Submission to draft Limerick City and County Council corporate plan 2019-2024

I suspect I’m howling into the wind with this, but Limerick City and County Council have a draft Corporate Plan, and they’ve asked for feedback. Here is mine. The online submission process requires you to make a discrete ‘observation’ on each section, which makes the whole thing a bit disjointed, so I’ve put it together slightly differently here for coherency.

Please consider making your own submission. You can read the draft corporate plan online for the purposes of making submissions about it until 5pm on Friday 18th October.

The Corporate Plan is a playbook for what the Council plan to do over the next five years. A new Council is elected every five years, hence the time period. They define the Plan themselves as:

“Limerick City and County Council’s Corporate Plan is a strategic framework for actions over a 5 year period and is a central component of our business architecture, linking policy, organisational activity, governance and performance management and actions.”

Here are my observations. The Plan is divided into ‘Goals’ so I’ve followed their headings.

Inclusion of legacy road projects contradict the goal to transition to an environmentally sustainable low carbon resource efficient economy

Links: Goal 3 Invest in Limerick’s Infrastructure, project its natural and built environment and unique heritage mix, Goal 6: Transition to an environmentally sustainable low carbon resource efficient economy

Inclusion of legacy road projects make this goal contradict Goal Six.

The first aim of a “smart integrated transport network that improves connectivity and increased use of sustainable travel modes.” is great.

The second point listing off a bunch of legacy road projects is not.

Government policy is clear that transport emissions need to be reduced, not increased.

This goal does not need specific projects listed, especially if they will all increase emissions and unsustainable suburban sprawl. The list of projects could be replaced with a commitment that infrastructure will be built to encourage compact growth in Limerick city and in the towns and villages of County Limerick. This would directly align this goal with the National Planning Framework.

Removal of the list of roads projects will allow flexibility in the plan.

Plain English would make this draft plan better.

It should be possible and a goal in itself to simplify the language in the whole draft Corporate Plan. A lot of the draft plan is difficult to understand. It could be made simpler without any loss of meaning. If the plan was simpler then more people could understand it.

Consider this sentence:

“Provide direction and vision around digital infrastructure provision with an objective of Limerick becoming more attractive to new investors and supporting local business to gain competitive advantage in the digital market place. We will also work to yield economic benefits for Limerick from the impact of disruptive technologies.”

It could be replaced by this:

“We would like to make Limerick more attractive to local businesses and new investors. We will do this by helping businesses to take advantage of new technology. We will set an example by using new technology in our work and showing companies how to benefit. If we are successful we will improve the local economy.”

This document is incomplete.

This document is incomplete according to Section 134 of the Local Government Act 2001. The Local Government Act is clear on what is required in a Corporate Plan:

A. A statement of the principal activities of the local authority.

B. The objectives and priorities for each of the principal activities and strategies for achieving those objectives.

C. The manner in which the authority proposes to assess its performance in respect of each such

activity, taking account of relevant service indicators and of the need to work towards best

practice in service delivery and in the general operation of the local authority.

D. Human resources activities (including training and development) to be undertaken for the staff

of the local authority and, where appropriate for the elected council.

E. The organisational structure of the local authority, both elected council and staff, including corporate support and information technology and the improvements proposed to promote efficiency of operation and customer service and in general to support the corporate plan.

This document is missing C to E.

It would have been more appropriate to either present the full plan for public consultation, or to acknowledge that the public were being asked to comment on an incomplete version of the plan.

A smart bird box to measure traffic and air quality

Cities need good data. I helped Breandán MacGabhann set up the software for his air quality monitors around the city (you can check the readings out on Twitter – mine is on the Dock Road). Councillor Brian Leddin recently asked at a council meeting how many traffic counters were around the city – the answer was only three. We’ve a transport strategy coming up, a controversial incinerator planned for the outskirts of the city: wouldn’t it be great if we had more data to back up our decisions?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while but I lack the time to put it together – I wanted to write it down in case someone else was inspired to put something similar together.

