Dublin seeks to modify a constitutional article stipulating domestic chores are a woman’s ‘life and duties’
IRELAND_DUBLIN/Men and women enjoy more equality in Ireland than in almost any other country on earth; there was a female head of state in Dublin for longer than in all but three other capitals; and the share of women on corporate boards is rising faster than the EU average.
Yet according to the Irish constitution, a woman’s life and duties are in the home.
It adds that the state will endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity; to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home.
The coalition government headed by Leo Varadkar has committed to holding a referendum on the issue this year. But he has not set a date yet, despite pressure from activists, politicians, and rights defenders.
The failure to update the constitution on this matter is a glaring omission.
“It’s a key marker in terms of moving away from the old Ireland and the place where it put women,”; said Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women’s Council.
A new public holiday will be inaugurated on Monday in honor of Ireland’s “matron” saint; the first holiday to celebrate a woman and the result of a long campaign that included an online petition. Saint Brigid was born to unmarried parents in the fifth century, and she was forced to work as a servant to her father. She went on to gain vast power and influence in Ireland after founding a major monastery.
New Propose
Plenty of groundwork for a referendum has already been done: a citizen’s assembly. forum used to prepare for other progressive constitutional changes; recommended introducing gender-neutral language that would also recognize the value of all caregivers; and broaden the definition of family as an institution based only on marriage.
A parliamentary committee in December published proposed new wording — which will need approval from the attorney-general, cabinet and the Dáil parliament — to recognize and support “care within and outside the home and family including, but not limited to the marital family”.
She said the current wording was not only “transparently sexist”; an update would be “a symbolic reparation for what was done to unmarried women and children in this country; such as the Magdalene Laundries”, she said; referring to institutions run by religious orders.
The 1937 constitution was controversial from day one: Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, a suffragette and activist; blasted the text as a “fascist model in which women would be relegated to permanent inferiority”.
In the following decades, progress on women’s rights was slow: only in the last half-century have Irish women been able to drink a pint in a pub, serve on a jury, collect family allowance or refuse sex with their husbands.
Further Details
Current-day politicians and commentators are taking nothing for granted. Labor party leader Ivana Bacik, who chaired the parliamentary committee, said public opinion favored the change, but “nothing is inevitable”.
Maria Steen, a conservative Catholic commentator, barrister and stay-at-home mother to five children under 16, opposed any amendment. She called it a “misconception” that the constitution confined women to the home. The gender-neutral language was an attempt “to erase women who choose a different way of life, and any praise or acknowledgement for the work that they do”, she added.
But Linda Doyle, Trinity College Dublin’s first female provost, said she had personally “benefited from women being in much better positions now”.
At an event to unveil the first statues celebrating inspirational women in the university’s famous Long Room, she added: “Yes there’s progress, yes, it’s fantastic…, but things don’t change unless you say ‘I want that change’ and then you go and do something about it.”
What we see here is the absolute double standards of the western policy when it comes to women working or staying at home.
Source: Financial Times
