Are women valued differently from men in Irish society Has this changed if so how, Sociology, College Term Papers.com


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Are women valued differently from men in Irish society Has this changed if so how

Are women valued differently from men in Irish society Has this changed if so how “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute” This quote, spoken almost a century ago, is still relevant in the Ireland of the new Millennium and even the roaring of the Celtic Tiger cannot drown it out. Women can vote, can serve as jurors, judges, TD's or Taoiseach. Equal pay is protected under legislation. We have certain rights to maternity leave. We have equal access to education, we can study honours maths and physics at school, we can become engineers and are encouraged to take FAS courses in electronics. There is EC grant money aimed at women setting up in business. The Civil Service marriage bar was abolished in 1972. Contraception is more readily available. There are radio programmes, feature articles, government ministers and Oireachtas bodies specifically aimed at women’s' affairs. Most sport clubs are open to women. We can hold property in our own right, we don't need our husbands permission to get a bank loan, we are allowed into pubs and can drink pints, just like men. In other words, a lot of the institutionalised oppression that women such as my mother would have argued against in the 1960's has disappeared. Yet it is also obvious that women are still far from equal. For the majority of us, our right to choose the way of life we wish to lead is as limited as it has always been. Rather than being liberated, we are still tied by virtue of our poor wage earning abilities to the home and family. A study recently published in Fortune magazine indicated that the leading occupations for women in 1990 weren't so different from the top jobs for 1940. The average hourly earnings of woman are still 68% of those of men. In hard cash terms, men earn on average, Ł1.83 more per hour than women do. Women’s work is still seen as that of ‘love labour’, that of working in the home raising a family and taking care of the housework without pay. Men on the other hand are seen as the breadwinners, their work is paid labour. Their job is to go out into paid employment and provide for their family. There are two knock on effects of women staying a home minding the family. Firstly they are not financially independent. They do not earn any money and are dependent on income received from their partners. Because nobody gets paid for rearing a family it's status as an occupation is at the bottom of the ladder and because women are dependant financially for money on their husband it means they in the past have had less input into the decisions affecting the family resulting in no input into the decisions affecting society. A woman's place was in the home. A second effect of women’s position in the family is that they are often isolated from each other and from society in general. Unlike a worker they have little opportunity of meeting, sharing experiences, they on their own have little power to change the conditions they find themselves in. The family is a trap for women today as much as for women at the beginning of the industrial revolution. As mentioned above, women are paid on average 2/3 of the wage that men are paid, so within any partnership it obviously makes more sense for the woman to undertake responsibility for care of the children. It is for this reason, common sense rather than sexism, that the vast majority of part time workers are women, juggling two jobs at the same time. Men on the other hand are expected to earn the higher wage, do their job, and provide adequately for their family. Although there has been some increase in the instances of stay-at-home husbands they are still in the vast minority and are thought of as a worrying curiosity by women while they are mocked by their fellow men. The role of family women in employment in Ireland is unlikely to change anytime soon, tradition and habit will ensure that women continue to be the main carers while men will remain the providers. “So many people believe that the women’s movement was born on some mystical date in 1970, like Aphrodite rising from the waves” - Hilda Tweedy. (A Link in the Chain, pg. 111) In Ireland and Irish politics women have been fighting for respect and the chance to be valued as equals to men long before this date. The 1937 Constitution lays out a role for women as mothers and housewives and therefore ignored their rights for many years. Tweedy herself was a founding member of the Irish Housewives Association in 1942, one of the first organisations in Ireland to demand rights for women. Their initial aim was to force the government to improve their living conditions during wartime. Eventually, however, the group was affiliated with the International Association of Women. In 1972 the Commission on the Status of Women – an organisation which was set up due to the campaigning of the IAW – published a report on the conditions of working women. The blatant discrimination evident in this report – women were shown to be being paid half of what men were earning – led to the introduction of legislation which made discrimination in paid employment illegal. Not only this but an Employment Equality Agency was set up, the ‘marriage bar’ was abolished, and eventually in 1981 paid maternity leave was introduced due to their