Enter the Smart Bird Box

I’ve been following various attempts to measure air quality and traffic using the Raspberry Pi hobbyist computer. I think with recent advances in machine learning and solar power that it’d be possible to deploy a network of smart sensing devices that could measure traffic flow and air quality at various points around the city. The cost would be a fraction what commercial sensors currently cost. The data that they produce could be open to the public.

The enclosure

bird box
This costs less than €10 from B&Q

I think a bird box would be perfect for this. They are cheaply available and designed to be weatherproof. And they would also be handy for birds to nest in!

The power

A system would need to run without power. Solar panels on the roof of the bird box coupled with a battery pack would allow the system to run without mains power. The PiJuice project supplies panels and batteries that would be suitable for this.

Air quality sensors

Breandán has sourced relatively cheap sensors for temperature, humidity and particulate matter (). A NOx sensor could also be added.

Measuring traffic

Courtesy of Nathan Rooy

Using a raspberry pi camera, machine learning could be used to detect how many cars, trucks, bicycles and pedestrians are passing. This article describes such an approach. Traffic counts could be recorded every five minutes. It’d make a great introductory machine learning project if someone was interested in messing around with TensorFlow.

Uploading data

The system could incorporate a GSM modem to upload the data it records every hour to a server. Or if there was a nearby wifi network with a friendly owner, our bird box could connect to that. A server script could dump the data into a database, and offer a way to request data for different time ranges. The system doesn’t need to be complicated.

Not forgetting the birds!

A second infrared camera could be added to record images of any nesting birds who chose to make our nesting boxes their home.

Privacy

The bird box would be recording images but would not be storing them, the machine learning would be on the device and in real time. Source code could/should be open sourced and auditable.

Baby steps

I’m describing a complete, standalone, remotely monitorable system. But really the way to start would be to find a place where power and wifi could be delivered with a view onto a busy street. My balcony overlooks the Dock Road in Limerick and I’d be happy to open it up to hackers.

Cost

Here’s a rough estimate of the hardware cost per box.

Bird box: €5

Power management: €60 for controller, €30 for battery, €90 for solar panels

Raspberry pi: €40

Sensors: particulate matter €20, temperature/humidity €5, NOx €10

Cameras: €30 each

Modem: €80

Total: €185 if power and wifi available, an extra €260 for solar power and cellular access. Plus top-ups for the sim card.

Please get in touch if you’d be interested in working on this!

Forty, Thirty, Twenty, Ten: make Limerick’s transport work again

There’s evidence of a shift in thinking in Limerick about transport. My social media feed is alive with enthusiastic Limerick sustainable transport advocates eager to share best urbanist practice from other European cities. The government has set targets for a large reduction in emissions from transport, and there is an optimism that solutions to get us there might actually lead to a better quality of life for all. Thirteen councillors elected said they agreed or strongly agreed that 10% of the transport budget should go on cycling, in response to questions from  Limerick Cycling Campaign.

I’d like to go a bit further and advocate that 70% of our transport budget should go on walking and cycling. It sounds like a lot but it’s utterly achievable and would result in a healthier and happier city and county. It’s inspired by a graphic from the Design Manual for Urban Roads and Streets (the cool transport nerds call it DMURS apparently. Here’s a PDF link), the official guidelines for engineers designing streets in Irish cities towns and villages.

If that’s the hierarchy of sustainable transportation, then why doesn’t Limerick’s €38 million transport budget reflect that? Here’s how I’d split the money.

Forty percent on infrastructure for pedestrians

Whether we drive, use public transport, or cycle, we all start and finish our journeys as pedestrians. The only way of spending money that benefits everyone in Limerick, regardless of income or other status, is to spend it on walking. Yes we need a superblock in the city centre to make it a world class walking environment. But we need more: in our suburbs, our county towns and villages, we need space to walk, where a family can walk two, three or four abreast comfortably, where kids can play and old people can sit and we can interact and be comfortable in our environment. Spending nearly half our transport budget on walking (with a special emphasis on those with special mobility needs, like buggy and wheelchair users) will transform our city, our towns and our villages.

