there is an extra element of misogyny from weak and pathetic men.


    https://www.todayfm.com/podcasts/the-last-word-with-matt-cooper/female-tds-facing-death-and-rape-threats-on-a-regular-basis



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭dudley72


    It’s clear we have a group of sad pathetic individuals who are part of an online mob. The issue is, as shown in other countries, they move from been online and start attacking people in person.

    The harassment and abuse of TDs online is terrible and getting worse. Yet we have people making excuses for it here on boards and encouraging it.

    The person throwing a drink over Leo was just an unification of what is coming. The weird obsession by people over Maria Bailey, as soon as she popped up on media again you had someone create an account with her name. The person with an account named after Leo partner

    Something is not right when you see that carry on.

    It seems nobody wants to do anything about it, wait till someone get hurt or killed and then talk about it.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 20,905 ✭✭✭✭Ash.J.Williams




  • Registered Users Posts: 40,538 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Im not aware of male politicians regularly being called c unt, slut, whore, bitch online or regularly reporting threats to rape them. Sorry nah your "whatabout the menz" is bull sh it

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,358 ✭✭✭francois




  • Registered Users Posts: 59 ✭✭Luxemburgo


    Varadkar gets called worse every day as does Stephen Donnelly. As someone said above, there has been a move towards sewer politics and abuse in this country towards politicians.

    Genuinely dont understand why anyone would want to be a politician here and put their family through it.


    Exceptionally creepy and awful what happened to that woman



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,679 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    Oh yea, coffee girl, or whatever she was called.

    The usual cranks and bigots were suggesting that the whole thing was planned by FG and Leo himself. How sad can you get to even entertain such a notion, with no proof mind.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 481 ✭✭mariab21


    Its disgusting to be fair, our national newspapers have form for it aswell




  • Registered Users Posts: 13,679 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    Not limited, but certainly they get more abuse. If you read the article and listened to the radio podcast from Matt Cooper, then you may hear a different side of the story.

    Now if you think Female politicians are fair game, grand!

    If you think Female politicians get the same ride as Male politicians, grand, but I think it shows us all that you are blinded to the obvious facts.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,365 ✭✭✭✭McMurphy


    Now you are trying to put words in my mouth that I never said, nor ascribe to.

    Now if you think Female politicians are fair game, grand!

    i don't think they're fair game, not if they're being ridiculed for for how they look or because they're female, same goes for males (which has been much more prevalent on this site for years and years)

    If they're being ridiculed for their actions or stupid words/statements, that's a different story. There's a long tradition here of posters (you're most definitely guilty of it at times) pulling out "misogynistic and homophobic/racist" accusations where absolutely none exist though.

    Fact is, sometimes the political figure who's being ridiculed is attracting the ridicule because they have acted the asshat though, not because of their skin colour, sexual orientation, or what sexual organs they have.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    Women do indeed bear the brunt of a particular kind of stalking creep, must be awful for the deputy - deputies involved


    Politicians are people too , far too many believe they have the right to personally abuse them as they see fit , a TD who springs to mind is Joan Burton, subjected to the most relentless abuse for years


    Both male and female TD,s should be deserving of basic respect and courtesy



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,562 ✭✭✭ahnowbrowncow


    Maria Bailey got criticised and ridiculed and the vast majority of it was justified. Obviously some idiots took it too far.

    But then Maria Bailey used that to try portray it that she was only being targeted because she was a woman and tried to deflect from all the valid criticism.

    Here's some figures from a poll by Sean O Rourke on RTE. Unfortunately, it's pretty common for TDs, especially male, to receive death threats so I don't see the need to bring gender into this. It's a problem for all.

    "54% of sitting TDs responded to the survey - 71% male and 29% female.

    Of those surveyed, 52% said they had received a death threat, and nearly seven out of ten TDs had received a threat of physical violence against them."

    About 86 TDs responded, 61 male TDs, 25 female TDs. 45 of those got death threats.

    Max 25 females got death threats, minimum of 0 female TDs got death threats.

    Max 45 male TDs got death threats, minimum 20 male TDs got death threats.