efforts. (Irish Women’s Voices: Past and Present). The 1972 report was “a definitive document forming the basis for government reform and giving pressure groups a blueprint for change” (Fighting Spirit, pg. 154) It also forced government to take notice of the female members of it’s state and acknowledge their active role in politics. Politics has always been thought of as a man’s game. From the United Irishmen drawing up their plan of reform to replace the British controlled Anglo-Saxon parliament to the present day Budget which scandalised many Irish women by giving tax incentives which encouraged women back to work while discriminating against stay-at-home mothers. However women such as Mary Colum and Agnes MacNeill, members of Cumann na mBan, and organisations such as IDEA and the IAW aim to destroy this stereotype and put women on an even political footing with their male colleagues. (Women in Early Modern Ireland). “The woman is the fibre of the nation. She is the producer of life” One of the biggest issues facing women in Ireland today is that of abortion. Women’s role as the “producer of life” has long been a controversial one and, from being accepted as the norm for years, in the last century women have rebelled against this stereotype in favour of their careers and social lives. As early as the eighth century women were allowed to have abortions freely – as long as they had their husbands permission. Contraception was also used – made from the stomach lining of goats and sheep. Nowadays modern technology has made it possible for good contraception and abortion facilities to be produced. Until recently it was the feminist view that the only thing holding back the use of these facilities are the State, backed up by the Church. The issue of abortion is rarely seen as one relating to men, despite their participation in the creation of the unborn child. If it was discovered that a woman was pregnant and was unable or had no desire to keep the baby it was her decision whether or not to abort the foetus – the opinion of the father was not considered. Today however, in both Ireland and Britain, men are becoming more aware of the abortion debate and their part in it. It is finally being acknowledged that it is not the woman’s decision or burden to bear alone. Under the law the father of a child may take DNA tests to determine paternity. He is required to pay maintenance towards the upkeep of his family. He may win custody of his child in a court of law. Yet when it comes to the issue of abortion he has no legal rights to his unborn child. The court “casts ‘an immediate cloak of protection’ over a live-born child, while denying the right of anyone to interfere with the decision of the doctors and the mother legally to destroy the unborn child” (Family Planning Practice and Law, pg. 171). This “anyone” includes the man who took an equal part in the creation of this life. “Many feminists, I think rightly, protested at the injustice of allowing the burden of ‘caring’ to fall so heavily on women’s shoulders rather than men’s” (Beginning Lives, pg. ). This statement holds much truth but also leaves out too much. In modern Ireland abortion may be one “women’s” issue where men are at disadvantaged. It is obvious that to return to the eighth century restriction requiring women to attain their husbands permission for an abortion would be wrong. However, one cannot help but feel that an injustice is also being done to the men whose children are being destroyed without them ever knowing they existed. "The first woman was created from the rib of a man. She was not made from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal to him." For a lot of people the basis of feminism and gender distinction in Ireland today is the question ‘what do men gain from women’s oppression?” I hope that I have shown you that this is the wrong question to ask, that it is a pretty meaningless question. It's like asking at the turn of the century to the English gain from the oppression of the Irish, sure the Irish were seen as second class, but there wasn't a member of the Irish middle class in a better position than an English factory worker. Opposing men and women doesn't give us a basis for fighting for women’s' liberation. When you come down to basics equal education and job opportunities and equal pay amount to little without free 24 hour nurseries and free contraception on demand. While a small minority of women can buy control of their own fertility, for the majority, family and child care is still as it has always been the largest problem faced by women workers. Only when these issues have been resolved can women hope to face men on an equal footing with fair and non-discriminatory opportunities for both sexes. Bibliography: Bibliography - Hoff, Joan and Coulter Moureen. Irish Women’s Voices: Past and Present. US: Indiana University Press, 1995. - Tweedy, Hilda. A Link in the Chain. - Heron, Marianne. Fighting Spirit. Conroy, Sheila. Dublin: Attic, 1993. - Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. New York: WW Norton & Co. Inc., 1988. - Cummins, Mary. The Best of About Women. Dublin: Marino Books, 1996. - Hursthouse, Rosalind. Beginning Lives. Oxford: Open University, 1987. - Norrie, Kenneth. Family Planning Practice & Law. England: Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd., 1991. - Quotes about Women. 05/ 03/ ’00. - Quotes about Women. 05/ 03/ ’00. - Launch of DIAC. 05/ 03/’00.

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