CLAIRE ALLAN
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She was lovely and fair - but it's time for her be consigned to history

24/8/2016

3 Comments

 
PictureThe reality isn't far from the parody
It's Rose of Tralee week again. The island of Ireland has gone into 'lovely girls' overdrive as young, available women of Irish origin compete for the Rose crown.
It's not a beauty contest, per se, although value is placed on what lovely frocks the lovely girls wear and how they carry themselves. You won't see a fat rose grace the stage of the dome.
You won't see anything other that a beautifully groomed young woman in formal attire looking as lovely as she possibly can. and, worst of all, doing a "party piece" - to show that not only is she a lovely girl she can also do a jig or sing a song about her mother country or play a recorder.
The winning rose will of course spend a year smiling and wearing a crown and sash and doing good works. 
(We'll not even get into how she needs a male escort to help make everything look above board and make sure no harm comes to her.)
If I have not made it clear enough, I detest the Rose of Tralee and all it stands for. I hate the dated, sexist, old country Irish-ism of it al.
I hate that we are fawning over it in a week when two Irish women publicly shared their trip to England to secure an abortion because they are not allowed to have one in their own country.
I hate that we went one day from being a country that raged about how terribly awfully Ireland treats women - and how it has always treated women as second class citizens who wouldn't know what to do with themselves if their lives depended on it - (Which resulted, of course, in the case of Savita Halappanavar -who died when doctors refused to terminate her doomed pregnancy, even when sepsis was setting in.) to a country that welcomed the annual pageant and even got excited about it.
Now, I'm not a total arse. I get that we can poke fun at it. I get that we can watch it with disdain and even get a laugh out of it - but we shouldn't have to.
We shouldn't want to.
If we are to really forward the cause of women in Ireland - we shouldn't be accepting the Rose of Tralee as something wholesome and intrinsically Irish and "just a bit of fun".
It's not just a bit of fun. Not when women are still fighting for their rights in this country. Not when women are still dying because they don't have autonomy over their own bodies.
Otherwise, it just becomes an international joke. A celebration of our backwardness. A public week long celebration of women as objects - as trophies who entertain with their party pieces and who look lovely in satin with their hair pinned to the top of their head - like all good girls should.
I suppose at least on Monday night we had one joyous reprieve when the Sydney Rose, called out Ireland on our attitude to reproductive health - stating it was time to repeal the eighth amendment.
I was expecting the dome to descend into silence - for tumbleweed to rattle across the stage and for poor Daithi to take a full on conniption on an epic scale.
But there was applause - and I wondered if we were finally, albeit, very slowly moving in the right direction.
Still, if the women of Ireland are to have equality, parity, respect and all we deserve, the Rose of Tralee must be allowed to wilt and die.



3 Comments
Mel Healy
24/8/2016 01:44:12 pm

It's awful outdated stuff, and even the brilliant moment with the Sydney Rose wouldn't be enough to spare it. But I can think of even worse. Take the Calor Kosangas Housewife of the Year, where the overall winner's prizes would include a split-level cooker, and nowadays no doubt they be throwing in a Dyson vacuum cleaner too, and a year's supply of Dettol for good measure.

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sam
24/8/2016 03:09:36 pm

Came across this puff=piece via twitter. Why refer to it as a puff-piece, where that term implies a piece of prose used in response to an event but where the writer hasn't taken much time with the thoughts behind the content but has lobbed it across the eyes of a reader as a distraction from reality. Diffiicult to follow the reasoning behind the idea the writer had that it is a bad thing to display the daft in a place where there exist the desperate. Surely, that the Rose of Tralee jamboree focuses the mind on women, irrespective of context, is irrelevant to the causes for women with more ambition. With the apparent challenges confronting women in the wider context, the writer would do well to recognise her blind-spot in that regard as she clumsily drives our attention towards the easier target of the Rose of Tralee.

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Ciara
24/8/2016 04:04:59 pm

Well said, Claire. Totally outdated, twee and cringeworthy pageantry in the name of culture and tradition. Time to move on!

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