Comments

1. On 10 Aug, 2010 at 11:25 am said:

This ‘I’m all right Jill’ attitude shows a sad lack of solidarity with other women . – National Women’s Council chief executive Susan McKay commenting on women TDs who are against gender quotas in the selection of election candidates.

2. On 10 Aug, 2010 at 11:27 am The Irish Times - Monday, August 9, 2010 said:

THERE CAN be no disputing the fact that women are inadequately represented at many levels within our society. Considerable progress has been made since the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s and the involvement of other organisations, such as the National Women’s Council. But much remains to be done if equality between the sexes is to become a reality. How that can be achieved is often a matter of contention.

A report from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice concerning the low level of representation by women in Irish politics has generated sharp divisions over what should be done. While recognising the imbalance in Dáil representation, a majority of female TDs opposed the proposal that a temporary gender quota be set by all political parties for the selection of candidates. They took the view that a quota system was too blunt an instrument, would devalue their achievement of being elected to the Dáil on the same basis as male members, and would dilute the equality that arises from all TDs holding an identical electoral mandate.

Susan McKay of the National Women’s Council does not agree. She favours a quota system because “the main political parties have ruthlessly discriminated against women since the foundation of the State”. That is true. For decades, a requirement for female civil servants to retire on marriage reflected that pervasive attitude. But a rigid quota system for female politicians may not be the answer. Other elements of the Oireachtas report, which propose the creation of a female-friendly environment; shorter working hours and a recruitment drive at local level could be more effective in the long run.

Reforms are beginning to affect the nature of Irish politics. It is a slow and sporadic process. Breaking the link between local councils and the Oireachtas has clarified the distinct nature of the two positions. But local issues continue to dominate the lives of TDs to an unhealthy extent and will do so until the Dáil sits for a normal, working, five-day week. Modification of our system of proportional representation, with the introduction of a limited list system, has also been mooted. That would bring sweeping change.

Politics in Ireland has traditionally been a male preserve. But family tradition can also have an impact. One in five successful Dáil members come from a political background, but more than one-in-three successful women do so. Party selection and general election systems, combined with a defensive attitude by sitting TDs, has given us 23 women Dáil deputies or 13 per cent of the total. That is one of the lowest figures for female representation in the developed world and reflects badly on this democracy.

Political parties have begun to formally recognise the strengths and abilities of women and to welcome them into their organisations. That is owed, in no small way, to contributions made by Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese. The level of female representation in the Dáil is double what it was 30 years ago. To the discredit of the political system, however, it remains inadequate.

3. On 10 Aug, 2010 at 12:30 pm said:

More women in politics will help Ireland, says historian

GREATER POLITICAL involvement by women in decision making in Irish politics will help Ireland progress as a society, an academic has predicted ahead of a conference that will discuss women’s political representation.

Dr Sandra McAvoy, historian and lecturer in women’s studies at University College Cork, said Ireland had slipped internationally to 82nd in a world classification table of women’s representation in parliament.

There are 23 women in Dáil Éireann, accounting for just 13.85 per cent of seats. The figure for Seanad Éireann is only marginally better, where 12 of the 60 senators – or 20 per cent – are women, she said.

Women account for 17 per cent of members of local authorities and just 12 per cent of the members of regional authorities, while in the last general election only 82 women out of 470 candidates were women, representing the lowest number of women since 1989, she said.

“Back in 2002, I think it was estimated that it would take 360 years for women to achieve equal representation in Irish politics, but given that the proportion of women in politics has decreased since then, it’s going to take even longer,” said Dr McAvoy.

Dr McAvoy was speaking in advance of a conference at UCC next month titled Moving in from the Margins: Women’s Political Representation in Ireland, organised by UCC women’s studies and the Political Studies Association of Ireland Gender Politics Specialist Group.

Fiona Buckley of the department of government at UCC said the conference would investigate the reasons why low numbers of women participate in politics, and examine various strategies that might be introduced to increase the number.

“The five Cs of childcare, cash, confidence, culture and candidate selection have been identified as key explanations for the exclusion of women from Irish politics.

The conference will address these and other relevant issues in the area of women’s political representation in Ireland,” she said.

Among the speakers at the conference, which takes place on September 18th, will be Senator Ivana Bacik, Prof Yvonne Galligan of Queen’s University Belfast, Joanne Vance of the National Women’s Council of Ireland and Dr Eileen Connolly of Dublin City University.

