It should have been a happy occasion. I was going jewellery shopping with someone else’s wallet.
I had delayed picking out a present for months until my boyfriend and I could patronise my favourite antique jewellery stores in Dublin.
They had enjoyed a short reprieve from the greasy stains of my nose print on their glass windows since I’d been in Australia. But I was back, with the slightly nervous man I love and his bank card.
We took a photo to remember the moment, the sum of months of waiting to finally be back on South William Street, smelling the siren’s call of Grogan’s toasties. Before we could see how it turned out, there was an insistent tap on my shoulder.
Do I look like a soft target? Do I give off the sad vibes of a person who can be inconvenienced?
‘You need to pull it down, your whole bottom is on show,’ the woman said. ‘It’s a disgrace’
The Liberties is the last bastion of real Dublin. We should never let it be gentrified
Good chat? Only when you leave Ireland, you realise it isn’t universal
“You need to bring your skirt down,” hissed the stranger, in the tone of voice that mams use when you’re playing up in Mass, somehow a simultaneous shout and whisper.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“You need to pull it down, your whole bottom is on show,” she replied.
I made the incorrect assumption that she meant well. It happens to the best of us.
“No, I’m wearing shorts under the skirt,” I tried to explain kindly.
“It’s a disgrace,” she responded, telling me everything I needed to know.
[ If I were an agony aunt, my advice would always be ‘leave them’Opens in new window ]
Given I was actually wearing a skort with inbuilt shorts that went to my mid thigh over a pair of 20 denier tights, she would have had to have X-ray vision to see even a suggestion of bum cheek, never mind my “whole bottom”.
I’m also nearly 6ft tall with disproportionately long thigh bones. Any skirt outside of an Amish dress looks shorter on me than it actually is.
Her intentions weren’t pure. She didn’t sidle up to me and whisper, “sorry love, in case you didn’t know, your skirt’s just come up a little bit at the back there”. She wasn’t trying to save me from embarrassment. She was trying to inflict it.
Worse, by keeping her voice low she probably thought no one else could hear her and I would be too ashamed to make a scene in public. But I am Australian and therefore cannot be shamed.
Unfortunately for her I have a lower back tattoo and a missing tooth and the propensity to act like the owner of both when I need to. Having full blown arguments barefoot out on the front lawn with my hair in rollers is my natural state of being. So when the occasion calls for it I can call upon my ancestral powers to summon up an “Oi! Whadya just say ta moi” so powerful it can cut through space and time.
God knows what that woman on the street went through in her life that made her so angry about my skirt
I may have used some unparliamentary language against a woman I would kindly describe as being of brooch-wearing age. If that was your granny I cussed out on the street, I’m so sorry, but she had it coming.
Something has shifted when it is no longer men monitoring my bottom or policing my clothes, but other women. But if I am being truly honest, it has always been this way.
[ Good chat? Only when you leave Ireland, you realise it isn’t universalOpens in new window ]
The transference of shame, particularly in Ireland, seems to flow from woman to woman. Which breaks my heart given Irish women have shaped, supported and protected me my entire life, but are always so hard on themselves.
It seems to have sprung from a defence mechanism, particularly in family structures. Mothers warning daughters not to give anyone “the wrong idea” going around in certain clothes. To always “be careful” because “people talk”.
The memories of the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby homes, the lack of access to contraception and abortion run deep, creating a panopticon of internalised misogyny we can sometimes all be guilty of slipping into when we gossip or lurk on social media. All under the guise of “being worried” about someone.
[ I miss Ireland for many reasons, but one is the lack of pressure to ‘get fit’Opens in new window ]
A female boss once pulled me aside to tell me I was coming off “too sexy” on air. She told me it would make the female audience “hate me”. Could I cut my long hair? Start dressing more like a mum?
I think she thought she was being helpful but it shattered my confidence. I’m happy to report I’m now on national prime time TV with hair past my armpits.
I have a theory that people’s attempt to shame others comes from their parents’ insecurities. What were they shamed for that they now feel they have to transfer to strangers? What limiting beliefs did they have beaten into them?
God knows what that woman on the street went through in her life that made her so angry about my skirt. Part of me wishes I could have sat her down and told her we don’t have to do that to each other anymore.
