Letters to the Editor: Misogyny is our greatest crime
Afghan women voting at Tortank girls school polling station in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Picture: PA
It is hard sometimes to grasp the levels of institutionalised discrimination and violent abuse inflicted on women and girls in every nation across every domain by sexist and misogynist men.
This is, without doubt, the greatest crime of our time that 50% of humanity is not treated equally in some societies and do not have the freedom to choose the lifestyle that they would wish.
While some countries have greatly reduced gender inequality, none have freed themselves completely of this negative, masculine, domineering, and degrading culture.
The plight of women and girls who have to endure the brutal dictates of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan highlight some of the extremes of gender abuse where religion is used to deny equal rights to education, freedom of movement, employment, and the dignity to live free from the domination of men.
The religions of the world have a duty to end any outdated patriarchal practices by providing equal opportunities for women so they can fully participate in religious roles once only defined for men. I believe the Church of Rome will remain incomplete until it allows women the same rights as men to serve God as priest, bishop, or even one day as pope.
I encourage the women and men of Ireland to unite and make our country the first among nations to banish gender inequality and abusive behaviour from our shores by voting for political parties who promote equal representation and who will form a government if elected based on making an equality culture a reality in our homes, schools, and places of work and enshrine these ideals into our laws.
The message to the abusers of women and girls must be that they will be severely punished for their repugnant crimes (zero tolerance) and we should endeavour to continually guard society from any form of misogynistic culture.
Michael Hagan,
Dunmurry,
Co Antrim
Hospitals need to understand that they are places where people go to receive medical treatments and have procedures carried out.
As soon as these treatments are completed, these patients must be discharged immediately.
These beds are urgently needed for other patients currently waiting on trolleys. Hospitals are not nursing homes or hostels, and they need to act ruthlessly to remove patients whose treatments are finished. Even if they have to be put into warehouse-type facility then so be it, but it is no longer the concern of the hospitals where they go.
This is a separate issue to be dealt with by a different agency and not the Health Authority. The public need to get realistic about this issue as much as the hospitals need to become ruthless to begin solving the overcrowding issue.
Otherwise we will continue to suffer the overcrowding.
John McInerney
Raheen,
Limerick
Although Sarah Harte makes the point in her article ‘Restricting fundamental rights requires careful consideration’ that the rights of protesters and of those who are the object of their activities need careful balancing, it seems to me that politicians and activists in support of abortion rights can’t wait for the introduction of exclusion zones here, around the premises of abortion providers.
Given our great ability to copy the example of our cross-channel neighbours, it might be worth watching the impending prosecution of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, an abortion opponent who was recently arrested while silently standing alone across the street from a Birmingham-based abortion clinic.
Having admitted to a policemen who questioned her that she might have been praying ‘in her head’, she was arrested, searched, brought to a police station, and charged with failure to comply with a public space protection order. She is due in court on February 2.
Abortion exclusion zones may have arrived in Britain. So, it would seem, have the thought police.
Rory O’Donovan
Killeens
Cork
The Government should be called out for its hypocrisy regarding its attitude to climate change.
While it has, in fairness, on occasion acted in accordance with its 2019 declaration of a climate and biodiversity emergency, engaging in the kind of soaring rhetoric the then Taoiseach Micheál Martin engaged in at Cop27 (“If we don’t step up urgently, future generations will not forgive us”) and then subsequently facilitating the resumption of Irish beef exports to China is akin to ringing the bell at the fire station and then giving the go-ahead to pour more fuel on the fire.
Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue was recently quoted as saying that he actually “looked forward” to seeing the value of the Chinese market grow in the time ahead to reward the efforts of everyone involved. This is the world’s most populous country, with a population of over 1.4bn people.
According to Our World in Data, beef tops the table of food products for greenhouse gas emission. How is increasing the production of the most environmentally damaging food product and exporting it over 8,000km away to the world’s most populous country, with an explicit intention to grow this market, in keeping with Micheál Martin’s clarion call at Cop27?
Rob Sadlier
Rathfarnham
Dublin 16
In relation to the article, ‘East Cork residents face years more of drinking water quality issues’.
Drinking water unfit for consumption is an all too familiar situation in parts of East Cork.
Regularly stocking up on five-litre bottles of drinking water as the water supply cannot be relied on happens at least once a year and for months at a time.
The problem has been identified quite some time ago, yet no remedial works seem to have been undertaken to provide any sort of solution. Another three years (at least) to sort it is abysmal. Our environmentally aware politicians would have us cycle to the shops or use an electric car to stock up on a supply of water but seem to have no concern about the amount of extra plastic containers needed to fulfil the demand.
I can apply for a grant for a power unit for an electric car that I don’t have, but cannot drink the water from the taps that I do.
Mark O’Hagan
Midleton
Co Cork
Pig farmers, according to a statement issued by the Irish Farmers’ Association, have suffered a “financial nightmare” for the last year and a half and are now in their 18th consecutive month of loss-making.
Alas, the crisis in the pig industry is not confined to Ireland; it’s a Europe-wide problem. One can argue that it’s been on a ventilator for too long and is clearly unviable as an economic model.
This is an industry in my opinion that treats pigs as commodities, not as intelligent, social, sentient beings. It operates on the basis of cramming as many animals as possible into as small a space as possible and rearing them in the shortest time possible.
The sooner the industry is shut down, the better for everyone: The animals, the environment, and the planet.
Gerry Boland
Keadue,
Co Roscommon
The outrage by certain politicians at the perceived wrongdoing by Minister Donohoe would do well to remember the biblical adage, “Let he/she who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Any possibility that some of the frenetic energy expended on stone-throwing could be redirected towards resolving the hospital crisis, asylum overcrowding, overspend on the children’s hospital, children suffering hugely whilst waiting for essential scoliosis surgery, the energy crisis?
No doubt stone-throwing is an exhausting experience but somewhat unproductive, I would think. Focus on real issues for once please.
Aileen Hooper,
Stoneybatter,
Dublin 7
The population of China is starting to decline, and the birth rates in a number of countries have slowed recently, although that may beCovid-related but is a population decline a bad thing?
There are regular articles about housing shortages, food shortages, and a great number of refugees to be housed.
A significant decline in global population is not likely but a slowing of the increase could happen, and the obvious fact is the world is not getting any bigger so where will all of the people go?
This is our only planet, and it is full enough. Just something to think about.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Box Hill,
Vic Melbourne,
Australia
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