Thirty percent on infrastructure for cycling

Spending thirty percent of our transport budget on cycling has the potential to take a huge number of cars off the roads. The majority of journeys taken in the city are of a length that could comfortably be taken by bike, even by someone who isn’t athletic (proud slob cyclist and owner of zero items of lycra clothing here). We could connect all primary schools in the city with top-quality, segregated cycle lanes that kids could use to cycle to school. We could identify all the main areas of employment and make sure that workers can get there easily and safely on bikes.

Twenty percent on infrastructure for public transport

We need fully segregated bus lanes between Raheen and Castletroy via a superblock in the city. If we had the infrastructure, we could get to town in 15 mins, even at peak times. The distances are shorter between Caherdavin/LIT/Moyross and Roxboro/Southill but some bus priority measures on those routes would make journey times shorter. The most important bit is to surround a mostly-pedestrianised city centre with bus lanes in either direction.

Ten percent on roads

We still need to maintain our roads, and driving will always be necessary for some. But cars should be at the bottom of our hierarchy: and we certainly shouldn’t be spending the vast majority of our transport budget encouraging more people to drive. The new Limerick Transport Strategy will undoubtedly contain some white elephant road projects. We should have the courage to reject them and focus on a more sustainable and better future.

Time to start building Limerick’s cycle network

In the morning I often think of a woman I never met. Natalia Jimenez Martinez was 30, living on the quays like me, and working in Castletroy. And like me and quite a few of my friends, she would cycle into work, crossing town and turning right at the Hunt Museum to head east on her bike. Except for one morning in 2014, when she was turning right like I do every morning, and she was crushed by a truck carrying medical supplies, and killed instantly. I think about Natalia, because I think about me and many of my friends who cycle every day along the same route, and I wonder when it’ll be me or someone I know who will lose their lives to a careless driver.

It’s time we acted.

We have a great cycle path along the canal and river out to UL. I use it every day, as do many others. We need to build on this and build a safe cycle network in Limerick. First step is an east-west spine through the city – a safe and segregated route through the city that you would let your child cycle on. There is a route that would connect primary, secondary and third level education establishments. There would be some inconvenience for car owners as the cycle route would take some road space away from cars, but there would be many benefits, and there are opportunities to improve facilities for pedestrians too by making footpaths wider.

The route would be a straightforward one, starting at the beginning of South Circular road and extending the entire length of the road on the left hand side, past Mary I, Scoil Mháthair Dé, St. Clement’s and Laurel Hill (and a block away from Limerick School Project and The Model), down Henry Street and around Arthur’s Quay, then turning right at the Hunt Museum along Charlotte’s Quay, joining up with the canal path out to UL.

It would need to look like this:

A two-way, fully segregated path that cannot be parked on. Wide enough that you can go two abreast and chat to your friend on your way to work. With signage that tells motorists to yield at junctions, with a raised level and tightened corners for crossing car traffic, and traffic lights where necessary. A quality piece of infrastructure that would get kids out of cars and onto bikes, solving much of Limerick’s traffic problems in one swoop.

More female secondary school students in Limerick city drive themselves to school than cycle according to the Central Statistics Office. This statistic saddens me. This route could change that.

There would be some outrage too of course. Some residents on the South Circular Road would no longer be able to park their cars right outside their houses. Most of the road would have to become one-way. Nobody likes change. There would be familiar calls for the cycle lane to go somewhere else (O’Connell Ave needs to be a priority for public transport and has a massive hill in the middle, going down the Dock Road would make no sense), or that it would be a waste of money, and a thousand other reasons. But if we’re serious about Limerick, if we want our home to be a serious European city that can attract people to work and to come on holidays, we need to stop the 1970’s thinking about roads being just about getting cars through as fast as possible, and think about all those secondary school students driving themselves to school.

