‘She should’ve kept her legs shut’, ‘why have so many children if you can’t look after them?’, ‘sponging off the state because she couldn’t control herself’…
The above are comments I’ve read or heard on the radio in response to Margaret Cash, a homeless mother of seven children.
Recently, photos were put on social media by a homeless charity showing six of Margaret’s children sleeping in their school uniforms on chairs at a Garda station.
This led to people examining Margaret’s life, eager to catch her out.
How dare a homeless mother take a photo with a beer in her hand? It seems as though the general consensus is that homeless people, especially mothers, are not supposed to be seen enjoying life or consuming alcohol.
No aspect of her life was too small to pick on. People questioned if her daughter’s communion dress was too dressy for a homeless girl, how did her mum afford it?
The brutal search to blame Margaret for the circumstances she found herself in began the moment her name was announced to the public.
This is what’s happening tonight, up to 8 families refereed to Garda Stations. Now I’m sorry but this is bullshit! There are 7 children sleeping in one Garda station alone in Dublin tonight. @MurphyEoghan this is your legacy! How could it come to this?#Homeless pic.twitter.com/L4ch69O8tt
— Anthony Flynn (@AnthonyICHH) August 9, 2018
Margaret found herself having to explain to the Irish public that her coil had failed twice as if her reproductive choices were anyone else’s business but her own.
Irish society is too used to feeling a sense of ownership over women’s sex lives and bodies. It doesn’t matter that repeal was won, we still want the right to shame women for having sex.
Pro-choice and anti-choice people condemned Margaret for having so many children. One man told me she should not have had children if she couldn’t afford to look after them. I told him I had thought myself financially secure in my marriage before my husband suddenly left me with three small children, so by his reckoning I should have foreseen the failure of my marriage and just never had kids at all.
It’s just not how life works. We make choices based on the information we have at the time. Some of us don’t have the luxury of choices, some women are in abusive relationships and cannot afford to or do not have the means to travel abroad for an abortion. Life is more nuanced and complex than Margaret’s critics would like us to believe.
The worrying similarity in a lot of the commentary was the motive of shaming and blaming her for being homeless. Much like society shames and blames women who are raped. Or women who are abused. Every time, no matter how badly she has been treated, the woman is at fault.
“She was asking for it.”
“Why did you wear that short skirt?”
“Why did you stay with him?”
“Why did you have so many kids then?”
These comments and the beliefs behind them all stem from a fundamental mistrust of women. We’re just not to be trusted. We make bad choices and it is always our fault if things go badly for us.
If a man chooses to rape a woman, it is the woman who is to blame. If a man chooses to hurt or control his partner, it is the woman who is to blame.
If the government system does not allow a woman living in poverty to find suitable accommodation for her children, it must be her fault.
Few people have noticed the correlations between homelessness and the savage cuts on lone parents. They are the group in society who have lost the most since 2008. The social welfare cuts have been gendered, affecting poor and working poor lone mothers most.
Rest assured, should the children of homeless women end up in State Care, the owners of the care facilities will be well paid. The rate a lone parent gets for a child dependent is €31.80 per child per week. Care facilities receive upwards of €5,000 a week for the care of one child. Funny the way no one is giving out about that isn’t it?
