Emer O’Toole: Writing allegories that might make men understand

Imagine something with me: an allegory. There’ll be some disbelief to suspend and maybe even a reveal at the end.

Imagine there’s a huge building project underway in – let’s say – northern Greenland, and the contract has been given to a British construction company, which is recruiting 4,000 men from Britain and Ireland. When our recruiters have hired 2,000 Brits, they realise that almost everyone they’ve hired is over 6ft, and thus too tall to work on the drainage structure under the complex. So, in the Irish recruitment stage, they compensate by hiring 2,000 workers who are 5ft 8in or under. You get a job.

Imagine that construction will take five years, and stops during the winter, so workers camp together for seven months at a time. By year two, everyone’s getting on great; the big Brits and the little Paddies live, work and socialise together and are generally good mates. There are occasional jokes about Paddies dying in the famine because they were too thick to grow potatoes, but all that inequality stuff is in the past now, so everyone laughs: harmless banter. It’s also pretty well-known that the Paddies make less money than the Brits, but, after the crash, you feel lucky to have a job at all.

Because of the physical differences between the Brits and the Paddies, the Paddies don’t make it on to the official camp sports teams, although everyone goes to cheer the Brits at games on Sundays. (The Paddies still play sports among themselves, of course.) But one leisure activity that you should all be able to enjoy together is music. For some bizarre reason, however, the Brits seem to be in charge of music here too.

There’s a widespread belief in the construction camp that Brits are better musicians than Paddies: perhaps they have the mechanical competency or discipline needed to master instruments. This belief flies in the face of all the brilliant Paddy musicians you know, but that’s just what people think here. There’s a degree of respect for Paddy singing: they have powerful, emotion-rousing voices. But you’ve also heard people unabashedly say, “It’s just a personal preference, but I’ve never really liked Paddy vocalists”.

Shy about playing

A result of all this is that even the Paddies who are good musicians get shy about playing. Once, at a party, your mate Shane, who’s from a musical family, has won songwriting awards and is, by anyone’s standards, a deadly guitarist, reluctantly agrees to a song. He hushes the room with hand-slap percussion, perfect picking and sweetly strummed chords. His voice sounds like something you’ve been missing, and leaves an absence when it fades. The clapping ebbs and a Brit who couldn’t play like that if he had an extra hand sidles up, says “You’re not bad for a Paddy”, and proceeds to give Shane advice on hammer-ons and harmonics.

Imagine there’s music in the camp bar on Friday and Saturday nights, and the musicians are almost always British. There’s an occasional twinkly-eyed Paddy singer, of course – Colin Farrell lookalike, great shirt, charismatic – and you’re grateful for that, but you feel like throwing your pint across the room when one of the Brit lads at your table remarks, “He’s great, but, in my experience, you can’t let a Paddy in the band: next thing everyone’s fighting with each other. It’s a disaster.”

You think, How can my entire table just have nodded along to that? In fact, why are we spending our money in this shitty bar at all if they can’t book a single band that has the same number of Brits and Paddies in it, or even – unthinkable – a band composed mostly of Paddies. But the thing is, we’re all friends here and no one wants to stir things; if you point out the inequality you’ll only put a damper on a good night out, and, anyway, the music’s good. Why can’t you just enjoy it like everyone else?

All British names

You love music. And you love hanging out with your friends – Brits and Paddies alike – but one night, at a special jazz gig the management has brought in, even though the six men in Union Jack T-shirts jamming on stage are great, you can’t shake your discomfort. You flick through the gig listings for the next few weeks: all British names.

Your best friend – a Brit – can tell there’s something wrong. So he asks, and you explain. He hadn’t really noticed, but he admits it’s messed up. Next time he’s getting a round in he asks the barman why they haven’t programmed any Paddy musicians. The barman gets thick with him. “Plonker didn’t like that question at all, mate,” he tells you. “Proper strange.”

Your friend goes back to enjoying the talented Union Jack-clad musicians, and you wish there were a way not only to make him see what’s happening, but also to make him feel it: to feel what it’s like to be here in this room where only British talent is acknowledged and valued. And you think, I can’t wait to get back home, where we’re not looked down on like this. But there is no home. You are trapped: there’s nowhere you can go to get away from this culture. Because you are a woman and the people on stage are men. And at so many music events – festivals, concerts, raves, gigs – gender discrimination is pumping out of the speakers and dancing on the stage.

So, while fingers tap and shoulders sway, you write allegories in your head, allegories that might make men feel.