Bridging the age gap: a feminist faces her family

I meet my first-cousin-once-removed 10 minutes before the event. She is 84, and both a “serious Catholic” and “serious feminist” according to my father. I have heard about her many times but this is the first time our paths have properly crossed. I am slightly anxious – not just that she is in the audience for my hardcore feminist-lit panel in a rural town but also that my father has accompanied her.

I am speaking with two heroes of mine. Sarah Maria Griffin is inexplicably both younger and wiser than me. Sinéad Gleeson is an eloquent and elegant lady whose brain I want to steal. We are talking about feminism and Irishness and political writing. We are young, ranging from late 20s to early 40s. We do not look it. These are beautiful women I am appearing beside, and I wonder if that is objectification while at the same time wishing I was three stone lighter (I am large, I contain multitudes).

They all speak with such longing for what they view as the freedom and ease of the present day that I can't bring myself to tell them that such freedom is still up in the air

I am reading last, of the three of us, a thing that fills me with fear. I do not want to follow these lyrical wonders; I will feel cheap, with my easy laughs and lack of gorgeous, haunting prose. But I hear my dad laugh – the only man in the room apart from the photographer, and unapologetic for it – and it is okay. Pity laughter, you might think, but this is a man married to my mother, who does not do pity anything. A week later my dad mocks me for my yappy tendencies on another panel. I remember: my parents do not do pity. When there is praise, you know you’ve earned it.

We talk about feminism. I am the only one who was a self-identified feminist in her teens, a thing that surprises me because the others feel so iconic to me. I talk about reading Emma Donoghue in my late teens, how her work made my head explode. Cinderella running off with the fairy godmother? OMG.

It’s only afterwards – which is always the best way – that I remember that my cousin-once-removed is in the audience. (My dad rolls his eyes; he gets to listen to my rambles on a regular basis.) She says: thank you. She says: if only I’d met you 60 years ago.

I go to meet other people in the audience, many of whom are older. A dear friend from my creative writing masters is there, a short story genius with two friends. They all speak of how things have changed; how the things they took for granted, for normal, are now no longer the case. They all speak with such longing for what they view as the freedom and ease of the present day that I can’t bring myself to tell them that such freedom is still up in the air. Still penalised.

Sinéad speaks about being surprised at being thought of a “political writer” and I nod and think, but of course she is! She writes about The Female Body! In Ireland!

It takes me longer to think of myself as such. Maybe because young adult fiction is so often dismissed, or maybe because “political” fiction for teenagers often equals didacticism. Maybe because I am so conscious of the relatives watching me and hoping I won’t disgrace them.

I have relatives who are fervently “pro-life” (anti-choice). They genuinely believe that pregnant women never die because of pregnancy complications. They genuinely believe that rape victims should automatically love their unwanted children. They genuinely believe that we have a kind world that supports unwanted, unloved, un-financially-supported, un-medically-viable children.

We do not live in that world, but somehow I am political for noticing. And that is why I have the fear in this event in a rural town, that I will be viewed as a crazy radical.

No one there views me as a crazy radical.

Everyone I speak to, many of whom are over the age of 60, thanks me and the other speakers.

My dad tells me later how I seemed very reasonable. Which is a far cry from normal: I am the crazy feminist in the family. But he has seen his cousin – elderly, conservative, fiercely feminist – light up. He has seen her, and the way she does the thing that Irish Catholics are best at, which is à la carte Catholicism. He has seen the flicker of light that the older women get – the ones we think will be the least interested and sympathetic.

My cousin once-removed leaves early, but not before we hug again. She has things to do (she has dinner to eat!) and I have post-event wine-indulging to engage in. She is in her mid-eighties. She will buy my book, not just because we are family but because she is interested. She has not disowned me after my snarkiness about the eighth amendment. She is interested. She wants to know more.

She restores my faith in Ireland.

Claire Hennessy is a writer, editor, reviewer & tea-drinker based in Dublin. Her most recent YA novel, Like Other Girls, is published by Hot Key Books