Other speakers will include Cathleen O’Neill of Kilbarrack community development project, Cork North Central Labour TD Kathleen Lynch and Susan McKay of the National Women’s Council of Ireland.

BARRY ROCHE Southern Correspondent - The Irish Times - Tuesday, August 10, 2010

4. On 10 Aug, 2010 at 01:05 pm Owen Ryan said:

Taylor-Quinn backs gender quota
ONE of the few women who served as a TD for Clare has backed the idea of introducing gender quotas in the selection of election candidates.
Madeleine Taylor-Quinn served the county as a TD for 11 years, while she was Mayor of Clare from June 2007 to June 2008.
While she has tasted success in her own political career, she feels there are gender-specific obstacles for women. “Undoubtedly there are, there’s no question. It’s a boys’ club, women wouldn’t have the type of camaraderie that men have at going to the bar or the golf club. It’s a boys’ club and the boys are good old chums and women aren’t part of that. To say that you are excluded would be wrong but you wouldn’t be one of the boys.”
The level of participation of women in Irish politics is abysmal, she claimed, and that’s why she favours the introduction of quotas. “The bottom line is that all efforts to date to increase the numbers of women have failed. Fifty percent of the population are women but only 13% of public representatives are. Having that level of imbalance doesn’t augur well for getting the best outcome in Government.”
She claimed that Ireland’s level of female participation is on a par with sub-Saharan Africa, way behind that of comparable European countries.
Ms Taylor-Quinn said that there had been “a level of tokenism” about efforts by the main parties to increase female participation.
She said that early in her career she wouldn’t have favoured the idea of quotas but that over the years her view had changed as her knowledge and experience of politics grew.
Her party colleague, Clare TD Joe Carey, said that he too agrees with having quotas. “I think that it would be appropriate that there be quotas and there was a very good opportunity to introduce that at the last local elections. We have a policy document called New Politics and we want to increase the number of women in politics.
“It’s only right that people would be given an opportunity to vote for women and the system doesn’t always favour that.”
However, Deputy Pat Breen said that he does not believe the introduction of a gender quota is the way forward. He said in Clare there has been some success in the last local elections with a number of women town councillors elected.
Deputy Breen said that political life can be very demanding. “It is a difficult life and it’s not as attractive as it used to be. It’s a 24/7 job and it can interfere with family life.”
Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley also said he wouldn’t favour gender quotas. He said his party has already carried out research that didn’t favour quotas. “Fianna Fáil did research in the past with an equality officer that was aimed at encouraging equality. Women’s committees were established and they found against having quotas.”
He said that the introduction of quotas would be more suitable if women were getting put forward for elections but not proving successful. “That’s not really the issue at the moment, it’s that women aren’t coming forward.”

5. On 11 Aug, 2010 at 11:12 am CATHAL GARVEY said:

Madam, – In the continuing debate on gender quotas for women TDs, a number of contributors have referred to the Scandinavian countries that have achieved greater gender balance in their parliaments since they introduced gender quotas for parliamentary elections in the 1970s. However, none of those countries have implemented gender quotas on their fishing fleets or their oil rigs.

If gender quotas are required to achieve a balance in politics, then they would also be required in other professions such as female- dominated nursing and teaching, given that gender equality is supposed to go both ways. There will be more widespread support for the gender quotas called for by Senator Ivana Bacik and the National Women’s Council when we hear that they are promoting a gender quota for women working on bin lorries.

In the 2002 general election, the Progressive Democrats defied expectations by doubling its Dáil seats to eight when Fiona O’Malley, Liz O’Donnell, Mae Sexton and Mary Harney succeeded in gaining 50 per cent of the eight seats in a government party without the need for a gender quota. However, the 2007 election was disastrous for them and reflects that the Irish electorate vote on policies and performance rather than gender. – Yours, etc,


Stanley Heights,

Slane,

Co Meath.

This comment was found on the The Irish Times - Wednesday, August 11, 2010

6. On 12 Aug, 2010 at 09:31 pm Susan O'Keeffe, a Labour party candidate for Sligo-Leitrim said:

The corridors of Leinster House would smell of aftershave if the cleaning staff were less efficient. Indeed its late night sittings, dark corridors and leather and wood all conspire to create the atmosphere of a cosy male club. Which of course it is since only 23 of the 166 TDs are women and that figure has decreased in recent years.