I’ve spoken to a lot of families in Limerick who would love to cycle to work or school, and who would love to leave the car at home and cycle into the market on Saturday morning with the kids. Many don’t because they feel it’s too dangerous. With the right infrastructure we can change that. And once we build it we can extend it out all the way to Raheen Industrial Estate, and start work on a north-south spine between LIT, Caherdavin and Moyross, and Roxboro and Southill.

I’d love to work with anyone I can to make this a reality. Drop me an email (contact details here) if you’re interested in helping, and also check out Limerick Cycling Campaign’s ongoing work to make Limerick a better place for cyclists.

The young people of Limerick have spoken, it’s time to act on climate change

Young people marching for climate action in Limerick. Thanks to Karen Sugrue for the photo.

The young people of Limerick who marched demanding action on climate change deserve more than empty platitudes. We owe it to them to get serious about climate change, and to take action to lessen the burden on future generations. It’s shameful that our young people have to march because we as adults have neglected our obligations. With that in mind I’ve jotted down a few things that I think we can do right now here in Limerick, to answer the call from our young people to take action.

Dump the M20

The road between Limerick and Cork does not have enough traffic by European standards to merit a motorway. The M20 would cost a billion euro, money that we would borrow from future generations saddling them not with the bill for a misguided monument to regional aspirations, but the bill of dealing with the increased emissions that would result. The M20 would encourage unsustainable long-distance commuting by private car. We could use some of the money to upgrade the rail service between Limerick and Cork – the first train doesn’t get in to Cork until 9:30 and involves a 40 minute wait at Limerick Junction. To be clear, you cannot credibly support climate action and also support the building of a €1 billion motorway that isn’t needed.

Build houses where kids can walk to school

If you build homes near schools (and shops, workplaces) you give people a choice. You don’t force people into a car. You allow people who can’t afford a car the same access as those who do. We will strengthen our towns, villages and cities by building homes in the centre of them, not in the outskirts. If we are to drastically cut our transport emissions we need to rethink the way we plan communities. Increasing density in the villages of County Limerick will make it easier to provide bus services, fibre broadband, and will make local shops more viable.

Stop car-dependent developments on the outskirts of the city

Limerick and Clare County Councils are planning a “Northern Distributor Road” to open up development north of Limerick City in Clare. UL are planning a “new town” in the fields of south-east Clare. LIT want to convert an abandoned Celtic Tiger shopping centre into a remote campus. These would all be car-dependent, emissions-heavy developments that would hollow out our city and be unserviceable by effective public transport. We’ve lots of free sites in the centre of our city. Let’s use them to build houses, shops, offices and educational facilities.

Expand community-run insulation programmes

Climate protesters in Limerick. Thanks to Sean Hartigan for the photo.

Tait House Community Enterprise in Southill is a community-owned social enterprise that does free home insulation upgrades for people receiving certain welfare payments, and provides commercial insulation services for private homeowners, providing jobs and keeping money in the community. We need to find more ways to support organisations like this, giving people warmer homes and more prosperous communities.

Get serious about sustainable transport

The bus service in Limerick is of woeful quality, and although many of us gripe about Bus Éireann, the fact is that we have designed our city to facilitate the private car, and it’s no surprise when buses get delayed for hours in traffic jams. We need to take space away from the car and give it to buses, bikes and boots. A Luas-style service could easily be run between Raheen, city centre and Castletroy, if we reduce traffic lanes and give buses segregated space.

Complete the transition to wind energy

We can no longer justify burning dirty coal for electricity up the Shannon Estuary at Moneypoint. We need to expand windfarms, giving communities ownership so they have a stake, and further reduce our emissions from electricity generation.

Support local food enterprise

Agriculture is a huge source of emissions in Ireland. The main cause of this is a misguided national agriculture policy, but there are still things we can do about it in Limerick. We have some of the best grazing land in the world down this part of the country, and yet much of it is used to produce generic powdered milk for export, some of which is made into breast milk substitute and sold to developing countries. This is emission-intensive, low-value and low-employment agriculture. We can change this by encouraging local food businesses, especially in the dairy sector, to produce high-value desirable products such as cheese. This will provide more income, more local employment, and reduce the emissions per euro earned by agriculture in Limerick.

