Mothers, Women, Girls, be Strong, Proud and Speak your Truth.

We can't stop now. There is still so much to do.

My friend Catherine just sent me a Happy Mother’s day message and thanked me for the video I made last year about how I shaved most of my hair off when I was a teenager. I had forgotten all about it.

I was deeply touched by her message, a woman reaching out to another woman with the true and deep understanding that only women can have for women’s business. Yes that is a real thing. Catherine also mentioned how women have reclaimed some the words that have been weaponised against them, for example, how some women proudly wear the word TERF on a tee-shirt. I had just been looking at a tee-shirt like that, even though I’m still not brave enough to wear one. I went to google it and text her the link.

I put ‘Posie Parker’ into the search box as I couldn’t remember the name of the website, and instead of getting the website, I got pages and pages of hate speech against her. Which, of course, won’t be considered hate speech. Top of the list was an article written by the insane people-before-profit about why Posie Parker is such a threat. You might remember my piece about Posie Parker and the Let Women Speak event in Dublin. And now she is being obliterated by Google search results, by the very people that were across the divide chanting at women trying to stop women from speaking. I made a complaint to Google, not that they will listen. We are still being silenced. The irony.

You see - the No vote won yesterday in Ireland. The proposal to take mothers out of the constitution and water the family down by liberalised language was rejected. It’s all relevant. This may be a time for celebration - yes indeed. But it’s a battle won, there are many left to fight. (I just want to say that I have no problem adding fathers to the constitution. Fathers are vital part of family too. Add but do not take away.)

Graham Linehan calls it out in his regular substack updates titled: ‘A week in the war on women.’ I feel more and more that this war on women is real. And that it’s not just on women but on girls, and on boys too. The war on women and children. And therefore at this pinnacle time I believe that it was so very important not to remove mothers and the recognition of the value that mothers and women bring to Ireland from our constitution.

I still need to find my voice here because I’ve had so much trouble writing on this topic. The obliteration of women and what is sacred happens every day. But we are finding our voices. And there are many strong, very fine men out there who are standing up and helping.

I think they are scared of us. It’s like a black magic binding, we don’t exist because they don’t want to see us. We cannot speak because they don’t want to hear us. It’s a witch hunt, the new way to burn powerful women at the stake. Sometimes I have a breakthrough and can speak about it, other times I find other people who manage to say what I want to say better than I could. I’m sharing a few of them here.

Ayse Leflef - if you’re over on Facebook give her a follow.

F*ck this shit.
I am a Mother.
Mothers don’t grow a baby inside their bellies, nourish them, feed them, carry them for nine months, share blood and all sorts of things, go through the most amazing physiological, biological, emotional, hormonal and spiritual changes, go through seemingly endless hours of labour, birth them and raise them with every ounce of their beings, protect them with everything that they have… just to be recognised in our constitution to be the same as just anyone… Mothers are NOT just anyone… We are special… We are the most extraordinary beings in the world… and yet… at the same time… we are the most ordinary… (as everyone in the world has been born through a mother)…
Don’t delete us… #VoteNo

And an extract from this remarkable piece of prose by Renata Gregori -

Every saint, philosopher, poet, composer, painter, novelist, architect, scientist, explorer, sculptor, singer, actor, dancer, artist, master, teacher, mother, father….. EVERY BEING who has ever walked on this earth, passed through the womb of a WOMAN.

The vagina is the portal to the universe. Literally. It is not a “bonus hole” or a “front hole.” If you don’t have one, you don’t get to rename our anatomy.
Be aware of the word play that is being used to try to invert reality and bring you under a veil of delusion.

They say they can’t define what a woman is and then have the audacity to talk about women’s rights. They say they can’t define what a woman is because they are not “biologists,” but then tell you, that biology has nothing to do with it.
They tell you that men can get pregnant and replace the word Mother with “birthing person.”

In a spiritual war, words can be used as weapons. In a spiritual war, everything that is natural and righteous is inverted. It has been astonishing to witness how many woman are going along with this assault on the Goddess and how easily and willingly they are pulled into the dystopia.

And of course, the inimitable JK Rowling. So many quotes to choose from.

A woman is so much more than an adult human female. And that’s just it. It’s the sacredness that they want to take away from us. The sanctity of girlhood. Of womanhood.

I believe I suffer the lament that people no longer know what is sacred. I am heavy in the grief (and dread) that they should require the concept of sacredness to be explained to them. The sacredness of birth. Of life itself. Of growth. Of our bodies. Of sexual union. Of change. Of aging. Of death.

The enormity of the task strikes me down and leaves me without words.

Perhaps I need to speak it in code, in some sort of secret language that once existed. But even that eludes me. Respect. Honour. Truth. These words, and others, slowly dissolve from our vocabulary as people no longer believe in them and claim weaponised vacuous entities instead.

I grasp for them regardless, clinging onto the slivers of the tails of them. I start to speak them in whispers. Remind them of their true meaning. They are dying embers so feint nobody can hear them. Maybe you can? Maybe we can breathe some life back into the fire together before the last light is extinguished.