Full Text of my Speech in Dublin Today

#SaveOurSpaces

Dublin Speech, 27.11.21

More than a hundred years ago, the suffragette Alice Paul described the women’s movement like this: “each one of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.” The suffragettes won the vote, but they also laid the groundwork for the mosaic of rights and freedoms women enjoy today. 

All of us have come here to lay down our own little stones. I can feel the weight of them in the air. I can feel the weight of this stone too, which my wife carved for me yesterday after she read this speech. And I can feel something else, in the cold air in Dublin today. I can feel the presence of other survivors here. There are more than a few of us. 

Can’t you feel it?

I stand shoulder to shoulder with every one of you. None of us are alone today. I know that everybody here stands with us, in defence of vulnerable children. Hurt, lost children like little me, who I rescued from those rooms, where she fought monsters in the dark. She’s right here with me today, protected, fierce. I can almost feel her hand in mine. 

I am thinking of my own children too, today, as I do every day. I swore a solemn oath to them before they were born. That little people will be safe around me. That I will be the last person my difficult childhood hurts. And that regardless of the cost, I will never hesitate to speak out, speak the truth, take names and set boundaries, when it comes to safeguarding children. 

As you may know, I have been vocal about doing just that, on my twitter account, @femmeloves. Last summer, I wrote a series of threads and articles about safeguarding. They were intended to help people, and they have done. My inbox is full of messages from survivors who tell me they feel seen, heard, understood, less alone. But my most cherished messages are those from the mothers who read my threads and were brave enough to take action to protect their children based on what they learned.

Unfortunately, one of those threads was reported to the police by a man I did not even mention by name. And for a month now, I’ve been living under the threat of first arrest, and now prosecution.

All the while, I have kept my silence about the complainant in this case.

But increasingly, as time goes on, I have been asking myself one question. 

Who is emboldened by my silence?

I know the answer, and so do you. In the light of the promises I made to my children, the answer to that question shames me.

I know more than I want to about paedophiles, predators and perverts, and I know this: they get really cosy, really fast with certain types of people. In particular, people who advertise their vulnerability to grooming, even through their silence.

I am here to tell you, that I am not one of those people.  I am here to keep my promise to my children. I am here to tell you, that if calling out rhetoric that endangers children is a crime, then I’m taking my crime spree across the border and making it international.

I have not been charged with anything, so there is no court order restricting me to silence about the name of the man who reported me. However, some might say that it is best to avoid pulling tigers by the tail.

Well, David Paisley is not a tiger. He’s the boy who cried wolf. A hurt little boy who in his hurt lashes out and hurts others. It is hard even to be angry with him when he probably isn’t capable of grasping how or why his words are so dangerous.

For the avoidance of all doubt, I am not accusing David Paisley of being an abuser. But he knows nothing about how to keep children safe, and like an entitled child, he wades in anyway, thrashes about, and muddies the waters of the debate.

I hate to see little boys hurting. I really do. But I have to treat Paisley like a man. A man whose rhetoric blurs boundaries on child protection. A man who attempted to dox me, and in his genius concluded that I resided in London. A man who repeatedly, over the course of a week, reported me to the police for my tweets. I do not owe him kindness. I do not owe him protection. I do not owe him silence. And silent about that man’s wrong-headed interventions in this debate I will no longer be.

In the wake of the Wii Spa incident, where an adult male exposed his genitals to women and girls, Paisley tweeted, and I quote him directly, “bodies are just bodies, when did we get so weird about the idea of seeing another human?” 

And he wrote this; “this whole moral panic stranger danger thing about other people’s genitalia is mad. It’s practically a condition. Let’s call it Stanilanditis.” 

Perhaps most egregiously, in the context of the same debate, he tweeted out that he shared a bath with his mother in childhood, that she watched him pee, and that he provided her with personal care when she was ill.

I am raising sons. I believe he is telling the truth. But it would never cross my mind to mention that kind of private detail about my relationship with my boys in public, let alone use it to justify adult males exposing their genitals to women and girls they do not know.

But Paisley doesn’t matter, not really. Who is he even? He’s nobody to me. He’s a side show, that’s all.

The people who matter are the survivors. We are called survivors, by the way, because not all of us make it out.

I am thinking about the survivors here today, and those in my inbox. I’m thinking about little me too. She’s safe in my heart, boundaried about, and well beloved. I’m thinking about my children, who I would protect with my last breath, and  am doing my best to honour the promise I made to them before I ever held them in my arms.

I regard promises as sacred. I have only made five promises in my whole life, and I have kept all of them.

But I promise you something today.

I promise that, if you will have me, I will stand with you. That I will bring my little stone, this little stone here, that I will carry it with me close to my heart, and that no matter what water has passed under what bridges, I will lay my little stone down beside yours, besides yours, beside yours, beside yours, beside yours, besides Alice Paul’s and the suffragettes’, on the streets of Dublin beside Rachel Moran’s, and Radicaulin’s and women’s space Ireland’s, and Graham Linehan’s and Laoise de Brun’s, beside Iseult White’s, and Stella O’Malley’s, on the streets of Belfast beside those of my anonymous sisters working behind the scenes in Northern Ireland, and over the water too, beside Maya’s and Allison’s and Marion’s and Helen’s and Kathleen’s and Sonia’s and Bev’s.  I will lay my little stone down beside the stones laid by all the anonymous twitter accounts across these islands, and perhaps most importantly of all, beside the little stones of many colours laid, one conversation at a time, one risk at a time, by ordinary women and men, in families, in homes, in communities.  

And we will not make a mosaic of our stones, instead we will raise up a wall. A shield wall around vulnerable children, a wall to protect the innocent, and to keep out those who would harm them. 

We have a common cause and a common enemy, and if we stand together, shoulder to shoulder, we will win.