Listen, and act

The youth of Limerick have spoken in their numbers. We need to listen. They have asked us to act and we need to act. The time for whataboutery and dodging responsibility has gone. Let’s listen to the young people of Limerick and give them a better future, before it’s too late.

Memories of the abortion referendum campaign in Limerick

I played a small part in the 2018 abortion referendum campaign in Limerick. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life and I will always be grateful for the opportunity to take part. My memories are imperfect, but six months on  feels like a good time to get some of them down. They don’t represent a comprehensive account of the referendum campaign in Limerick, just my personal experience.

I attended my first campaign event in February. I was invited to talk about my experiences canvassing for the Marriage Equality referendum three years previously. I don’t think anyone was in any doubt that this was going to be a very different campaign. I was pretty sure we were going to lose. That marriage referendum made waves around the globe but the margin of victory wasn’t exactly emphatic in the end: 62/38. At the start of 2018, the polls showed some indication of support for repealing the eighth amendment, but Irish referenda tend to narrow significantly in the last two weeks of campaigning. Chatting with political friends from various parties I couldn’t find anyone who was remotely confident this was going to pass.

First canvass on a cold, wet and dark Thursday evening in March

I remember thinking how lonely the campaign was going to be. I was determined to play my own part, to knock on doors and ask voters to show compassion for people in difficult situations. But I certainly couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to come out on cold evenings to talk with strangers about the termination of pregnancy. It seemed especially cruel to ask women to knock on doors to ask for basic reproductive rights that would be available to them in the majority of countries around the world.

And yes it was small at the start. About six to ten canvassers for the first few nights. Not many canvassers for the third largest city in Ireland. The task felt impossible. We started two months out from the vote because we knew we had a lot of ground to cover. But at that stage in a referendum campaign, many voters aren’t fully engaged, they might only have a vague sense of what they’re going to be asked to vote on, and with a contentious issue like abortion, many were understandably reluctant to discuss it with strangers.

Thankfully daylight savings time kicked in pretty early in the campaign, so we got to canvass in daylight

We trudged on. Three political parties had agreed to split the organising of the canvassing in the city into three: Jimi from the Social Democrats organised canvasses in the west of the city, Dave from Labour co-ordinated the east, and with my Green Party hat on I co-ordinated the north city. This involved an inordinate amount of poring over maps and spreadsheets which I think the three of us enjoyed more than we liked to admit, even if we did often find ourselves in the small hours of weekday mornings entering canvass returns or tracing an efficient route through an estate for the next day’s canvass. Members of Sinn Fein and Solidarity also joined us on the canvass. But most of the canvassers in Limerick were not party political and for most it was their first involvement in political action. 

We were christened “The Three Men Of Repeal”. Mostly we just stood around with clipboards nerding about maps.

Canvassers knocked on the door in pairs, with at least one female in the pair. All canvassers had to attend training. We were as obsessed with not losing votes as much as gaining them. The people of Limerick are a polite and friendly lot, and the majority who answered their doors were lovely. But every canvasser experienced a small amount of uncivility, hostility and rudeness. And without exception our canvassers were polite, calm and dignified in return in response. We were not going to be provoked into losing a single vote. I should add that the vast majority of No voters we met were polite and reasonable. I respected (and still respect) their point of view.

There was lots of poring over maps

A month into the campaign, numbers had risen a bit, we had gone from three canvasses a week to six. It was clear that this campaign was going to be a lot bigger than we thought. We kept totals of everything, number of doors knocked on, the proportion that answered, the number that were “hard” yeses and nos versus the “softer” voters and the undecideds. I remember the first time we had more than twenty canvassers in the third week when we canvassed Ballynanty, I think that was my first time thinking that this campaign was going to be something really big. 

