CHOOSING to run the referendum on International Women’s Day transpired to be an unfortunate pairing
Last Friday, there was the usual annual clamour for celebrating women and all that we do and all that we have achieved.
Yes, it is nice to hear about accomplished women who have overcome adversity, bias, and setbacks on their path to success, and most years I am a champion of the day.
Yet, last Friday, I couldn’t help groaning at every article slash press release I read about an IWD discussion panel event, especially the ones sponsored by a mega corporation. Pardon my cynicism, but more and more companies seem to use the day as an opportunity for performative acts of support, maybe without implementing substantive changes.
I was extra-cynical this year because I am so sick of striving. Or endeavouring.
While the IWD events trundled on around the country the ballots were open, and voters decided to keep a 1937 interpretation of family, womanhood, and motherhood in the Constitution because the proposed alternative was so unpalatable.
Three years since the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality, millions of euros on the referendum, and God knows how many man and woman hours expended on endless meetings discussing the whole referendum enterprise. All for a big fat ‘No.’ Two of them!
The only positive thing is that it highlighted that care is a critical issue in Ireland that needs to be treated with the respect it deserves.
Government could and should have shown greater ambition and given us stronger wording that recognised care in all its forms - within families and in the wider community.
The most frustrating part is that constitutional reform on these issues is likely to be shelved for another decade. My seven-year-old daughter may be able to vote herself in the next iteration.
It is 2024, more than 100 years since women got the vote, more than 50 years since the marriage bar was lifted, over 20 years since the Equal Status Act - can we have gender equality already?
Can we have the complete package, including equal pay for equal work, no gender-based violence; recognition that child bearing and rearing is done mainly by women and is an invaluable part of the collective endeavour of running a successful society and country and needs to be properly supported?
While we are at it, can we have the version that acknowledges that humans get old and sick and that someone must take care of them, and that work is mostly done by women?
And when parents work outside the home, children need to be minded and those childcare and early years workers need to be paid significantly more?
Can we acknowledge that we pay obscene amounts of money to jobs that generate wealth (for some) and under-pay workers whose jobs do not accrue money on a balance sheet but support society in myriad ways?
Royal London Ireland estimated the cost to employ someone to do the work performed by a stay-at-home parent would be around €54,590 per year, yet 90% of people surveyed underestimated the monetary value of a stay-at-home parent, valuing the monetary value at €30,547.
We all need a mindset upgrade that recognises the true value of caring.
I regularly read the Little People, Big Dreams series of kids’ books where the lives of famous historical people are distilled into an easy to understand and inspiring story along with quirky illustrations.
The book series is a worldwide phenomenon and has made the lives of David Bowie, Muhammed Ali, Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo and so many others accessible to children, providing a diversity of role models for any child.
The latest one my kids read happened to be about Emmeline Pankhurst, who was inspired, as a child, by books about heroes who fought for others.
When the referendum result became clear over the weekend, I thought of people like Emmeline Pankhurst and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and the life-long battle they fought to secure the vote for women. Why must we battle so?
Pankhurst dedicated her life to fighting for women’s voting rights and, with great bravery, led a remarkable movement that changed the world. Limited voting rights were eventually secured in 1918 to women over 30 years old who met certain property qualifications, in the UK, including Ireland at the time.
Full voting equality was achieved in 1922 when the Constitution of the Irish Free State was enacted, and women were granted the right to vote on the same terms as men.
Ireland’s most influential suffragette and a founding member of the Irish Women’s Franchise League in 1908, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, protested the conservative wording of Articles 41 in the Constitution and I have been wondering what people like Skeffington and Pankhurst would make of the lot of women in 2024.
Would they marvel at the progress, or despair at remaining inequalities?
No doubt they would urge us to continue to strive for justice and equality for all. The struggle continues.
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