  • Registered Users Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭dudley72


    It's the same people behind it all. It's TD's one minute, then it is FF/FG party supporters, then it's unionist, then its travellers the next, the list goes on. Just a spew of hate and nothing else.



  • Registered Users Posts: 481 ✭✭mariab21




  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Most of it is coming from Twitter and most of it is coming from the pirate flag, SF, overthrow the government crew.



  • Registered Users Posts: 481 ✭✭mariab21


    All the lads are logged on this morning. What have SF got to do with pirate flags?



  • Registered Users Posts: 18,841 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    That is disgraceful. No female, politician or otherwise, should be subjected to that kind of behaviour




    At the end of the day, people should not forget should not forget, they all have lovely bottoms



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭dudley72


    Was the Pirate flag started by that looper Paddy?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,562 ✭✭✭ahnowbrowncow


    I'm not surprised you're not aware, you only see victims being female and dismiss anything that doesn't agree with that viewpoint.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭Luxembourgo


    Such a ridiculous post and exactly the shite that is all too common now

    Do you know Donnelly well?



  • Registered Users Posts: 481 ✭✭mariab21




  • Posts: 0 ✭✭[Deleted User]


    Don't forget the harrassment that goes on inside the Dáil as well. Remember that male TD pulling a Female TD onto his lap?



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    No person should have to experience this harassment under any circumstances



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I think where incidents like the ones described in the article occur there shouldn’t be any sense of a fear of calling it out.

    If TDs, or any public rep, are being harassed and threatened, there needs to be a line drawn and that is about a social norm that’s being eroded, largely by social media.

    Stalking someone, sexually harassing them isn’t acceptable. End of story really. It needs a firm response.

    There’s a parallel issue with an anti politics and not seeing elected reps as humans. That’s new and it’s very destructive. You’re seeing things like the normalising of protesting outside TDs homes, besieging and roaring at people on the street and so on.

    That’s going to drive a lot of people away from ever contemplating standing and we’ll be a lot worse off for it. It’s one of the reasons that American politics is increasingly bereft of quality candidates - nobody in their right mind would put themselves through the public attacks, the character assassination, the vicious negative campaign that’s all about personalised attacks on the individual and then the social media elements of it are hellish.

    The attack on and murder of Jo Cox should have been a warning sign in the U.K. that things are getting far, far too vicious and toxic.

    In Ireland we need to nip this in the bud, before it’s normalised and it’ll take a political actors on all sides and across the spectrum to put their feet down and raise standards.

    It also needs serious legal response to harassing or threatening politicians and that needs to be seen to be enforced across the board. It’s an attack on the democratic process. No public rep should be living in fear.

    Women seem to get more abuse from some of these people. I’m aware of women in other public facing roles who’ve had really horrendous experience with stalkers, and to be quite honest, I think the Irish frameworks in law for dealing with it at hopelessly inadequate.

    Three people I know who were badly stalked by complete unhinged individuals got very little help from the Gardai. two were women and one was a guy, and in all cases they got pointless, no action, even if sympathetic responses, as there doesn’t appear to be adequate law to enforce. They don’t want to act until things have spiralled to a very serious incident, where someone has physically turned up.

    I think the legal framework and enforcement responses here just aren’t adequate at all.



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,975 ✭✭✭conorhal



    Perhaps these politicians need to spend less time on twitter and more time in their constituency offices actually listening to people and acting in accordance with their wishes. Perhaps the coarsening and harshness you speak of originated, not with public, but with the political class that increasingly treats the electorate with dismissive contempt, and now seem surprised that they receive the same in kind?

    These poor Maire Antoinette’s seem shocked that their ‘let them eat cake’ attitude ends at the guillotine instead of a cushy UN posting.



  • Registered Users Posts: 40,538 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    Varadkar and Donnelly are called worse than C unt, Slut, Whore, Bitch everyday and are threatened with worse than rape everyday?


    Get off the stage

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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  • Registered Users Posts: 40,538 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    The vast majority of criticism of female Irish politicians is gendered abusive commentary on their appearance

    The vast majority of criticism of male Irish politicians is abusive commentary more focused on their actions.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



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