First night we had over 20 canvassers

We were blessed with two incredible leaders, our chair Yvie and our deputy chair Jennifer, who worked absolutely tirelessly behind the scenes. They never once sought to be front and centre of the campaign, always wanting to empower others. They made sure a dizzying amount of small things got done, and made sure that we were always focused on the bigger picture. We would not have been half the campaign we ended up being without their leadership, and they taught me some very important lessons about leadership without ego.

There were an army of people behind the scenes too, whose work was often invisible yet vital. Fundraising, social media, volunteer management, designing badges and flyers, canvass organising, messaging and policy, training, much-needed aftercare for canvassers, there were so many jobs that people took on and gave up their evenings and weekends to undertake.

Organising

Everyone was stretched to breaking point. Most of us managed to burn out at least once during the campaign. The numbers of amazing people willing to campaign kept rising. We also had a fantastic group canvassing the rural areas. Canvassing with them made me realise that the old clichés of the rural/urban divide on social issues in Ireland was redundant – people in country areas were just as engaged, informed and willing to listen to our arguments.

Newcastle West

We also joined up with groups from other counties: we ran a joint canvass with the Clare campaign on the northern outskirts of Limerick, we helped a group in Charleville get started and canvass around South Limerick and North Cork. Paul Bowler from Kerry came up and helped to run training for male canvassers (which we quickly christened “manstraining”, to rhyme with “mansplaining”). 

Manstrainers for repeal

As a group we were from very different backgrounds and age groups, but I think we were similar in surprising ways. Most of us were quiet, and maybe even a bit shy. Most of us were incredibly nervous the first time we went canvassing and very few of us were ‘naturals’ on the doors. Yet I think we were all deeply motivated by a sense of justice and empathy for people in the most difficult of situations.

My mum was much better at canvassing than I was

 

I can’t imagine how difficult it was for campaigners whose lives had been directly affected by the eighth amendment. Whether they chose to disclose their stories or not, I cannot begin to imagine the courage it took to open up their hearts to strangers, to encourage them to think about people in impossible situations.

We didn’t only just have our own fears to deal with, we had the fears of voters to deal with as well. Fear of sexuality, fear of women, fear of talking about anything that goes on “down there”. The taboos and silence that surround so many aspects of sex and pregnancy. The grief of people who had suffered miscarriages. The voters who found themselves, unexpectedly, talking on their own doorstep about their own abortions, sometimes after decades of silence.

On the canvass

Through it all we trudged on. Over 25,000 doors knocked across Limerick City and County in two months. Hundreds of amazing canvassers, young and old, men and women. At the end we were an army. The last week of the campaign, we almost ran out of areas to cover. We organised a leaflet drop of every door in the Limerick City constituency. For the last day of the campaign, I took the day off work with my friend Niamh to cover the few corners of the county that we hadn’t reached, starting at 9am and 30,000 steps later finishing half-way up a mountain at the opposite end of the county at 7pm.

Up a mountain in West Limerick on the last day of the campaign

Of course we won, after the profound shock of the exit poll, which nobody quite believed. Some people even tried to claim that the result was a foregone conclusion. But in Limerick, like around the country, we knew it was a victory hard-won, by the some of most incredible people I’ve ever met.

I am deeply thankful to all the repealers in Limerick for the privilege of being able to campaign with them.

Drinks after one of the last canvasses

What’s next after Repealing the 8th? I’d like to help get a woman elected to Limerick Council

what's next badge A West Wing-themed badge that a Repealer gave me towards the end of the referendum campaign, which I will treasure always.

I want to write down properly my memories of the campaign to repeal the 8th amendment sometime. It was an exhausting, yet special time. I met a huge amount of wonderful people, some of whom I’m quite sure I will be friends with for life. But right now, nearly three months after our historic victory, it’s time to think about what’s next. And for me, the answer begins with politics. I’m one of those (possibly naïve!) people who believes in the power of politics. Those of us involved in the Repeal campaign who were members of political parties may have been vastly outnumbered by those who weren’t. But I believe we were involved in a fundamentally political activity: changing the minds of voters.

