I just saw on Sexual Violence Centre Cork‘s page that the term “gaslighting” is the word chosen by Merriam-Webster as the word of the year 2022 with searches on its website for the word spiking by 1,740% in 2022.
What a thing to witness! What a cultural shift! In awareness at least – the behaviour certainly hasn’t disappeared. If anything, its ‘territory’ has expanded. But it’s always good to have the language for a phenomenon. It literally makes it easier to talk about it.
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I was sitting with my husband outside a coffee shop in my hometown of Youghal the day before the much anticipated Ironman 22 last week. It was a glorious hot sunny day and we were basking in the excitement and pre-event buzz that was taking over the town. I felt a gorgeous huge pride and affection bursting out through my chest and I was loving every moment of it… This really was the perfect day. Just perfect. And everyone was happy, smiling and being lovely.
And I gotta say it does help my mood to be surrounded by near ‘perfect’ specimens of the human form. I am in awe of our potential, our strength, our resilience. (How DO they have the discipline to do all that training? I mean, I do know I suppose, we all do, I get it, it’s just not for me.) But my goodness a healthy human being is a beautiful creature. If only that was our effortless, default, post-chocloate-and-taytos setting… but I digress as usual.
These perfect, almost alien like creatures were everywhere that day. Just parading past us as if they were normal people. The cheek. Yup – it was people-watching paradise!
And two of them were approaching our table. The woman in front, her partner behind. The perfect magazine couple. She had sculpted legs and steady stride – how did she get her hair to shine like that? Did she weave teenyweeny little nano light strings in there? As for him – well he was fresh out of a toothpaste/Nike/ Calvin Klein sorta hybrid ad – just wow. I sipped my coffee and thought gosh, these people are perfect – Insta-Perfect… The kind of perfect to which we’re taught to aspire and to emulate.
She veered to avoid another Adonis and his Goddess partner walking in the opposite direction and BANG!! She grazed her beautiful leg on the table next to us. Just a tad – no blood or anything. She wasn’t hurt. She kept going. The guy at the table barely registered it and went back to his paper. But her partner sure registered it.
“Jesus Christ woman! That’s what you get for not going in a straight line – idiot! – LOL” And he rolled his eyes laughing and looking at us all, wanting us to join in. “Guys, I apologise for her…jeez.” Shook his head and a dark rage clouded his perfect face. He was serious. Oh, no…
All that beauty, gone in an instant. Wow.
She kept walking, a slight tightening of the shoulders, didn’t miss a step. Kept ploughing forward as if nothing happened.
My husband gaped at me and I back at him. I gaped at the guy next to me and at a woman across. We all silently conversed, shaking our heads, our eyes communicating empathy and outrage and disbelief. Christ, that poor woman … what must she experience in private if he’s this bold in public?
How many near injuries, digs, insults, public criticisms, shamings? How many times has she ploughed on as if nothing had hurt her?
The atmosphere was changed now, polluted by his actions, our shock, our disbelief at what we had witnessed and in a sense also, what we allowed… Should we have said something? It was one of those situations where a million ideas come too late. Some of them perhaps not legal…
My coffee grew cold. There were surely at the other end of the street by now.
She grazed her beautiful strong leg on the table next to us. Just a tad – no blood or anything. She wasn’t hurt.
Mixed messaging much??
“Be Kind” is something we hear a lot growing up – especially, but not exclusively of course, women.
And kindness is so, so important. So basic, so simple. If everyone were kind, the events we are currently witnessing would simply be alien to us. There would be no Putins. I can (and do) dream…
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You’ll see a lot of posts today giving you the grim figures about the gender pay gap (it’s real), physical assault in intimate relationships (it’s real, and it happens more to women), judgement on image (yes, real, and still happening more to women, and yes, even by women, I know, but please look at the “why” before using it as an excuse for poor behaviour), sexualisation (just look at almost every ad, ever), normalisation of violence against women in porn (please don’t tell me women enjoy it),the low representation of women in positions of power, authority, management, STEM jobs and so on, and so on… ad nauseum.
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I know this is the exact opposite of how I normally speak but here’s the thing: when it comes to parenting and housework, I’d really love women to stop asking for help!
Today is the second 16Days of Activism for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. You may already be tiring of reading about it, I understand, but here’s my two cents if you can bear one more article. Even though I’ve said it before. I feel that strongly about it:
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This week I heard, for the first time, the origin of the iconic witch-on-a-broomstick image – and it’s AWESOME!
I have often wondered what the whole broom thing was about. I idly mused that it might be a phallic thing. Then I’d dismiss that, assuming that my brain was going off trying to find sex at the bottom of everything – I know, I know… #rollseyes #typicaltherapist…
It’s October again. Already. Infant and pregnancy loss awareness month as designated by Ronald Reagan in 1988.
How quietly it’s slipping by, unbelievably we’re nearly half way through. And still, not much has been said. Same as every year. Is it par for the course? Because child loss is one of the many things we don’t talk about – that we “bear” in stoic silence and secret, private agony. One would think, given the outpouring of concern for women and their babies in recent years that there would have been more said this month. Or maybe it’s because so much has already been said – maybe there is a collective compassion fatigue? Are we just exhausted from it? Because loss is exhausting, there’s no doubt about that. Or maybe there are just too many other things going on this month – it certainly has been busy in the media.
Is it that?
I’ve been meaning to talk about guilt for some time now.
It just keeps coming up. I hear the word everywhere – don’t you? “Oh I feel so guilty now but sure I’ll eat less tomorrow…” or “Oh I can’t not go I’d feel awful “, “Addicted to Netflix? LOL – me too – guilty as charged!”
We’re joking, but we probably mean it. We feel guilty.