Our parliament is a relic of the patriarchy of the Catholic Church whose influence on the Irish State since its foundation has been profound. Our history and cultural influences have contrived to place us 84th in world rankings for women’s representation, a ranking which is out of step with our society and our aspirations.

Now that the ties between Church and State are loosening - albeit slowly - the time has come for change in Dáil Eireann. That change needs to be profound and prompt. It is not enough for some mouthing off about the importance of women and their potential contribution to public life. It is not enough either to say that time will, naturally, lift the numbers to parity. Change needs the intervention of quotas for women.

We must acknowledge that our current pathetic inheritance, in terms of women in public life, is a result of decades of traditions and beliefs which are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ in a modern, multicultural Ireland which aspires to be taken seriously in the global economy. Indeed the most damaging legacy of those 20th century influences is the belief that the ‘status quo’ is natural and right and proper.

For us to embrace either a legal or a voluntary gender quota, we must first acknowledge that what we have is neither right nor proper. Many men sitting in Dáil Eireann are not there because of natural ability. They may have ability but that is mere coincidence. They are there because culturally their faces are more acceptable. They are there because of the tradition of sons working with their fathers – in farming, the law, business. Politics was and is no different. They are there because they worked and had money or because they inherited money; seats are not won on a wing and a prayer.

Irish political life has been steeped in a very male culture with the many preferences being bestowed on men acting in their favour including the one which believed that men were expected to do this kind of work. After all, it was women who had to fight men to be allowed to vote, while the expectation for them was that they would do the housework. Pee Flynn was sent packing a long time ago and we have shown that the kitchen sink can and must be shared by men and women; now the time has come for the men in the Dáil to move over and let women share the seats.

That traditional male dominance of Irish politics neatly puts paid to the rather pathetic and invidious argument that women should be elected on merit or ability, not by quota. The argument will cease to be pathetic and have its true value restored when all men are also elected based on merit or ability. The playing field must be level to sustain that worthy aspiration and no self-respecting GAA official would let any match be played on this pitch.

Of course, a quota is not a perfect way to do business but almost 100 countries worldwide have taken the plunge, believing that the prize of having more women in office is worth having even if the device for achieving it is a little clumsy. Let’s face it; the mechanisms for choosing candidates and electing them are hardly perfect to start with.

One of the most startling results of such a quota was in Rwanda where the 2003 elections returned 49% women to its parliament; this in a country recovering from the 1994 genocide. Even in the midst of its pain and suffering, Rwandans recognised the fundamental need for men and women to sit together and make decisions for their country.

That election propelled Rwanda suddenly to the top of the world rankings for women in politics; countries like Sweden and Norway have had voluntary quotas for many years and have succeeded in achieving and retaining high numbers of women in political life. And with those figures is the undeniable evidence that Sweden and Norway have much lower gaps between the rich and poor and as more equal societies are more stable, economically and socially.

While the urge to reduce the ever-growing gap between rich and poor in Ireland is overwhelming, the debate about encouraging more women into local and national politics should not be rooted there. We cannot expect that somehow, more women in Leinster House is the magic wand to a better Ireland. Actually, the argument is much simpler than that. The undeniable fact is that half the Irish population is made up of women and true democracy for this country cannot be achieved unless that half of society is better represented.

Again the argument is not that men cannot represent women; we know from all the research – scientific, medical and sociological – that broadly - men and women behave differently, work differently and have different interests. Why then should we be satisfied to have our country governed by an overwhelming majority of men – or women! We need the balance that both sexes bring to the way business is done and if that produces a better Ireland into the bargain, that would be an enormous bonus.

The signs are far from encouraging. The Seanad became the first of the houses of the Oireachtas ever to host a debate on the role of women in politics – as recently as April of this year. The Minister of State for Equality, Mary White is opposed to quotas pointing out this week that she never needed a quota to get elected. Since when were public representatives asked to legislate or debate legislation based entirely on their own experience?

Frankly I don’t care how Ms White was elected. Her comment is flip and dismissive; even a junior schools’ debate would not expect such a poor contribution to what is a crucial debate about who we are and how we want ourselves to be represented. Perhaps I can recommend that Ms White read some of the extensive and serious studies done on the experiences of quotas around the globe including in countries such as India, Costa Rica, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, France and Belgium before she wades in as Minister for Equality and rules out the only mechanism which has worked so far.

