As the movement for abortion rights in Ireland grows, there is an increasing and predictable irritation with the “tone” of the movement; too strident, too shrill, too demanding, too confrontational. Why can’t we be quiet about women’s rights so as not to offend or irritate? Because being mute doesn’t get you heard.
Frequently, those who criticise campaigning methods, tend not to be involved in the campaigning themselves. While it’s perfectly valid to offer an external critique of a movement, the fact that many of these arguments seem to conclude in wanting people to pipe down, suggests that the issue isn’t with tone, but with what’s being campaigned for.
Attempts to police the tone of a social movement are generally the prerogative of those outside it: “I want you to present yourself in ways that are acceptable to me,” becomes the issue, as opposed to, “it is unacceptable that you are not being presented with what you are seeking.”
In the quest for LGBT rights in this country, campaigners were frequently talked down to as being too strident, too polarising, too “in your face”. Respectability politics - the notion that marginalised groups must police themselves, and depict themselves as compatible with the mainstream, as opposed to challenging the mainstream as to why it can’t include all voices - is a difficult thing to buy into when the status quo excludes so many people, voices, and needs.
Social movements function on a spectrum, with various points of view feeding into and influencing others. There are always arguments and different points of view on what tactics to take on everything from messaging to protest to direct action to lobbying. There is a lot to be said for having a more emphatic, uncompromising point of view inside social movement campaigns. It keeps the end goal to the fore.
A recent example of this can be seen in relationship recognition rights for same-sex couples. While the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) pursued civil partnership as a political goal, it was the direct action group LGBT Noise, and the single-issue organisation Marriage Equality who continued to push for marriage rights. They kept it on the on the national agenda, and in the process, educated, mobilised, and galvanised the LGBT community to go after marriage absolutely.
If the reproductive rights movement accepted incrementalism now - for example, replacing the eighth amendment, or introducing abortion for fatal foetal abnormalities, rape, and incest - the goal of free, safe and legal abortion will take far longer to get to. There is a huge value in pursuing the absolute, even if you know that it is unrealistic at the time. In a conservative political climate, if you aim for the clouds, you might get to the rooftops. If you aim for the stars, you might reach the clouds.
We saw this at work in the earlier stages of the US presidential campaign, when Hillary Clinton made concessions in her own messaging and policies in acknowledgement of the support Bernie Sanders’ policies and rhetoric was getting. Sanders’ more “strident” liberal line moved Clinton somewhat away from her centrist one. She’s no Sanders, but she did change a little. That’s progress.
Tone also changes in context and over time. A campaigner knows well that they can say one thing on a microphone at a rally, and another thing at a meeting with politicians. They know well that they can say one thing now when it comes to the current repeal the 8th campaign, yet use different language when there’s an actual referendum date in sight. It is patronising to suggest that campaigners, supporters, and active citizens do not understand the complexities of language, and what is appropriate or helpful at different points on the trajectory we’re on.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote that well-behaved women seldom make history. As time progresses, history and society tends to embrace those who were once considered controversial or “strident”: the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid strikers, the Irish LGBT rights movement, the contraception train women, and so on. We’ve had nine months of centenary celebrations marking the actions of a group of 1916 Rising leaders who at the time were extraordinarily controversial and largely devoid of popular support until the tide turned. So who decides what is strident, and who decides what is acceptable? No doubt in years to come, when women in Ireland have access to abortion, those who fought this long campaign won’t be viewed as tonally inappropriate.
Perhaps those who criticise the “tone” of campaigners for reproductive rights should examine why the quest for bodily autonomy makes them uncomfortable. If people are looking for the “acceptable face” of a movement, then what does that mean? What is acceptable to one person isn’t to another. What is strident to one person is mild to another. What is liberal to one person is radical to another. What is controversial to one person is reasonable to another.
Ultimately, we should probably be suspicious of the “acceptable face” of anything. It is the acceptable face of politics and banking that brought this country to its knees. It was the acceptable face of the Church that protected pedophiles. The Black Lives Matter movement is frequently criticised and demonised for what some see as a demanding tone, even though what they’re asking for is incredibly reasonable - for police to stop murdering black people, and for black lives to be valued as equal. Feminism is constantly derided for being strident, even though, again, the demands for women’s equality are so reasonable.
When I observe the growing Repeal the 8th movement, what I hear is people talking. I’m hearing a conversation. It’s louder than silence, but when it comes to tone, are Irish women really shouting? Or are we just being accused of shouting? The silence of Irish women has been the status quo for so long, that such a silence breaking can sound very loud to some.