Take your privilege and shut up
So today started out well. What better way to start your day than with a nice cup of coffee, a bit of sunshine and a good dose of privilege spread across the opinion pages of the Independent? Now,...
View ArticleRest in peace, invisible woman
Five people die in Cavan, and in the days to come, Irish newspapers are full of questions. “Why did he do it?” asks one national daily, picturing a man and his three sons. “How could he kill those poor...
View ArticleFrom #NotAllMen to #AllVictimsMatter
I started writing a piece the other day called ‘From #NotAllMen to #NotAllMedia’, which I had yet to publish. I wanted to clarify yet again how my criticism of the reporting of the Cavan murders was a...
View ArticleA word on choice and tone-policing – or, why balance is a sham
We’re used to being told that we’re doing it wrong. We’re used to being told that we’re too aggressive, too angry, too shrill. But when, all of a sudden, we start hearing it from people supposedly on...
View ArticleWhy politics needs passion: on tone policing, Repeal jumpers and rational...
Is tone policing the new master suppression technique? What is a master suppression technique? you ask. It is a way to suppress and humiliate an opponent, according to Norwegian psychologist and...
View ArticleI oppose irresponsible programming – not free speech
So The Late Late Show decided to book Katie Hopkins – British tabloid columnist, vocal Trump supporter and bigoted racist extraordinaire – to fly over from England to discuss the context and outcome of...
View ArticleOn The Niall Boylan Show and getting ignorant answers to ignorant questions
Is the general public “right to be angry at the sense of entitlement” of a homeless, pregnant mother-of-two in temporary hotel accommodation? asked The Niall Boylan Show on Facebook the other day....
View ArticleA feminist childcare model – and mammies doing it wrong
“Children of working mothers have better social and everyday skills,” read an Irish Times headline last week. A few days later, The Guardian reported on another study suggesting that mothers should...
View ArticleNormalising hate speech – on John Berger, the Irish Times, and the...
I watched the first episode of Ways of Seeing, the BBC John Berger mini-series from 1972, last night. Explaining how images are given new meanings in different contexts, carrying ideological biases...
View ArticleInfighting on the left and a real left-wing alternative
Oh, the infighting on the left. If only they could get along and get their act together, and maybe they’d achieve something. In the aftermath of #coponcomrades, and after a couple of years of complete...
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