More women working in public life is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. I want to live in a country which respects the voices of the entire population, not just one half of it. This battle needs to be led from the front by political parties which need to adopt an aggressive voluntary approach to the introduction of quotas, rather than procrastinate in the legislative quagmire. Labour did run quotas for last year’s local elections and 35% of its TDs are women compared with less than 10% for both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. That’s a start but that’s not enough.
Anyone would imagine that the Irish political establishment was being asked to take the plunge into unknown, shark-infested waters to produce some crazy deranged world. It’s not! Other societies have already taken that plunge and come up smiling. We need a little courage, a large dollop of common sense and a new respect for ‘mná hEireann.’


published last week in the Irish Daily Mail

7. On 13 Aug, 2010 at 11:21 pm said:

Reviewing women's political representation in Ireland will be the focus of a conference taking place at UCC next month. UCC Women's Studies in conjunction with the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI) will present the one day conference ‘Moving in from the Margins: Women's political representation in Ireland' on Saturday 18 September.

Recent Oireachtas reports have recommended the introduction of a variety of measures to increase the number of women in Irish politics. Currently, there are only 23 women in Dáil Éireann accounting for 13.85 per cent of all seats. The figures for Seanad Éireann are only marginally better where 12 of the 60 senators (20 per cent of the seats) are women.

The conference will hear from a number of experts and practitioners in the fields of women's studies and gender politics. Speakers will include Senator Ivana Bacik, Professor Yvonne Galligan (Queen's University Belfast), Joanne Vance (National Women's Council of Ireland), Dr Eileen Connolly (Dublin City University), Cathleen O'Neill (Kilbarrack CDP), Kathleen Lynch, TD and Susan McKay of the National Women's Council of Ireland. The reasons for low numbers of women participating in politics will be investigated and various methods and strategies that might be introduced to increase the number of women in politics will be examined. The programme will also feature female politicians who will share their experiences of political life in Ireland.

Only 82 women out of a total of 470 candidates contested the General Election in 2007 representing the lowest number since 1989. Ireland currently lies in 82nd position in a world classification table of women's representation in parliament compiled by the inter-parliamentary union. Women account for 17 per cent of the members of local authorities and just 12 per cent of the members of regional authorities. Many reasons have been put forward for the low levels of women's representation in Irish politics. "The five Cs of childcare, cash, confidence, culture and candidate selection have been identified as key explanations for the exclusion of women from Irish politics," said Fiona Buckley, Department of Government, UCC. "The conference will address these and other relevant issues in the area of women's political representation in Ireland," she added.

The conference rate is priced at €15, with unwaged and seniors €5 while students are free of charge. The conference will take place in the Cavanagh Pharmacy Building Room LG51, UCC.

8. On 13 Aug, 2010 at 11:26 pm HILARY PRATT said:

Madam, – As a founder member of the Women’s Political Association, I worked hard in the 1970s and 1980s to increase the number of women in Dáil Éireann. The problem about so few women in politics had resulted in inadequate and unjust legislation, leaving women in the home completely unprotected.

Progress was made slowly but steadily in raising the consciousness of men and women to the inadequacy of a democracy where over half the people were not properly represented and its dire consequences. The numbers increased in the Dáil from four to 20 and then after the election of the first woman President in 1990, it all stopped. Worse, it went backwards.

The big failure of Irish society on this question has been the total absence of interest by successive governments and the two main political parties. Sarah Carey (Opinion, August 12th) instances failed attempts in different areas in Ireland to have gender quotas. With respect, I feel we have to look abroad to countries where the issue was considered grave enough for all-party governmental action of a serious nature. In many cases this involved variants of quota systems along with a range of other measures. We have only to look at the magnificent results of such actions as shown by Prof David Farrell (Weekend Review, August 7th) to be convinced.

The thrust of today’s women’s movement must be to put serious pressure on the political parties and on Government to take action. An election will happen within two years – it should be made a political issue, to test the sincerity of our party leaders. – Yours, etc,

9. On 13 Aug, 2010 at 11:27 pm WILLIAM MONGEY said:

Madam, – When I lived in Northern Ireland I helped the charity Parity to prosecute the then British government in the European Court of Human Rights for discrimination against men in the way the state pension was paid to women five years earlier than to men.

