Mary Kenny
Journalist Ann Leslie It is said, amongst teachers, that by teaching, you learn. Similarly, by writing for readers, a journalist learns much from those readers. And over the past week, I received a reader’s letter which gave me much pause for thought. It was from “Anne” in the “West of Ireland”.
“I am writing to you re the Harvey Weinstein story,” Anne wrote. “I just want to say and I am sad to have to, that one does not have to go far away to hear such stories. They are and in the past were happening all over Ireland. And nobody did anything about it. It was and still is a difficult time for women and girls. Often other women will not believe them or help them. Indeed sometimes they can be abusers too.”
Message
This was a palpably sincere message from someone speaking out of her own experience. It made me realise that we should always bear in mind that individual experiences can be so different, and that people can see things, and remember things, in many different ways. And all those differences should be respected.
Looking back, I think I was a very robust young woman and my early formative years were spent in London’s Fleet Street, where the aim of every female journalist was to be ‘a ten-minute egg’ – exceptionally hard-boiled. We boasted we could drink any man under the table, though we were darned fools about that. And because of this ‘ladette’ attitude, what Anne calls the Harvey Weinstein scenario seldom arose, or else we were combative enough to deal with it.
A contemporary colleague of mine, Ann Leslie, recounted recently on Channel 4 how, when such a situation arose, she simply stubbed out a cigarette on the would-be offender’s skin, causing him agonising pain.
Another late colleague of mine not only knew how to deal with any would-be Harveys, but ruthlessly used her own sexuality to beat the men professionally. On a foreign trip, she’d beguile the local police chief seductively, and get a scoop that would leave the guys standing.
But Anne’s letter has reminded me that other women were much more vulnerable, probably much more sensitive, and therefore, probably more likely to be pounced on by predatory males. Here is a lady who is remembering times of fear and hurt, which the publicity around the Harvey Weinstein case has aroused.
It is sad that she writes “nobody did anything about it”. And even surprising. Heaven knows the Irish clergy preached against the sins of fornication and concupiscence – these themes were often underlined in devotional magazines like the Sacred Heart Messenger. But perhaps sermons were too often aimed at underlining the modesty of women rather than the predatory or aggressive sexuality of some men.
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“My daughter has just had a baby son,” announced a radiant grandmother arriving at a meeting. “They’re calling him Toby. It means ‘God is good’ in Hebrew.”
It’s a phrase one of my aunts would often iterate, and now I know it comes from the ancient Hebrew. Truly, you learn something new every day.
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Heavy falls from grace
My late sister, who lived in America for the last 40 years of her life, hugely admired two men in American public life: President Bill Clinton and the thoughtful television host Charlie Rose.
Now Charlie Rose has been suspended from his shows because of claims of sexual misconduct, and the political commentators report that three separate women in Bill Clinton’s past are accusing him of serious sexual assault. My sister Ursula would be devastated.