This week was a good one for The Battle-axes - so good that I am naming two and they are both Irish. Irish women, the majority being Irish Catholic, have a complex history with enforcing moral codes and failing to protecting themselves and their children from the physical and mental harms caused by systemic abuse and institutional cover ups. Nuns haunt the nightmares of millions of children and rightly so. Their sadism as the shrouded foot soldiers of the Catholic church ruling schools, orphanages and “homes” that doubled as work houses and prisons for poor and “fallen” women and children is well documented. They abused their power, but their power was limited. Their power lay in their association with the Catholic hiearcy and they were the bottom of the pile. Nuns, like Irish Catholic women, did not shape the policies of the church, their communities, or even thei country until recent years. Even while ruling their homes with wooden spoons and shaming wayward Catholics for missing mass, Irish mothers couldn’t even get a divorce or control their pregnancies until after I was born.

But now, they are strong voices for cultural and political change that centers the futures of children, and so strenthens their country and our world. To read more about my views on nuns, Catholicism and gender click the link below. It’s one essay - there are more available on my website or online.

The two battle-axes I chose this week have some things in common. They are smart, outspoken, outsiders in their respective fields (government and academia) AND they drive angry men online bonkers. The reactions and abuse they receive when telling their own stories, let alone standing up for poor and stigmatized children and people, is horriffic. While I coudn’t stand it, they do and they do it with humor and grace.