Although we won the case, 10 years on the change has still not yet been implemented and to this day men in Northern Ireland continue to be routinely discriminated against. When we won the right to equal access for men to free travel, the BBC covered the story by interviewing women only and presenting it as a backward step for women.

My complaint to it about unfairness was rejected on the grounds that “only women were affected by the change”. There were of course other aspects of discrimination against men which we overturned, in terms of gender-biased prescription charges, winter fuel payments, widowers’ benefit, etc, but the media has been strangely unwilling to publicise them.

There is continuing discrimination against men in this country: for instance virtually all workplace deaths involve men, as women continue to be under-represented in the most dangerous jobs, but every year the HSA fails to mention this in its report, and the media fails to make it an issue. There are many other examples.

Eithne Reid O’Doherty (August 12th) needs to understand that political representation is about recognising, respecting and delivering the needs of all your constituents, not just those of the her gender. Equality is for everyone, not just for women. – Yours, etc,

10. On 20 Aug, 2010 at 12:16 am BBC Women's Hour said:

Listen to this.....its the first 12 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tc6ts#p009g922

Please follow this link/ copy it onto your browser to listen to 'Should there be quotas for women in the Irish Dail?

Mary O Rourke and Ivana Bacik debate the issue.

Last broadcast on Tuesday, 10:00 on BBC Radio 4.

11. On 31 Aug, 2010 at 11:04 am Colum Kenny said:

Irish emigrants -- many of whom are gone for good -- lose their voice as well as their home, says Colum Kenny in Toronto

By Colum Kenny in the Irish Independent on Sunday August 22 2010

WE had been in Toronto for less than two hours when the young Irishman approached us. He seemed depressed when we spotted him, sitting on the sunny steps of a tall building with a faraway look in his eyes.

But he had heard our accents and wanted to talk. So he came over to say hello. His second sentence was: "I left Ireland, and I am never going back to live there." He said he loved Canada.

This is the new emigration. As politicians in Dublin enjoy a long summer break, and nothing much is changing fast, planes and boats carry away young Irish people who are unlikely ever to live in Ireland again.

And many see Canada as a good bet. This is a country that proves there was nothing inevitable about what happened in Ireland. That there were no global circumstances that forced any country to abandon the proper care of public resources or proper financial regulation. Canada avoided the worst of it. And Ireland could have, too.

We had just got in from the airport and were about to get a bite to eat when we met the reality of emigration today. He was polite and pleased to meet us, but he had no illusions about his home country. Not that his home country cares, because this young man will never get to vote from abroad.

The scale of unreality about Irish political life was brought home to me by two articles in the Irish Times, written by women who purport to want to reform the system. One was Senator Ivana Bacik, of the Labour Party, the other Susan McKay, chief executive of the National Women's Council.

Both were demanding special privileges for women candidates in general elections, and both were holding Rwanda up as some kind of an idealised example to follow.

12. On 28 Sep, 2010 at 11:44 am By Shaun Connolly, Political Correspondent, Irish Examiner said:

47% of women don’t have female TD

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

NEARLY half of women voters suffer "gender disenfranchisement" because they lack a female TD representing their Dáil constituency, it was claimed last night.

The lack of diversity in the Dáil has prompted calls for quotas – and even fines – for political parties who fail to increase their gender equality records when selecting candidates, and the situation has been highlighted by the announcement by three well known women TDs that they will not stand again.

Some 47% of female voters live in the 23 of 43 Dáil constituencies which are without any women TDs – and 10 constituencies have had only male deputies representing them since 1992.

A probe by the Irish Examiner shows the Oireachtas is deeply out of step with the nation as a whole as the average age of deputies and senators is 55.8, they are 85% male and 99.2% heterosexual.

Only 23 of the 166 TDs and just a dozen senators out of 60 are women, leaving the Oireachtas ranked 82nd in the world for female representation in national assemblies by the Inter-Parliamentary Union – below Uganda and Cameroon.

The situation took a turn for the worse when Fine Gael’s Olwyn Enright and Labour’s Liz McManus and Mary Upton announced they were standing down at the next election.

