Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
We should be free to choose a school that is single-sex
LABOUR clearly doesn’t think the country has enough problems on its plate – so it is intent on creating more with a Bill seeking to end same-sex schools in the next decade. The party’s education spokesman Aodhán Ó Ríordáin called single-sex education an ‘anomaly’ and claimed desegregation would promote consent and tackle ‘toxic masculinity’, adding that it is ‘harder to break down barriers to gender equality when we separate boys and girls’.
Having attended both same and single-sex schools at secondary
level, I feel eminently qualified to wade into this particular war.
From personal experience, I got a far better, well-rounded education at my same-sex school than my pricey mixed school.
While at the time I didn’t care to admit it, the nuns instilled in me skills beyond the classroom and tools for life that are unique to young girls and women.
Some of these life lessons I still carry with me and they have served me well over the years.
While I wasn’t distracted by the presence of boys in class – as I had boys as friends from a young age – I just didn’t perform as well or enjoy as much my time at a mixed school.
The data is also irrefutable, with studies consistently showing girls perform better in same-sex education. But regardless of stats, Ó Ríordáin and Labour are in need of some schooling themselves.
Equality should mean more, not less choice. Phasing out same-sex schools is an erosion of choice.
It is up to parents and pupils – not the State – to choose the best school, suited to their preference and needs.
Cat ruling proves we’re not that smart
IT’S generally acknowledged that I mostly prefer animals to people. I believe almost all animals to be superior species. Most display traits and characteristics showing them to be far smarter, kinder, and more empathetic to humans – making them all-round better beings. Bristol University this week perfectly illustrated my point that we are the dumbos when it issued guidelines to staff on the correct pronouns to use when addressing those who identify as ‘catgender’.
The list – a gender glossary, if you will – specified ‘xenic’ individuals who do not fit in to ‘the Western human binary of gender alignments’. It describes a catgender person as ‘someone who strongly identifies with cats and may experience delusions relating to being a cat or other feline’.
For things to have got to this stage at a seat of higher learning beggars all belief.
A real case of the tail wagging the cat, as it were.
Sizeable tensions at leaders’ table
THERE is a saying ‘He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon’. Given the enormity of the table separating heads of state Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron only super-sized spoons would suffice.
The presidents held crisis talks seated at opposite ends of a gargantuan 20ft oval table, held up by three menacing pillars. A lone bouquet of flowers looming large made for ominous adornment.
The web was awash with conspiracy theories as it emerged that French leader Macron refused Putin’s insistence to take a Russianadministered Covid-19 test.
Macron’s rejection apparently stems from paranoia that the Russians would steal his DNA, or implant spyware, and other Cold War-esque covert spy missions. On Macron saying ‘non’ to testing, a French security source told Reuters: ‘We knew very well that meant no handshake and that long table. But we could not accept that they get their hands on the president’s DNA.’
Putin’s insistence that guests at the Kremlin abide by stringent Soviet safety rules stems from his fears that the West is trying to whack him – which in fairness might not be that conspiratorial. My theory is far simpler – basic male posturing. The two pipsqueak politicians are notoriously conscious of their stature when it comes to height. At 1.75metres, Macron is but a hair’s breadth taller than Putin’s 1.7m.
Given their shortcomings, a stand-off would have served neither’s purpose, so the 20ft table is a show of strength, a Putin phallic symbol saying ‘my [table] is bigger than yours’.
The talks of the long table lasted a full five-and-a-half hours without resolution.
Tensions are rising on the Ukraine border and, with the West gearing up for a Russian invasion, it doesn’t look likely that this pair of pint-sized presidents will be breaking bread again soon – at any sized table.
Switched politicians – but we didn’t save
MORE lectures issued forth from the political classes this week, as the Junior Finance Minister admonished all and sundry, saying we ought to just shut up and shop. Fianna Failer Seán Fleming, inset left, took to the airwaves and said if people ‘make an effort they can save a lot of money’.
Asked about measures being considered by Government to tackle the growing cost of living, Fleming hectored the electorate, telling people to shop around and switch heat, electricity or gas providers and supermarkets.
‘It takes effort to shop and switch and if people make an effort, they can save a lot of money,’ he said. ‘Rather than just complaining on what the Government is going to do for me, you could actually have a serious impact on your own finances but it involves people having to do some work themselves.’
I think Mr Fleming will find that we have been shopping around. The last election prompted a flurry of shopper-arounders for a low-cost, better-value brand of government.
Yet despite this, we were stuck with high-cost yellow-pack politicians who have neither saved us a penny nor added any value to our daily lives.