Less than 20% of Limerick’s councillors are women (the Dáil has a roughly similar proportion of women). Possibly related to this statistic: many of our councillors are not doing a good job at working towards an ambitious and inclusive Limerick. If I can do anything with what political experience I’ve gained through the years, I’d like to help get a woman elected to Limerick Council.

The good news is that I’ve found an amazing candidate to support for election in Limerick City: someone who is serious about the very serious task of representing voters: someone who is willing to work hard for families in our city and who wants to do their bit in bequeathing a better city to future generations. And even though I can’t say who she is at this stage because of the need for Green Party selection conventions and other procedures, I’m excited at the prospect of doing what I can to help her meet with and listen to the voters of Limerick.

Why write about this now when I can’t say who the candidate is? One reason is that I wrote pieces very early on about why I got involved in the Marriage Equality and Repeal the 8th campaigns as well as the last general election: getting my thoughts down was helpful early on before the maelstrom of the campaign took over. And the second reason: maybe you’d like to help. Political campaigns don’t always just reflect the minds of voters: as the Repeal the 8th campaign showed, sometimes they can change them. Being involved at the start of a campaign, when numbers are still small, can be a really special thing. We need more women in politics, and we need better representation in Limerick if we want a better city. If you feel the same, and you’re also wondering what’s next after Repeal, I’d love to work with you. And if maybe you’d prefer not to work with me, or you support a different political party, the good news is that most political parties will be running at least one female candidate in Limerick. I’m sure they, like us, would be very grateful for your help.

Some recent accounts of sexism and harassment in the tech industry

It really bugs me that many people are in denial about sexism and harassment in the tech industry. Some engineers, developers and other professionals in the tech sector have been incredibly brave about sharing their experiences over the past few years, and I think they’re worth highlighting:

User Experience expert and speaker Johanna Krollman:

A talk at a conference showing girls in bikinis. An API presentation from a sponsor featuring ladies in bras. A demo at a hack day with a slide of women in underwear. A business model canvas workshop using a strip club as an example to illustrate the tool.

These are just a few examples of casual sexism I’ve experience at (tech) events. It’s common for at least part of the audience to react with laughter – sexism is entertainment. I’ve observed that the photo, comment or story gets laughs from the audience, gets attention. No wonder it feels like it’s ok.

Susan Fowler, engineer and author, on her time working at Uber:

After the first couple of weeks of training, I chose to join the team that worked on my area of expertise, and this is where things started getting weird. On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn’t. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn’t help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.

Uber was a pretty good-sized company at that time, and I had pretty standard expectations of how they would handle situations like this. I expected that I would report him to HR, they would handle the situation appropriately, and then life would go on – unfortunately, things played out quite a bit differently. When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man’s first offense, and that they wouldn’t feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to. Upper management told me that he “was a high performer” (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn’t feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part.

(Fowler then goes on to describe how this wasn’t actually the manager’s first offence, and how she was given negative performance reviews as a result of highlighting behaviour such as this)

Engineer Katy Levison:

I have been raped by a colleague — not just once, but several times over months. A second colleague at a different institution held me against a wall against my objections and struggles and hit me with objects for his own amusement. My female colleagues told me later that he raped some of them, and in much the same way I had been raped by my rapist. I’ve had a colleague scream at me that everything good I ever had was given to me because I was a girl and that if were a boy, nobody would even know my name. He screamed it in public to humiliate me. The worst part was that, as I told him to go fuck himself and tried not to cry, I couldn’t prove to myself that what he said wasn’t true. Nor could I prove it to myself later, lying awake in bed.

Software engineer Tracy Chou on her internships at Facebook and Google:

My fellow interns and full-time coworkers were first friendly, then flirty. They floated awkward pick-up lines and complimented me on the way I looked, not the work I produced. One offered to give me a massage “because I looked stressed.” Another tried to get me to watch a movie with him in a dark room with the door locked and blinds closed. Later, he gave me a custom-made t-shirt with his name emblazoned across the front.

