Female TD's break silence on harassment

That's a cop out. In order to block someone, you have to read/view whatever content they sent before doing so.

It's tantamount to telling someone receiving physical abuse to toughen up. Even your comment about Hazel Chu suggests that she actually enjoys being targeted in various ways. Many of which are very insensitive and way beyond fair criticism of a public figure.

If it was your wife, daughter, mother or whatever receiving constant messages, would you call them attention seekers for trying to speak up about it?

Yes. Male politicians do not get rape threats etc

I read the article and responded on the first page with similar to the point you’re making. Couldn’t believe it later in the thread when the OP themselves started hounding a female poster and questioning her, after making the opening post. ‘Twas feckin’ bizarre, and somewhere in between the first post and this one it appeared that some posters were airing their dirty laundry in public… weird thread tbf 😒

Jesus there's some amount of schoolyard shyte going on in this thread....

As for the article, absolutely no point telling us all this is happening, but then saying that you don't want to do anything about it. FFS, make a complaint! It's not going to stop unless you do!!! I would have had sympathy up to that point, but by not making a complaint and prosecuting the person who is STALKING you, you have no one to blame after that point. Being a public figure has nothing to do with it, and using it as an excuse to not go ahead with a complaint is ridiculous. If she can't even follow that up, how can we trust her to be involved in running the country?!

Not excusing the behaviour, but you let this person at it, and they will escalate it and then it will be too late. It's 2021, people will actually get behind a public figure who is being stalked, mostly. Crazy to not follow up on it. Just crazy, and if anything happens now it'll all be poor her. The same as the residents who complain about drug dealing in their estate, and "everyone" knows who's at it, but no one will make a statement. Ignoring it will make it go away I'm sure. And she gets to write a lovely woe-is-me article to get people to feel sorry for her, which can't be proven, and is completely pointless because she remained anonymous. Have a pair girl!

Glad to see you admit it exists.

Abuse against politicians isn't gender specific. To suggest otherwise is nonsense.

Certain female politicians who are idiots like in 'Swinggate' saga get more abuse but look at some of the abuse across the political spectrum that the likes of Mattie Mcgrath, Healy Raes, eamonn ryan and others get. We have snowflakes citizens and we have snowflake politicians.

Please read my post again. Male politicians get equal if not worse abuse. If Leo Varadkar was to show you every letter or email he got of the abuse he gets it would be equally as bad.

Abuse sent to politician in Cork is wrong. Point I was making is that all politicians and specifically ones who feature heavily in news all get abuse male and female.

Im not unwilling to engage in the thread. Im unwilling to engage in discussion specifically with you because you have already stated you are going to dimiss evidence or examples that are put to you.

I suspect once the feminist movement stops trying to convince the world that being raped is worse than being murdered (or the world finally decides that feminists simply aren't worth listening to), the rape threats female politicians receive will decline and the death threats will be received at a similar level to those received by their male colleagues.

I'm not saying that being raped isn't a devastating experience for the victim. When someone is trying to threaten or intimidate another person, however, they'll use the threat that they perceive as being most intimidating to that individual. With social media so focused on the topic of rape and sexual assault (and these politicians often being highly vocal on the subject to court the votes of those on these platforms), it's hardly surprising that scumbags who want to express their displeasure towards female politicians will use the threat of sexual violence.

I do find the phrasing of the thread subject rather amusing btw "Female TD's Break Silence"? When the hell was anyone elected to the Dáil silent about anything other than their own (or their party colleagues) bad behaviour?! 🤣

No, that’s not exactly what it is at all.

The point being made by women is that no man should feel entitled to threaten to rape a woman. That’s the point. It’s that simple.

I don’t see that as any sort of a counter-point tbh. Nobody is asking or expecting higher rights than anyone else. Not being subjected to abuse seems like a perfectly reasonable expectation as opposed to any sort of Utopian ideal.

Reality is of course different so that’s why what we’re seeing here are women (couldn’t care less whether or not they’re feminists tbh) coming out and saying women shouldn’t be subjected to abuse. They’re not looking for or expecting any superior rights and protections above anyone else. They’re looking for the rights they have already, to be protected, because it’s not happening at the moment when there are men who feel that they have the right to threaten women with being raped.

So asking for "female TDs not to be subjected to threats of rape by men" isn't framing the issue of TDs receiving threats as an issue that only affects women? I'd argue that it's viewing the world through the usual feminist lens of "female victim, male abuser, rape is the worst thing that can possibly happen". This is a dangerous and growing trend imo: public discourse being focused on what are often comparatively minor issues because it suits the feminist narrative that gets attention in both the traditional and social media.

TDs, while they should be held accountable for their actions (e.g. Maria Bailey should have been jailed for her attempted insurance fraud, Danny Healy Rae should at the least lose his publicans license for his flouting of the Covid guidelines etc.) shouldn't be receiving threats of violence, sexual or otherwise. In an ideal world, and one I agree that we should be working towards, it wouldn't happen. While focusing on it as a feminist issue may help the issue get attention, it not only results in more important matters of state receiving less attention than they should, it also means that any action taken on it will, once again, be gender based.

Why do I think this is dangerous? Irish women already have more rights and legal protections than their male counterparts and do better than men on almost every meaningful social metric: education, health, life expectancy and, yes; despite what the feminist narrative would have you believe: income (unless they choose to become parents). By all means if our female TDs think that legislating against the abusive communications they receive are more important than fixing our health system, addressing our failure to meet our climate change obligations, providing gainful employment opportunities for all our citizens or keeping our budget balanced they should seek to do that. But those efforts, and all other legislative discourse, should be done in a gender neutral way. Framing every issue as one that disproportionately affects women (whether that's true or - as seems to usually be the case - not) and seeking to legislate on that basis contributes to further our status as a society that discriminates based on gender.

The incel / MGTOW movements aren't being created in vacuum. Some of the concerns those groups started off with were genuine (parental alienation, gender bias in divorce settlements, lack of romantic opportunities for young men in a changing society etc). As seems to be the way with most groups on-line, however, they quickly veered towards the toxic as the most combative and loudest voices take over. It's easy to draw parallels between these movements and the largely internet-based fourth wave feminism tbh. Rather than engaging with each others genuine concerns they're attacking each other with ad-hominem attacks ("basement dwelling neckbeards that can't get laid" / "blue haired SJW" etc), focusing on each others nuttier and more extreme views and seeing society as a zero-sum game. This is often having harmful impacts on our socity imho.

The representation of rape as being a fate worse than death or the after-the-fact re-framing of transactional sexual encounters whereby one party quite willing slept with the other in order to advance their career or drunken encounters where neither party realistically had the capacity to consent to the activity as "rape" would both be examples of this: If society is telling you that the embarrassing sexual encounter you had with Steve from accounts while you were both hammered at the Christmas party means you were raped, and that this is a fate worse than death, it's going to be a lot harder to mark it down as a stupid mistake, laugh it off and move on with your life. For someone who's been through the traumatic experience of an actual rape that has potentially disastrous consequences: after all, if you've been sold and bought into the idea that what you've suffered really is a fate worse than death, why bother continuing to live?

Change your message to:

“Y’know what ladies, ye have a point. People? Stop threatening violence against TDs, it’s disgusting!”

and I'd fully agree with you.

All politics and legislation should be gender neutral: Loretta can't actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans', but she can have the right to have babies! ;)

(it's actually amazing how much good sense can be found in The Life of Brian!)