Style over substance

Award winning Irish author Louise O’Neill, recently released a documentary following the success of her second novel, Asking for It, dealing with sexual consent.

It was met with unwavering support, and calls for it to be made compulsory viewing for teenagers because of its comprehensive analysis of consent and sexual education in general.

But for some people, it is just too much for a woman to speak her educated, articulate mind. How dare she?

Doesn’t she realise it’s her appearance she should be focusing on?

An Irish journalist steered the conversation toward her choice of outfit, suggesting that she was trying to seduce the “young male journalists”, failing to notice the irony in his sexist comments, leading to a trending twitter topic, #Shouldergate, due to her outfit showing her bare shoulders.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first example of the procedure unfairly overtaking the importance of the substance and I fear that it won’t be the last.

In every arena of life women and girls work harder to show their substance and then are tacitly expected to justify their procedure.

Even with something as important as reading material for children, there is an effort to remind them that their physical appearance should be their priority.

Girl? Learn how to style your hair better , how should you be wearing your bikini this summer so as not to look fat, how to be pretty.

Boy? Explore your hobbies.  Discover your interests. Pursue your passions.

The discrimination matures with the student, following them to school where the substance is education, but the procedure of attending overtakes this basic human right.

Girl? Wear appropriate clothing, don't distract the boys with your choice of outfit, are you sure you want to choose a STEM subject? .

Boys? Study, work hard, achieve your potential.

Discrimination adapts quickly, lurking in Olympic sized swimming pools and sports halls.

Woman? Do not forget that your body should be attractive to the male gaze , even if it is record breaking, athletic and preened to the perfection of your sport.

Man? Win (or don’t), either way, celebrate. Even if that leads to drunken acts of wanton vandalism. The crux of the issue being that you broke the law will be consciously ignored. No need to worry, you’ll be ok , you will barely feel the sting of a well-timed punishment.

Riding on the coattails and pant suits of our public representatives, there is a special seat tacitly reserved for sexual discrimination in many political spheres.

Woman? Don’t be so shrill . Another pants suit ? How would you balance being President and a grandmother? Smile. I just don’t trust her.

Man? Make America Great Again. Be so confident in your privilege that you don’t feel as though belittling women, sexually assaulting, harassing them again and again, inciting a hateful fire of xenophobia and sexism is enough of a deterrent to run for Commander in Chief.

Discrimination used as a deceptive trick in the court room, procedure to distract attention away from the substance of the crime. Survivors of crimes being forced to reconsider their part in an event they had little to no control over, while criminals get off virtually scotch free.

Woman? What were you wearing? How much had you to drink? Why couldn't you just keep your knees together?

Man? He’s an accomplished sportsman , we can’t let the stress of court affect his life. Is it relevant that he was convicted of sexual assault? Come on, think about his quality of life.

Choosing to ignore the substance is below us, we can all do better than to focus our attention on what is not the issue at hand. Worse than that though, is that it’s dangerous.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that the “ 20 minutes of action ” in the Brock Turner case, was with someone not able to give consent, will leave a psychological scar on that woman for the rest of her life and sets a dangerous precedent in sexual assault cases.

Deliberately rejecting the evidence that Hillary Clinton, despite her flaws, is the most qualified person to ever run for Office, will give an experienced misogynist the most powerful position in the world.

Consciously overlooking the actuality that Ryan Lochte is a 32 year old man who committed an international crime, and was told “Boys will be boys”  belittles a legal system and underlines the prevalence of White Privilege.

Neglecting the statistics that show girls performing better academically, in favour of reigning in their appearance, is remiss of the academic institutions who are supposed to teach and inspire.

Drafting children into a narrow belief system, that their extra-curricular reading material should concentrate solely on developing their physical appearance, prevents them from cultivating other interests.

Going to the effort of writing a review, about a highly esteemed woman’s shoulders because it reduced adult men to juvenile, sexually aroused creatures, incapable of self-control, instead of highlighting her achievements and upcoming projects is frankly an absolute disgrace.

Is it too much to ask to see someone as a three-dimensional human being, rather than the doll discrimination urges us to be, seen but not heard?

I didn’t think so.