Challenging sexism with humour gives minister a pass to tell it like it is

YOU’VE got to hand it to Kathleen Lynch. She tells it like it is. A few people in politics have tried that approach, to transient public and media acclaim and speedy career dissolution. But the minister of state at the Department of Health always gets a free pass.

About a year ago, I was due to speak after her keynote address at a conference about women, power, and influence. She snuck in a door down at the back I had snuck through minutes earlier, and we lurked together there until called upon. Whispering, I asked her how long her speech was. She rolled her eyes and produced an official document which, judging by the numbers of pages, would have had us all there until sundown. Then she stuffed the official speech into her handbag, handed me the handbag to mind, headed to the platform, and — sans script, sans notes, sans even a card — did a stunning oration.

On Friday’s The Late Late Show, the same woman said something that was described by Ryan Tubridy as “male bashing”. Outrageous, she was. She said, first of all, that women suffer guilt. Guilt about not doing enough for their mother, about not doing enough for their father, about not having the house clean enough, about not having dinner on the table, hot and piping, every day for the kids.