A political boys' club?
How is the election campaign for you? Feeling anyway inspired or reminded in a positive way about the role of women in Irish society? The role that women will have in renewing Ireland, One Ireland, Real Ireland, Getting Ireland working again? (Yes I’ve swallowed one too election slogans – I promise to lay off them for a bit).
I could spend a few hundred words talking about the 15% of candidates who are female, the lack of consideration of gender by many parties in their manifestos despite the wringing of hands saying that we must do something about it. But anytime I try to raise these issues I get shouted down or endure mild abuse for daring to point out all male panels, the lack of inclusion of women’s issues never mind women’s voices, the cheek of thinking that there might be women’s issues in the first place – you get the picture. Or maybe you don’t.
Anytime I ponder on the fact that the Ireland I see in this election campaign is not reflective of my life, my society, my friends or my view of equality and inclusion in society, I am told there are far more urgent problems to be addressed and ‘we are all people’.
If we were all people then the people we were seeing running for election would be a mix of genders, abilities, ethnicities and abilities. The issues we would be discussing would be about all of us and all our opportunities and not those who happening to be able to pay income tax or want to do so. Those who can’t pay tax because they don’t earn money or can’t earn income are not represented or talked about in this campaign. The women who don’t have their own incomes are not talked about in this campaign, the women ‘at home’ raising children or caring for others, or the women without homes.
I don’t feel like talking about political reform because I believe that debate to be elitist and disillusioning. I would like my political representatives to acknowledge the crisis that is our society and its lack of visibility of anyone other than male economists, politicians and bankers.
I don’t want to hear about quotas and how good or bad they are – men won’t let them happen, many women don’t want them to happen. And it does not actually show how much of a crisis we are facing and ‘existing’ in with regards to the lack of female leadership in the other ‘crisis’.
Before February 25th I would like to hear leaders talk about women without patronising us or forgetting us, about the many different cultures who live in Ireland who are not being heard in this debate (notice how white and male we have become suddenly?)
The campaign linguistics are all about leadership and gendered leadership, about being aggressive or not aggressive enough, about appearing presidential (which is now code for male) about turning up for debates (code for being macho). Women where we do see them are pointed to and mocked for being screechy, fighting to get heard and not being macho enough.
Male, pale and stale. And unlikely to change anytime soon and that’s before we think about the devastation that the EU/IMF deal will have on our public expenditure and the women who work within and rely upon for so many supports. Because we are not supposed to look at things in a gendered gaze anymore, that’s the message I’m picking up in #GE11 and it’s not an Ireland I want to be part of.
There was something that had been niggling at me at the back of my mind and you have put your finger on it. I don’t see myself represented in really any of the posters in my area.
And if you dare to bring up the issue of women in politics or a voice for women in society you are accused of being a ‘feminist’. As if that’s a bad thing? It seems that sections of society feel that we got as much equality as we are entitled to and asking for more is being greedy.
Thanks for so eloquently putting words to the thoughts that were there but hadn’t quite surfaced yet.
[...] on a blogging holiday for the day – you’ll find me over on the Antiroom talking about how I can’t see myself or many other people I know in this [...]
First of all, thanks for the “male, pale and stale” line, I think it’s a great description of our political representatives!
It irritates me when rather than look into the reasons that women aren’t in politics, the general consensus is that they’re not there because they don’t want to be.
Isn’t it telling that the none of the female ministers in the last government had children and all had male relatives who were politicians?
If Brian Cowen had to handle the upbringing of his children would he have become Taoiseach? It is because even in this day and age, the childcare role falls to women, holding them back from doing “men’s” jobs. We need equality in the home and at work, maybe even looking into paternity leave so men can take equal responsibility at home, but that’s another argument..
Really excellent thoughtful post on the alienation of voters and the more you think about these comments the more Maman’s point gets under your skin! It’s more than just a boys’ club, it’s a certain type of boy that they’re talking about. Not only women are alienated.
I just despair at how the “solution” to those out of work is ‘retraining’, upskilling or apprenticeships’, ‘education’ etc but not a word in this discourse about job creation. (Don’t they realise that this dismissive stance just demeans us?)
Likewise, you gotta ask who the politicos are talking about. There’s a feeling they are talking about young men who used to work in construction etc., but they are gender-blind to women’s careers that have been broken by the recession, or those of men who worked in service jobs.
Don’t get me started on the lack of attention to us as citizens either (Gurry highjacked the term last night, with the nasty feeling that he regards others as ‘non-citizens’; as the second generation of a family that lived under occupation in WW2, this thought makes me shudder).
Implicit in the narrative of these politicos is the idea that there’s something wrong with *you *(as an individual) if you’re out of work. It couldn’t possibly be stupid government action that led to part-timers being let go in academia or companies losing staff because firms can’t get loans, even when “we” have bailed the banks out… nope, it’s my fault. Thanks lads!
I should get me off to the Henhouse to pray to the wise (not-so-old) bird for more wisdom cos there was now’t to be had during last night’s faux debate!
I can’t escape the impression that you think our society would automatically be better if more women were in positions of power. It might be, but we’ll never know, unless and until women grasp that power which they currently allow men to wield.
Three waves of feminism have brought women to the level of not being property, having the vote, not being ‘officially’ discriminated against and having untrammelled access to STIs. These advancements however have been the gifts of men to bestow and power remains in the hands of men.
Though I fear to appear patronising, I will offer advice on how to end this situation. A fourth wave of feminism, embracing left and right, with one aim, Gender Quotas. This new feminist movement must avoid any ideological issue that may divide it and should become obsolete the very moment GE become part of the Constitution.