The number of women candidates stood at just 82 out of 470 at the last election – the lowest figure since 1989. The situation is just as bad at local level – often the first rung of a political career – with only 17% of councillors.

Queen’s University Professor Yvonne Galligan, who presented the research at a UCC conference on women in politics showing that 47% of women do not have a female TD to represent them, said it highlighted a major problem.

"It matters that nearly half of women do not have a woman TD representing them because men have 100% male representation and only women can know what it’s like to live as a woman in Ireland. It’s definitely a form of gender disenfranchisement," she said.

An Oireachtas report from Labour Senator Ivana Bacik has called for parties to have public money taken away from them if they fail to increase female representation.


This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, September 28, 2010

13. On 28 Sep, 2010 at 11:54 am SUSAN O'KEEFFE, a General Election Candidate said:

Gender Quotas

Have we learned nothing! One hundred years ago, women were literally fighting for the right to vote. They had a simple goal; to be heard. Their message was underpinned by an equally simple belief that a democracy could hardly be representative if half the population had no say in what was going on.
The battle for the voice of women to be heard voice was pursued by women in Ireland and in the UK and their concerted efforts resulted in a change in the law in 1918, allowing women over 30 to vote. Three years later, the six women TDs in the second Dail successfully battled for the age to be dropped to 21. In the UK, that battle was finally won in 1930.
Now in a new century, our story about democracy is not quite such a proud one. Here we are with 166 TDs working on our behalf and only 23 are women. And of that small group, three have now announced they will step down whenever the election is called. Labour’s Liz McManus and Mary Upton are leaving because they believe “fresh faces” are needed. Olwyn Enright is leaving because of the difficulty of juggling a young family with the work of a TD.
There is a strong argument that we are numerically overrepresented in the Dail. It is an easy argument to have because the solution is easy – reduce the numbers. We understand that readily and we can see the potential monetary benefit too, directly from salaries and indirectly from efficiencies in the system that often accompanies smaller groups of people.
The accompanying argument is that we are completely underrepresented when it comes to the number of women in politics. This argument is a more prickly one because it strikes at the heart of who we are, who we have been and where we might be heading into the future. It forces us to look into the mirror of society and see what we have created. And, since the vision on display is not hugely attractive, we would rather don ostrich feathers and poke around in the sand of excuse and procrastination than face the mess we have created.
So we need to spell it out then. We haven’t elected enough women to the Dail because it makes little effort to clean up its act and stop behaving like the mens’ club it is. Some TDs come to the house after their day job is finished, subconsciously treating Leinster House in the manner of a club. Meetings are very often held in the bar. Indeed school tours seem to end up in the bar too with children piled in a corner drinking coke! The very atmosphere of leather and wood is clubby and that, hardly surprisingly, discourages many women.
As a woman aspiring to enter politics, I see all of these problems and talk to other women about them. We are acutely aware of our minority status. Putting your face on a poster which is hung on lampposts and stop signs is strange enough. Deciding to seek entry into an arena which is solidly and traditionally male is not something I do lightly. Nor do I believe that I can upend those grand traditions by getting elected.
That would be foolish and naive. However I do believe quite clearly that we women have a responsibility to help to change the shape of politics in this country by standing up and taking part, by contributing to the debate, by offering new ideas and new solutions, by tackling head on some of those beliefs and dismantling the ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ attitude.
Of course the maleness of the environment is only one factor. Schools do not encourage young girls to consider public life as a place where they have a role to play and a right to play that role. Schools fail in this obligation because society as a whole does not foster this culture either. Many of those very fine women TDs of the past worked hard to change the male-dominated image but the photographs down the years still contain that subconscious message of a sprinkling of women in a male environment. We are more inclined to remark on their wardrobes than their policies or legacies! And the constant shortage of women means that there is no consistency in their message that women have a right to take part – and a responsibility too.
The straightforward battle to have the Dail sit in the mornings, have more consistent working hours and to provide proper childcare facilities has remarkably still not been won but remember, the men at the start of the 20th century believed women voting was preposterous. They saw women as the carer and homemaker and it seems women still have that view of themselves. In Irish society today, women dominate the caring landscape – a massive 86% of carers are women. Undoing that massive stereotyping is clearly taking a very long time.
Indeed, 2002 academic research suggested that, at the rate Irish women were coming through the political system, we would reach equality with men in the year 2370. In other words, left to its own devices, men and women will receive parity in representation in three and a half centuries! The fact that our population is split equally between men and women makes this revelation risible.
Frankly we can’t afford to wait even another ten years for change. Our ranking in the world shows us at 81st! We boast of taking our place in the world, of looking outward and of our modern multicultural society – yet we are strangled when it comes to addressing this basic statistic.
We need to argue all over again to have the voice of women heard; this time at the legislative table. Breaking windows, hunger strikes and chaining ourselves to railings will not further our cause this time round. Instead, we as women have a responsibility to debate, persuade and discuss this matter wherever and whenever we can.
We must particularly persuade Equality Minister Mary White to put this bizarre reality at the top of her list of priorities. It is a fundamental crack in the landscape of our democracy which needs to be repaired from the inside out; not with a sticking plaster of promises and vague assertions that women are important.
Mary White needs to move on from thinking that this will somehow right itself. She needs to take quotas by the scruff of the neck and apply them. She must stop believing that because she did not need a quota to be elected, quotas are not necessary. She needs too to stop calling women “Jills” as she did recently and become a strong advocate for what is right. This is a ‘nose on face’ moment for the Minister and for the government.
Yes, quotas for candidate selection are a blunt instrument but the evidence from many parts of the globe is that they work and they work quickly. Once they start providing more women candidates who are elected, the quotas need to be removed. The academic research also suggests strongly that only mandatory quotas will work efficiently.
The idea that ‘quota women’ will be below par or might be derided because of their entry mechanism is pure hypocrisy. Over the years, many men sitting as TDs arrived there for all the wrong reasons; in effect they filled the invisible male quota of which we dare not speak.
This is not a back-door argument to do away with men in government. Instead, it is a reasonable request that our 50/50 male/female population be represented by a 50/50 male/female government. It is shameful that the history books of the next century will record that this battle took place. It will be shocking if the battle is still being fought.
Mary White has a golden opportunity to overturn a century of patriarchy and discrimination. She can in the process celebrate women and put them where they belong at the centre of Irish life and not on the periphery. What a glorious opportunity for any minister to steal a bit of history and do something genuinely in the common interest. Why oh why then is she hesitating!

