Speech by Suzy Byrne/Maman Poulet at NWCI Website & Care Publication Launch, 19 Oct 09

Published: Sunday, October 18, 2009

I am delighted to have been invited to launch the new website of the National Womens Council of Ireland. There was a bit of slagging amongst some friends wondering how one launches a website. Slamming a bottle of bubbly against a laptop or cutting a red power lead didn't seem to quite fit. But the opportunity to talk about the internet and human rights and equality should be enough to do the job.

My first introduction to computers was at the age of 22, I had huge difficulties with writing, I'd failed my leaving cert at 16 due to dyspraxia and an inability to express myself on paper and co-ordinate my thoughts. A computer helped hugely in getting the mouthy me onto paper and engaging through newspaper columns and articles and later writing chapters and co-authoring books.

A few years later I found the world of internet mailing lists. I used the net to engage with committees I was a member of internationally and to enter debates on feminism with women from around the planet on shared and different experiences.

This was well before blogs and messageboards, where very few except those in academia and the military and a few in business and the nerds were online. I spent far too much money in internet cafes when they were five times the price per hour they are now connecting women who were like me - disabled lesbians because in the early/mid 90's there were not many out lesbians and few still out disabled lesbians and I've always found the 'community' difficult to access. The disability 'community' was a hard place to access also. But I found comfortable spaces and met women on and off line. I also received the greatest acts of kindness when going through hard times as I spoke about things I could not speak about anywhere else.

I also used this time to access information on issues and use it in my political and personal life. Living with Lupus in the 90's was a very lonely space. I found a lupy community all over the world and got information on the newest medications and moral support from people I never met.

I've gone on to use the net to get through college, learn more about the world and develop and contribute to platforms for women in talk to each other. SapphicIreland.com was a place where women of all ages came online to talk about anything and everything and find out they were not the only one. It was also the space where the unpopular and the alternative got a chance to be spoken about. Including critiques of social movements that are represented here today. It wasn't all a bed of roses and like the non virtual there were clashes, disagreements and the like but I know at times for myself and others who participated that it was an important platform

The internet has with all it's faults still been a place in hearing from 'Others' and in finding Others

Be it the woman coming out in her 40's wondering if there is anyone else like her, the disabled woman , the mother of a child with a disability or a woman experiencing domestic violence who is preparing her way out or looking for help .
Blogging or twittering or other interacting with social media or using a message board is a powerful tool that many dismiss. I blog because I can. I write things that interest me or bother me. I spent a lot of time reading other blogs and just started my own as a place to start to put thoughts together. My curious mind then got the better of me and the research and the opinion came together. I was surprised to find out that I had readers including many in mainstream media who have nicked the odd story or two.

I have used my blog and my interaction with other bloggers to highlight issues that many in the 4th estate ignore and many in politics, be that in social and political movements or up the road in Dail Eireann don't know about or don't want to know about. I don't believe that what I do is the best, it's owned by me and can be shaped by my readers and interaction with other bloggers. Crowdsourcing - the way in which people who are online source and check information and distribute it is something that the rest of society are only getting their first taste of in Ireland, it's a collective somewhat reminiscent of the feminist collectives of old.

I have watched many women find their space online, poets, knitters, cooks, technologists, fashionistas, carers and others create their own spaces and interact with others and celebrate their lives. They have have only one reader or thousands but they are using the space they create to talk about what matters to them.

Blogs, Twitter and Facebook are tools for social change. Be it to report on what is happening in Iran or to call women to action like Shauneen Armstrong did with her Cervical vaccine Facebook campaign, these social media tools reach out to women who may not wish to or feel they can call themselves political but are affected or enraged by something and want to do more about it or know more about it. For women who have difficulties communicating or having their speech understood or even entering a building alternative spaces online can be found.

Things on the Internet are far from perfect and women still have less access to computers then men have and indeed broadband coverage in Ireland is still shockingly poor. Literacy and the most basic technical understanding of the Internet are also issues which need to be addressed. However in this era of individualisation groups and organisations need to realise that using the Internet to communicate their message can be as or even more important than issuing the press release or organising the picket - if it is done in the right way.

The organisation which blogs and uses new media is in my opinion a healthy transparent organisation.

For NWCI a website which reaches out to all it's constituencies and promotes the role of member organisations and the impact of policy on women's lives is now vital. In a recession with threats to important services and dismissal of issues as being irrelevant I'm delighted to see the organisation adopt new forms of communication and promoting the work and issues of women in the current climate. Using video and audio to tell the stories of women, issues and organisations will reach out to new audiences. For policy makers and opinion formers access to information and documents as well as seeing a visible campaign platform are essential tools. The possibilities are endless and I and other women I'm sure who are involved in new media, or citizen journalism will be more than happy to support the endeavours.

Ends/