Áilín Quinlan: Flashpoint on a Cork road that showed misogyny at its worst

You know who you are, you beast.

Saturday July 11. A quiet, warm, sunny evening shortly before 8pm.

On our way to see Donovan at the Everyman Theatre, we’d passed City Hall, crossed Parnell Bridge, and were now paused at the traffic lights with the bus office to our right.

An enormous Mercedes pulled up next to us. The driver, a handsome man in his thirties, was on his phone to a woman; his window was rolled down; their conversation was punctuated by much laughter.

As we waited for the lights to change, I noticed that on our left, a young woman pushing a baby buggy had stopped at the edge of the pavement and was preparing to cross.

Seconds after she stepped out into this wide road, the lights turned green.

“Oh, oh,” I said. Rather unwisely, she elected to keep going. We remained stationary, allowing her to pass in front of our car.

However, as she moved in front of the Mercedes, the engine growled and the big vehicle rolled forward. Then the driver gunned the engine.

We watched in horrified disbelief as the young woman glanced up and to her right, her face contorting in shock and fear.

She broke into a dreadful shambling run, trying to shield the buggy with a body still soft from childbirth, as the huge car bore down on her and her infant.

He hunted her. I use the word ‘hunted’, because by the time that panic-stricken young mother had thrown herself and her baby onto the safety of the pavement, the Mercedes was at an angle, it’s huge bonnet facing her. He’d driven right at her.

You could almost see the thought bubble emanating from that macho head. He’d teach her a lesson!

We tried to follow the driver to get his licence plate so we could at least report his behaviour to the gardaí, but he was too quick; he swung the Mercedes back into the lane and sped away and off to the right around the bus office. We lost him.

Speechless, we parked the car and walked up MacCurtain Street.

Now aged 80, Donovan is a wonderful gnome of a man with long, white hair. He regaled the packed theatre with hilarious anecdotes and gentle songs.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about that terrified young mother. I thought about how she’d probably changed especially into that pretty summer dress and sandals to bring her pride and joy out for some air in the calm quiet of a soft summer’s evening in Cork city.

Young mother, I want to apologise for not stopping the car to get out and comfort you.

I should have stopped instead of trying to chase him. I should have reassured you that this incident was an aberration; that you are safe to walk your little baby in the kindness of Cork city on a bright summer’s evening; that most of our men would never, ever have do what that man did.

Yes, you erred in continuing to cross a wide road after the traffic lights changed; yes, it would have been wiser to retreat back to the safety of the pavement.

However, it was the beast in the car who was the evil one. Who terrorised a happy young woman pushing a buggy. Who gleefully shattered what should have been a happy, pride-filled evening stroll. Who is, I would hope, an aberration in this city.

I hope I’m right. I hope that most of our men, young or old, would never do such a thing.

But we know that misogyny has long been an issue in Ireland.

We know violence against women and hatred of women is endemic in the world; that it is a systemic problem in this society. And, now, that it’s being exacerbated by online far-right manosphere influencers.

Surveys have shown that males aged 15 and upwards increasingly hold misogynistic views, that there is a growing attitude that society should revert to old-fashioned, repressive, traditional gender roles, or that men naturally have more right to authority and leadership than women (who ideally ought to tale the role of submissive trad-wife home-and-baby makers.)

We know that teachers have reported growing concerns about the sexist language and the anti-feminist attitudes being expressed by boys in second-level education.

Tell me this; how does a young fella get away with driving around in a tractor with this misogynistic slogan splashed across the back window?

“The Deeper I Plough the Louder She Grunts” is not funny. It’s neither “cheeky” nor “suggestive”.

It’s simply the kind of throwaway misogyny that taints our very environment.

Misogyny is deeply, culturally embedded in our world; it’s a driving force behind the violence suffered by many women in this country for untold generations.

It’s rooted in male entitlement, male control, and the tolerance of the abuse of women.

Today, digital misogyny is insidiously poisoning teenagers’ minds through their smartphones and tablets, using adolescent insecurity about the world to get a foothold in their thinking.

Psychologist Colman Noctor had an article in the Irish Examiner with some good advice for parents on counteracting this stuff. Google him. Useful stuff.

If your teenager is driving around in a vehicle emblazoned with a misogynistic slogan, don’t just go on the attack. Try to talk to him about it. Encourage him to think about how it makes him feel. How it might make other people feel. And if this is ok.

Why it might be that, far from being utterly hilarious, slogans like this could be deeply offensive and demeaning, not to say extremely upsetting, to other people.

At the very least, make him think twice.