This week controversy surrounded The Rose of Tralee competition when Syndey Rose Brianna Parkins went off script to talk about the 8th amendment.
In conversation with presenter Dáithí, Parkins remarked:
"I think we can do better in Ireland. I think it’s time to give women a say on their own reproductive rights. I would love to see a referendum on the eighth coming up soon.”
The comments received much praise on Twitter but were condemned by multiple viewers who lodged formal complaints to the national broadcaster. Judge Mary Kennedy criticised Parkins' decision to express her views saying:
"This was a point that she (Brianna) wanted to make but I don't think it's the place to do it. I don't think the Rose of Tralee is necessarily a political platform."
As the country calls for a referendum on the 8th amendment, our contributor Jenna Healy reflects on why, in fact, the 'lovely girls' competition was the perfect place to broach the subject.
We CAN do better
By Jenna Healy of Parents for Choice
During this week's presentation of the Rose of Tralee, the Sydney Rose Brianna Parkins caused controversy when she called Ireland’s attention to the issue of bodily autonomy and reproductive justice. When asked about her campaigning on women’s rights, with specific focus on domestic violence, Parkins spoke about funding cuts in Australia leaving victims of domestic violence sleeping on police room floors. “I think we can do better,” Parkins said, before turning to the Irish situation: “And I think we can do better in Ireland. I think it’s time to give women a say on their own reproductive rights. I would love to see a referendum on the eighth coming up soon.”
The comments have drawn mixed reactions, some coming out in praise of Parkins’s statement, others criticising her for being insensitive, promoting murder or forgetting that this was a beauty pageant. One Twitter user went straight for the xenophobic route, suggesting Parkins be sent back “on the next prison ship”. In brief, there was plenty of straw-clutching in an attempt to criticise Parkins for speaking up at all, instead of simply disagreeing with what she said.
How dare a woman comment on women’s rights, eh? After being specifically asked about her campaigning on women’s rights, even. The nerve!
Yesterday morning, Cork 96FM asked: “Do you think the Sydney Rose was right to bring up abortion at the Rose of Tralee?”
Let’s note that they didn’t ask if she was right to discuss domestic violence and Australian funding cuts to shelters. Do those who feel that Parkins was insensitive for bringing up reproductive rights also feel that she was insensitive to bring up an image of a physically abused woman sleeping on the floor of an Australian police station? Is that image not deeply upsetting enough to put people off their cup of tea and biscuits and live tweeting? Apparently not. But women having a say on reproductive rights? Well, now our evening is ruined!
Ireland does not have a strong track record of being a great place to be a woman, perhaps explaining why we are the only country in Europe where female emigration has historically matched and occasionally surpassed male emigration. For years, women alone were forced to suffer the stigma associated with children out of wedlock as unmarried pregnant women and mothers were forced into laundries, their babies taken away from them. The marriage bar, which barred married women from employment, was not lifted in Ireland until 1973. And now, in the 21st century, Ireland has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.
And then there’s the Rose of Tralee – a national pastime which puts women in the spotlight (young women – we don’t want to see women over the age of 27 seeking this kind of attention). We parade them in their dresses and make-up and hair so that we can patronise or criticise them. (Though we must stress that despite the hair and make-up, this search for a Rose, ‘lovely and fair’, is absolutely not a beauty competition. Of course not. It’s about personality. Definitely.) We ask them to put on a show, a spot of Irish dancing, a bit of flute, a nice song (‘ah, she has a lovely voice!’). Women doing what women are meant to do: look nice, entertain, serve as a receptacle for our judgement. (And keeping with Ireland’s totally unproblematic attitude towards women, unmarried mothers were allowed compete as early as 2008. A full eight years ago! And people say that we’re behind the times.)
Brianna Parkins used the platform of the Rose of Tralee to speak about women’s rights issues in Australia and Ireland. She spoke about domestic abuse and reproductive rights, and people are asking if this was the right time and place to speak about it. A women’s beauty – sorry, I mean “personality” – contest in the 21st century is not the right place to speak about women’s rights? I disagree; it is absolutely, unquestionably the right place to speak about it. I applaud Parkins for her commitment to calling for a referendum on the eighth amendment. It made people uncomfortable, yes, but we should not be comfortable watching the Rose of Tralee while the women on stage do not have bodily autonomy in our country, and Brianna Parkins forcibly reminded the country that the situation of women in Ireland is not to be looked at through Rose-tinted glasses.
Thank you, Brianna.