Product manager Leah Weitz, on things men have said to her at tech events:

“I was hoping to talk to someone who can actually explain what your company does. Are any of those guys available?” [points towards male coworkers]

“What size t-shirt are you wearing?” [stares at my bust, smirking] “Can you turn around for me so I can see the back?”

[discussing a widely-circulated piece of writing that I authored] “Who wrote that? Did you write that? [points at male coworker to my left] Oh. Did you, then? [points at male coworker to my right] Wait, so you wrote that?”

Chief Marketing Officer at a social media startup, Lisa Barone:

I remember being at a popular conference, sitting amongst my colleagues, and having a gentleman attending put his hand on knee while asking me what company I worked for. I remember the same man then removing his hand only to put his arm around me. And leave it there.

I remember being alone in the elevator with an employee of popular conference and being asked if I wanted to go back to his room to “have a drink or something”.

12 better rules for men

  1. Equality for others means you win too. Like other sorts of winning, equality is more satisfying when you fight for it.
  2. Laugh at yourself and allow others to laugh at you. Don’t be too proud.
  3. Embrace social change and be wary of a fictional nostalgic past where you might have had a higher status.
  4. Sexual consent matters.
  5. As men we have power and privilege that women don’t have in our society. Acknowledging this doesn’t undermine our own achievements.
  6. Be interested in things, be happy that others like them differently.
  7. Accept things can sometimes be hopeless. When they are, cry. Ask for help.
  8. Be slow to judge: try to imagine walking in the shoes of those less fortunate than you.
  9. Be kind to others, especially to those with whom you disagree.
  10. Be kind to yourself.
  11. You’re probably a bit gay. Embrace it.
  12. Be careful of pithy advice from old men like me

Context

  • Jordan Peterson has a book with 12 rules, and they seemed kind of rubbish, so I came up with my own.

Caveats

  • This is a work in progress. I’m happy to receive feedback.
  • I have no idea what I’m talking about. I mean it about rule 12.
  • A number of people contacted me after my last article about Jordan Peterson pointing out that I should probably read his stuff before being snarky about it. I have ordered his book and will post a review when I’ve read it.
  • I was thinking of heterosexual Irish men when writing this. Applicability to other kinds of men may be limited.

Is Irish masculinity in crisis?

A shot of the crowds at the Jordan Peterson event in Dublin. Photo credit: Peter Kavanagh / @TheKavOfficial on Twitter (tweet link)

I had been aware that Jordan Peterson had been coming to the 3 Arena in Dublin for the last few months, and if I’m honest I was looking forward to a minor inner gloat as he spoke to a tiny crowd. I was shocked to see a photo of thousands of Irish men gathered to listen to a message that masculinity is in crisis, because feminism and liberalism has gone too far (this New Yorker article has a relatively balanced summary of his views). If I’m honest I can’t think of a progressive thinker who could draw such crowds on a sunny July afternoon.

I think this is evidence that there is a large cohort of men in Ireland, especially younger men, who are deeply dissatisfied with some of the progressive changes we’ve made as a society, who feel that gender equality has gone ‘too far’ and who think that the role of men is being dangerously undermined in Western societies. A crisis, if you will.

This development saddens me, and makes me worried about the future. I don’t know what the answer is, except that Irish men who are progressive and feminist and believe in tackling inequality need to do more. We need to start our own public conversations about gender and why we believe that equality is not here yet, and why it’s worth fighting for. We should not demonise the thousands of men who turned up in Dublin yesterday, but we should also be making our own arguments why a more equal and progressive future is a better one, for men and women.

By recognising our privilege as Irish men, and using that privilege to amplify and support people with less privilege than we enjoy, we become better fathers and sons and brothers and husbands. I don’t know how we can do it, but we need to listen to compassion to those who disagree with us, and figure out together a better future for Irish masculinity.