14. On 09 Nov, 2010 at 12:32 pm Cork Feminista said:

Cork Feminista to discuss gender quota

Thursday, 04 November 2010

A new feminist organisation in Cork will discuss gender quotas in politics this Thursday 4 November evening with TDs Kathleen Lynch and Deirdre Clune. “The lack of women in politics has received significant attention in recent months, and was also the subject of a conference at UCC last month. We thought it was a great opportunity to keep the conversation going,” said Linda Kelly, spokesperson for Cork Feminista.

The group was established earlier this year by Linda Kelly and Jennifer DeWan in and is a collective of women and men who meet once a month to discuss different issues related to women’s equality and feminism.

Linda added that the 2009 Oireachtas Report into Women’s Participation in Politics outlined that a number of factors had been identified as impeding women’s participation into the political arena.

“These are listed as the five Cs - cash, culture, confidence, childcare and candidate selection procedure.

“Only 22 out of the current 166 TDs are women. If women are not being heard in the most important decision making process, it has a huge impact. Are gender quotas the answer? Do we even know what type of quota is being proposed? Have they worked anywhere else? These are some of the questions up for discussion on Thursday evening,” she said.

The event will take place at the Conference Room at 8 North Mall in the city centre from 7.30pm to 10pm and will be chaired by former TD Máirín Quill.

15. On 06 Dec, 2010 at 01:09 pm Dublin Male said:

If women wish to have greater representation in politics, get out there, stand and get elected.... to expect by right to be given equal numbers of seats serves only to lessen the quality of elected members. Should we dilute democracy, after all 51% of the population is female so may be attack the sisterhood who REFUSE to vote for and elect women.... I'm sure you have an answer to this...... Are we going to have a Gay & lesbian quota too, not to mention a bisexual quota...... May be a people over 60 quota while we're at it..... To encourage an equality in numbers idea for the dail is nothing short of idiotic and following the stupidity of positive descrimination, that has dumbed down America too.... On that note are you fighting for a ethnicity quota as the base of voters has changed so dramatically over the years.....
In closing, may I suggest that you get up and go and earn these position on MERIT as opposed to RIGHT

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