Our latest revolution: #repealed

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“Will it change? Will we?”

That was a question asked of me by a gorgeous teenager a few weeks ago.

Apparently the answer is (quite literally) YES!!

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A mum’s letter to her sons: Don’t settle for consent

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I have a friend – well, I know and admire a woman who might yet be a friend –  and this morning I woke to find an email from her in my inbox, with a recording attached. She’s a journalist and normally an email from her means she’s writing a piece and is interested in my professional opinion on the topic. We’ve been back and forth-ing for a couple of years and, as you do, we’ve been rearranging the boundaries a little more each time.

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Teach your Son not to be “that guy”.

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Have you been affected by the #MeToo campaign?

I am a huge fan of finding ways to empower ourselves and act to be the change we want. With that in mind I wrote this piece as a “what we can do” response to the Weinstein and consequent #MeToo outpourings on social media – an outpouring I warmly welcome and enthusiastically embrace!

The full piece is on FamilyFriendlyHQ – click on the pic to get there:

Calvin Klein and the glamourisation of sexual harassment

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You’ve probably already heard about the new Calvin Klein advertising campaign. It’s worked, that’s for sure, in that Twitter and Facebook can’t get enough of complaining about it. And of course the pro-sexism and creepy factions can’t get enough of defending it and lashing out at people who recognise it for what it is – blatant sexist glamourisation of and dismissal of sexual harassment.

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Why are women judged more harshly than men?

Joss whedon
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This article came about soon after two young girls were arrested having allegedly been found in possession of €1.7 worth of cocaine. The internet was rife with speculation and Chrissie Russell’s question to me was about women in the spotlight: do we judge women as responding “inappropriately” more readily than we judge men ? Continue reading

Why are women judged for not having children?

Not having kids is...
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Here is the full text of the conversation with freelance journalist Chrissie Russell that led to her article “Childless and Happy? You’d better believe it…”

She was interested in looking at how we judge women who choose not to have children, and why.

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Making women feel bad about themselves is a lucrative business

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I wrote this over 15 years ago in response to a set of new advertisements on TV  that in my opinion promote and normalize  “age-related” cosmetic surgery for women. Both the Irish Examiner and The Irish Times published this.

I am a counselling psychologist working in private practice in Cork city and county. Last week a teenage client told me she was very upset because she could see ‘expression lines’ on her face.

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