Áilín Quinlan: Sticker ‘joke’ on tractor that left me sickened

Written in white in an attractive, flowing script on the back window of the tractor cab, the words were clearly visible.

All the same, I had to read the sentence twice because initially I didn’t quite take in the meaning.

Complete with ellipsis points and exclamation points, it went as follows: “The Deeper I Plough… The Louder She Grunts!!!’

I stared.

Somebody had gone to no small amount of care and trouble to centre this deeply misogynistic and offensive slogan on the lower part of the back window of the tractor so that it could be clearly seen.

That must be some kind of sticker, I thought; the driver had hardly, in this day and age, painstakingly lettered it by hand across the back of his cab.

But where on earth would you get such a horrible thing?

Easily enough, as I was to discover.

This ugly expression can be purchased in various forms and colours plastered across mugs and tee-shirts and polo shirts at the click of a button.

It comes under the category of humorous farming-themed merchandise. It is described as “a popular suggestive slogan sold by various online retailers”.

The words “disrespectful”, “prejudiced” or, indeed, “highly offensive” are nowhere to be seen in the advertising. No advertiser mentioned “objectification of women”.

You can buy a mug with this degrading banner on Amazon. Just in case you might possibly miss it, the lettering is “hand-printed on both sides of the cup”.

Amazon also advertises a tee-shirt featuring the saying, in various colours under the category of Funny Farming Tees and Apparel.

At the time I checked, the garment was currently unavailable and Amazon didn’t know when or if it would be back in stock. No loss, I thought.

However, our agri-misogynists need not miss out - it’s splashed across tee shirts, hoodies, and polo shirts available from lots of online outfits.

One agricultural signage company categorises it under ‘Funny Slogan Farming Clothing’.

Elsewhere, a tee-shirt bearing this lewd slogan is described as a Creative Gift T Shirt.

Hilarious.

Ho Ho Ho, nudge, nudge, and the old forefinger in the rolled fist.

Anyone who revels in such humour would not look out of place in Louis Theroux’s documentary on Netflix, Inside The Manosphere.

I was merely repulsed.

But to somebody who has suffered a sexual assault, this slogan could be intimidating.

Think for one moment about the inherent sense of entitlement in splaying those offensive words across the back of your tractor cab.

It’s not remotely funny. It cannot be justified by the excuse that it’s ‘just’ a humorous double-entendre.

Imagine travelling to the Ploughing Championships in Tullamore next September and seeing this vile stuff splattered across farmers’ chests - and the cabs of their tractors.

I wonder do organisations such as the IFA, Macra na Feirme or the ICMSA have a stance on this?

Because driving around with this kind of casual misogyny splashed across the window of your vehicle is wrong. It is harmful.

It is normalising sexist attitudes and misogyny.

It is inevitable that people will hold misogynistic views and assimilate casual attitudes of negativity and misogyny in a society where no real attempt is made to counteract such messages.

Remember the St Patrick’s Day Parade ‘rape float?’

We need to start making more of an effort.

We live in a country where violence against women is escalating.

Reports of mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and nieces being battered and stabbed to death in this country is a regular element of the Irish news headlines.

Violence against women seeds in contempt and disrespect and prejudice, which in turn is rooted in attitudes of dismissiveness towards and objectification of women in our communities, schools, and workplaces.

We need to stop tolerating it.

Society needs to get the message out to the farming community about agri-misogyny in rural Ireland.

There is increasing concern all across Irish society about the rise in misogyny among our young Irish men, and rural men and boys are no exception.

It’s driven, we are told, by influencers on the online manosphere who are deeply hostile to women and who peddle repressive, even violent anti-feminist views.

Women’s Aid research has revealed that two in five Irish men (nearly half, really) hold ‘traditionalist’ views on gender.

One in five young women in Ireland has experienced abuse from an intimate partner before the age of 25.

The research shows that men holding traditionalist views are more likely to be in their twenties, which, the research said, suggests that they may be influenced by online figures promoting the notion of ‘traditional masculinity’, or, you might say, old-fashioned chauvinism, misogyny, and an ancient, deep-rooted resentment of women.

And if boys grow up seeing slogans like this on the cab windows of tractors and other vehicles, what does it say to them?

It tells them that it’s both normal and acceptable to view women as mere sexual objects.

It says that it’s ok to say disgusting things like this about women.

We need to start talking to our young men and boys about this kind of insidious, casual and so-called ‘jokey’ misogyny.

Because it’s no joke.