Our society, our country, may improve with a more representative Dail. I don’t know and frankly I don’t care, but we’ll never know unless women decide to excercise their will to try.
“unless and until women grasp that power which they currently allow men to wield”
So what you’re saying here is that women sit back and ‘allow’ men to have power that otherwise would be – what – easy to have?
I’m saying that not one single thing was handed voluntarily to women, by men, in their struggle for equality. The next step in that struggle is altering the political system itself, to better suit women.
More Beverley Cooper-Flynns, please!
“the lack of inclusion of women’s issues”
What are women’s issues?
Ugh, was very disheartening to watch Ms. Lynch try to make this point on VinB last night and have John McGuirk completely sail past the point and on to another one (deliberately or otherwise, though knowing him, probably the former).
Such a perfectly written clear, concise post. Male, pale and stale, is right – I sometimes feel I’m turning into an inverted sexist because I feel so frustrated at the lack of real representation. It’s a veritable Planet of the Apes out there, politically speaking. The entire camPAIN has been strewn with language of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, auctioned off by men wearing roaring red ties and finger pointing into the TV cameras. ‘You did this. No you did this. But you did this. I remember you doing this.’ Totally useless debate. I would’ve thought given that the country is so f–ked, we’re all losers at this time? Imagine a reverse scenario where 85% of peeps in government were women? Imagine the headlines for a start when things went tits up (no pun intended)? I’m fed up, bored and disillusioned.
“Those who can’t pay tax because they don’t earn money or can’t earn income are not represented or talked about in this campaign.”: surely thats because self-appointed professional and well paid activists have taken it upon themselves to be the spokespeople for such groups, and in doing so have distorted not only what such people “look like” (rendering them invisible) but silencing any authentic voices from the various real world scenarios.
However the biggest group is not women, it is the hundreds of thousands of forced emmigrants who the government not only forces out of the country but also totally disenfranchises by taking away their right to vote as well as their right to a future.
Quotas are unworkable because they do not change the system which excludes inclusion in the first place. Genuine equality needs to start with dialogue and listening rather than imposing powerful enfranchised women (or other minorities) into the debate. I have a real issue with the fact that so many people seem to have made a lot of money out of supposed activism for other poor folks, the classic example being that Fr Sean Healy goon, who clearly does not come from any of the groups he claims to speak on behalf of.
Voices like the ICA and Housewives Association in the past lobbied and led to useful initiatives that led to other initiatives, but they always started with talking and listening. We are so quick to ignore the important part played by these groups while overemphasising the voices and influences of middle class educated feminist lobbies who followed them as the “authentic” voice of women. To me, the problem about women is the lack of authentic voices within the community of women etc, much more so than actual end product representation.
Good point about the lack of authentic voices. I guess a lot of people feel bludgeoned into the background of the political process, which kind of leads back to Suzy’s point all over again.
I’m actually going to vote fro the woman in the party I support, only because it’s been “pressed” so hard in the blogs I read that “we need WOMENNNNN!!!!”
Fair ’nuff, I’ll throw mine behind the woman in the party I’m voting for, if it makes ye feel better.
Regarding political reform, I’ve been reading recently about “action bias”. This is the idea that during a crisis, people tend to feel they must DO SOMETHING in response, that doing nothing is unacceptable. A German study gives a simple example in football goalkeepers, who respond to penalty kicks by leaping left or right. This team found, however, that “given the probability distribution of kick direction, the optimal strategy for goalkeepers is to stay in the goal’s center”.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/4477.html
This urge to do something is sometimes harmful, because the choices taken can sometimes make matters even worse. History is full of examples, like the US government’s policy up to the 1970s to quench all forest fires, which ended up allowing undergrowth build up, making future fires utterly catastrophic.
So now I’m a bit worried that many people are so panicked by the economic crisis that they feel we need to DO SOMETHING, that holding the historical course is unthinkable. The assumptions seems to be that Ireland is so messed up that ANY change is desirable.
But this ignores the slow, steady improvements enjoyed by Ireland over the last few decades. Ireland’s infant mortality rate in 1990 was 7.7/1,000, fallen to 3.5/1,000 in 2009. Life expectancy has risen from 74.6 to 79.9 in 2008. (All figures from World Bank.)
In 2010 Ireland was ranked 5th highest in the UN’s Human Development Index. This country has very high levels of freedom of speech, a healthy demographic profile, a stable democracy, high standards of living and gradually improving health.
So I’m cautious of this sudden demand for reform. This isn’t autocratic Egypt: we have a lot to lose if we get it wrong.
If we’re to look at the recession in a “gendered” gaze, what have 80+ % of male TD’s done for the hundreds of thousands of men laid off from construction jobs, the higher amount of men committing suicide, the greatest demographic of unemployed being young men aged 18-25?
I understand the need for a more representative parliament, but what aspects of political life need to be changed purely to entice women? Men manage to sacrifice family time to be there?
Excellent post.
One thing I’d like to pick up on by one of the earlier posters re female ministers – Mary Coughlan has two children, one who I believe has special needs but I’m open to correction on that. Aine Brady has four children. Mary White has one child.
Brilliant post. It does feel a bit like Henry Ford designed the election – you can have any taoiseach you want as long as it’s a white, middle-aged, man. Plus ca change.
While I agree with most of what you have said here, I do think the women that are in politics have not done too much to advance the role of women either in society or in politics. And unfortunately until one of the stale pale parties elects a woman as leader. On the whole GE11 has been so dominated by economic issues that social policy has had but a tweet here and there. We failed to deal with social issues during the so called boom and we will do so again in the shadow of the IMF. When will we ever learn?