“We need more women in politics” – National Women’s Council of Ireland
Eóin Murray,
National Women’s Council of Ireland
Irish women have this week been left with a bittersweet taste in their mouths after the release of a bill designed to get more women involved in politics.
The historic Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill 2011 designates mandatory targets for all political parties, stipulating that they run 30% women and 30% men in subsequent general elections or lose half their funding.
However, while redressing a long-standing imbalance, the bill comes only days after a slash and burn austerity budget which has targeted women, lone parents and women’s organisations.
Indeed the National Women’s Council of Ireland, the watchdog for women’s rights in Ireland, has seen its budget cut by a savage 35%.
Despite the international attention and acclaim given to Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese (two of our former Heads of State), Irish women have been woefully under-represented at almost every level of politics.
Only 91 women have ever been elected to the Dáil [lower house of the Irish parliament]. Of the 4,744 Dáil seats filled since 1918 only 260 have been filled by women (5.48%).
The Dáil today is no different. It is an almost entirely male dominion: 85% of the members are men.
There are three main reasons why we need more women involved in politics. This injustice is the first – half of the population have been marginalised from political decision making.
The second is that women bring different experiences, skills and perspectives to politics. A more diverse set of experiences will create a different kind of Oireachtas – a parliament of all talents.
Finally, a critical mass of women in politics can change the political agenda and, ultimately, change the kind of decisions being made. The recent budget is a further illustration of how excluded women are from the decision making structures of Irish society.
In Norway this was called a “politics of care”. Women politicians ensured that the state absorbed its responsibility for balancing the role of women as mothers/carers and as full economic participants.
The state provided better care facilities for children, it extended flexible working arrangements in both the private and public sector and, most radically, it provided arrangements for shared maternity and paternity leave after a child is born.
In Rwanda – top of the global league table for representation of women (at 53%) – politics has moved on from the 1994 genocide, where rape was used as a weapon of war. Today gender based violence is at the top of the political agenda.
In these states – and in 17 of the top 20 countries for representation of women – some form of gender quota has been applied. This is because they work. Opponents of targets are long on criticism but question them and they are short on alternatives. Gender targets are a proven method of transforming politics.
A 2009 report by an Oireachtas (parliament) sub-committee on women’s participation in politics identified five barriers for women’s entry into politics (first identified in the 1970s in Trinity College, Dublin, but they apply internationally):
- Care. There is a noticeable dearth of young mothers in politics. There are some exceptions but most women at this age step away from politics to care for children. The lack of maternity leave for politicians doesn’t help the situation. Later, many older women often provide care for elderly relatives. As women do most of the caring in Irish society this limits their potential to get politically involved.
- Cash. Women earn on average 30% less than men and so have less money to spend fighting election campaigns and less wealthy networks of potential supporters to tap into.
- Culture. Irish adversarial politics, modelled on the Westminster style of our old colonial masters, is unappealing to women (and many men). The childish behaviour of many public representatives who prefer to heckle instead of holding meaningful debates on policy or process is deeply off-putting. Late night sittings of the Dáil and the necessity to combine national work with a clientelist local culture means that politics is, as one prominent woman politician put it, a “family-hostile” environment.
- Selection conferences. Political parties are the gatekeepers of the Irish political system. Selection by a political party in Ireland’s multi-seat constituency PR/STV [proportional representation/single transferable vote] electoral system is not a guarantee of election – unlike the UK system where “safe seats” exist. Nonetheless selection by a political party is of vital importance and selection processes – especially in more conservative rural Ireland – are often controlled by a coterie of men unwilling to allow women access to the political system.
- Confidence. Despite leading the way through every level of the education system, managing careers, children and organising the home, too many women still lack the confidence to enter politics, preferring to be asked than to actively seek out positions.
Each of these “5 Cs” applies in different ways to different women: a combination of hard (political reform) and soft (training and support programmes) are important for resolving them.
Targets for the selection of women by political parties will help to eliminate some of these barriers and start to fix Ireland’s broken democracy.
Eóin Murray is the first male employee of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Ireland’s largest national representative body for women. He coordinates the campaign to get more women involved in politics. Learn more at www.nwci.ie.
“Eóin Murray is the first male employee of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, Ireland’s largest national representative body for women. He coordinates the campaign to get more women involved in politics”
and exactly there is the problem – a man in the National Women’s council is required to coordinate the campaign. So there was not one woman who could have done the job? I think what is more important that going into politics is looking at role models and female identity in Ireland
I’m really quite sad that the only response to this article, that raises a number of incredibly important and valuable points, is frustration that the author is male.
Well, then you did not understand the point I was trying to make. I live in Ireland and find it disheartening how women are treated, seen and are portrayed in this country. I have a lot of very smart female colleagues, but they are so rooted in traditional stereotypes. They lack self-esteem, are extremely conservative, there is no rebellious grain in them from what I can see. Fashion, children, men….that seems to be all that counts.
They don’t question anything and conform to every stereotype available.
I don’t mean to sound condescending but that is what I see every day. They deserve so much more but expect so little. But they are too afraid to ask, demand, question.