Slane Girl incident shows double standard alive and well

I MISSED the whole Slane Girl thing when I was away, because of a three week self-imposed media blackout and digital detox – no phone, no internet, no newspapers, no telly. Of all the news stories I missed – apart from Syria, obviously – Slane Girl is the one that most made my jaw drop.

How much we hate women. How the double standard is alive and well and living, not just in a field in Leixlip, but everywhere, all over the internet, embedded in trolls, in the faux shock-horror of hypocrites, in the rantings of misogynists and the casual hatred of strangers.

Not that I am advocating teenage girls give oral sex in public. No. Slane Girl made some fairly catastrophic errors of judgement. I don’t know anything about her, other than she is a 17-year-old school girl from the West of Ireland. That is, perhaps not the most experienced, wise or worldly person, given that she is legally still a child. Was she treated with compassion and understanding? No she bloody wasn’t – instead she was named, and splashed all over something called ‘slut shaming’ on Facebook. And the boy? A “hero” and a “legend.”