Tag: feminist

• Even Statues of Women Aren’t Safe

  The famous statue of Molly Malone resembles a woman in a long dress pushing a cart in central Dublin. It was unveiled in 1988 to celebrate the city’s millennium on Grafton Street before being moved to Suffolk Street around 2014. The figure is supposed to portray the woman in the city’s unofficial anthem of “Cockles and Muscles.” The simple folk song is about Molly Malone, a fish merchant like the rest of her family, but she dies young from fever. She’s been a symbol of Irish pride and a reminder of the hardships the country has overcome. This attention led her to become a popular tourist attraction for visitors, both Irish and foreigners. 

  Once images and videos of this statue started to appear online in 2022, it became a media sensation, but not for a good reason. Other tourist attractions, like the Blarney Stone, are meant to be touched for good luck, but Molly’s statue was rusted everywhere except for her breasts. People all across the globe started to vocalize how degrading and disgusting the normalized custom was. Instead of taking a photo with her, tourists were rubbing the statue of a young woman’s breasts for good luck. This sensation began to reach media outlets in Ireland as well as overseas. Thousands were outraged and began to stop people in public from participating in the long-running tradition. 

  Numerous women were instead posting videos on different online platforms holding Molly Malone’s hand instead of her breasts out of respect and protection for her. Blatantly demonstrating how even a statue of a woman isn’t able to get respect. Tourists and influencers tried to guide things in a positive direction, encouraging future tourists visiting Dublin to hold her hand instead. Women during the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade held Molly Malone’s hand and covered her bust with flowers or necklaces. The city had Gardaí (Police Force) on each side of the statue during the month of May 2025 to halt citizens from violating the statue in an attempt to educate visitors. Even a young woman at Trinity College Dublin, who often busks on Suffolk Street, started a campaign titled “Leave Molly mAlone.”

  After continuous attention, Dublin City Council decided to refurbish the statue in early October 2025. It was cleaned, and the bronze was restored to her chest, then unveiled on October 10-11 of 2025. The once humiliating and derogatory tradition was starting to be put to rest. Media outlets and Irish citizens were satisfied with the refurbishment as well as the acknowledgement from the city, and started to move on. The media posts have since ground to a halt, and news stations have stopped reporting it. 

  The one thing I’ve yet to see covered is the statue now, after the restoration. The media is often fast-moving, and viral pieces or stories start to be forgotten, but Molly Malone shouldn’t be. As of late 2026, the statue is already starting to fade on her breasts once again. As much as the online feminist movement tried to change the tradition to holding her hand, it hasn’t worked, and the practice is still occurring. We are in a so-called “time of equality and progression,” but these repeated small acts show how far we still need to come. The tradition of Molly Malone is just one example of misogyny embedded in our history and society. Attention needs to remain on stories like this so people are held accountable and continue to shed light on normalized sexism. 

  ---

  Her Campus – Chapman University

  Erin Sweeney – Staff Writer

  @hercampuschapman

  https://www.hercampus.com/school/chapman/even-statues-of-women-arent-safe/

  2026.05.13

• He’s Just Not That Into You

  As a woman, I think about this movie more often than I should. It was brought to my attention in one of my literary theory classes by my classmates, who were doing a presentation. Every woman in the room said that they show this movie to their friends and peers when they start to overthink their decisions regarding love. The opening scene of the movie depicts the close friendship that women have with one another, but also the disillusionment that we seem to pass on from generation to generation. 

  We see a little girl being bullied by a boy on the playground, and when she runs up to tell her mom, the only thing she says is “He’s doing that because he likes you.” This sentence brought me back to when I was young, and all the older women in my life told me the exact same thing. As much as it bothered me at first, I started to believe it. My friends were told similar fairytales, and they just seemed to evolve as we got older. 

  “He’s not calling because he thinks you’re too good for him.”

  “You’re just too mature for him right now.”

  “He’s intimidated by your beauty.”

  “He probably lost your number.”

  And so on and so forth. No matter what age I am, I hear these types of comments meant to make us feel better, but instead, they’re leading us to think that this is how women are meant to be treated. We allow ourselves to be continuously strung along and treated like shit, because that’s how all the women around us were treated. He doesn’t call when he says he will, or he’s not listening to you on your date because he’s had a rough day. But maybe the truth of the matter is that he’s just not that into you. 

  I have found myself repeating these very phrases to my friends, and It wasn’t until watching this film that I realized the mediocrity of it all. We’ve accepted that maybe women are much more complex and compassionate creatures, but in doing so, we’ve given men countless excuses for treating us subhuman. Many women have found solace in confiding in their friends, but we might be doing more harm than good in the long run. Many of these women end up settling for someone who isn’t enough, but they accept it because of the countless excuses given by their friends. This continuous cycle of delusion has only gotten worse with the age of social media, and now we have new terms and new phrases to feed to each other. 

  “His phone probably died.”

  “He didn’t mean to leave you on opened.”

  “He liked your Instagram story, that means he likes you.” 

  As I get older, it gets harder and harder to bear hearing these phrases, even though I know my friends and family are only trying to make me feel better. I still have to correct myself, but I’ve learned to say;

  “He just isn’t the one; you’ll find someone better.”

  “I would just block him; he isn’t worth your time.” 

  We feel a type of anxious excitement that comes with waiting by the phone, and we always assume that it’s that “spark” that makes us so excited to hear back from them, but it’s really the fear that they won’t call back instead of the joy we feel while actually talking to them. This term the “spark” has also given men more outs for being horrible partners as well as people. If we had friends who didn’t give us the time of day and never called back when they said they would, we would consider them bad friends. Why should relationships be any different? 

  My most valued expression as of late is “An extraordinary man is just an average woman.” This perfectly sums up the experience that the women in my life have experienced. We meet women who would give the world to you if they could, while a man who’s supposed to be your partner for life can’t even call you back or look into your eyes when you’re speaking.

  A very wise family member of mine always asks the same question when I tell her of my recent endeavors: “Is he fun or am I fun and he’s just there?” We see overly romanticized movies daily and assume that everything will just fall into place if you find a guy who checks all your boxes. But the truth is, when all is said and done, do you really enjoy being with him that much? Is it as fun as you imagined it to be?

  Though I would love to continue being a hopeless romantic, I’ve learned that real life doesn’t work that way. You aren’t the exception, but neither is he. 

  2026.02.10