Why Were Women In Ireland Excluded From The Public Exercise Of Power Over Men - Essay Example

Why were women in Ireland excluded from the public exercise of power over men? The history of political ideas in Ireland is largely unwritten. Many great people are ignored; and some political traditions, conservatism for example, are regarded as either of no great importance as a subject for analysis; or as marginal to the political development of Ireland. One reason is that Irish historiography has been little affected with recent methodological developments in intellectual history. During the last two decades, however, there has been a move away from regarding political texts as embodiments of eternal truths to a more contextual approach: one in which political theory is regarded not as the rarefied speculation of isolated individuals, but as a social activity conducted by numerous people using a variety of linguistic conventions. In Ireland political though is to be found in myth, law, literature, theology, folk fore, in ballads, newspapers, parliamentary debates, pamphlets and sermons, as well as in the conventional texts. Furthermore, Irelands’ political thinkers have displayed great heterogeneity, encompassing, for example, seventeenth- century bishops and poets; professors and conspirators in eighteenth century; improving land lords, urban artisans, journalists in the last century and politicians and literati in this. Yet Irish historiography has largely remained unaware of the rich pickings offered by a contextual approach to political ideas. Instead, emphasis is still placed upon men or women of action. Throughout the troubled history of Ireland, women have been no less concerned than men when it came to coping with the difficulties and confused loyalties of Ireland. The role they played, however, have been misconceived and underestimated in past histories of the island. As revisionist history attempts to change the discourse of Irish history, feminist historians are developing their own critique of mainstream writing. Most of the literature on both sides of the nationalist debate assumed that the key actors in the political activities were male. Women in Irish history have generally appeared as the oppressed “other”. There has been little examination of the position of women in general in the nationalist movement, or the relation between the nationalist movement and struggle for women’s rights. It is very evident that seventeenth-century Irish politics were a function of public life, a male activity in which women played little if any role. Political historians pay scant attention to the role of women in political life, seeing it as either peripheral, or of small consequence. Women, of course, were not voters, nor did they have access to high political office. Irish women were excluded from formal male political culture. The ideology of ‘separate spheres’, the world of work and politics advocated for men and the world of domesticity advocated for women, played major part in limiting their political aspirations Author Jenny Beale, an adult education instructor in Galway and author of Women in Ireland, Voices of Change, describes the Church-State bond that perpetuated the traditional view of Irish women. The Catholic Church believed that the holy family structure was critical for the maintenance of both the Irish economy and society. Women’s roles were, therefore, defined as strictly “home-based,” Beale writes, and “the Catholic family (and the subordinate status of women within it) was laid as the foundation of the new State.” Although many celebrated their familial roles and were strong, valued members of their families, Irish women faced discrimination in almost all aspects of society. (Beale, pp. 3-6) Women’s involvement in politics – the narratives of kings and queens, and colorful stories of women’s participation in court plots and intrigues – has always been the domain of biographers and historians interested in old fashioned high political history. Women connected to male monarchs – wives, mistresses, mothers, daughters and kin – have long been the subject of repeated historical enquiry for the kinds of power they could yield from behind the throne. In traditional political narratives, women are marginal figures: their domain, the household or ‘domestic’ sphere, rather than the public, male world of business and politics; the role they played often consigned to footnotes. Political goals and aspirations for the landed elite extended beyond mere influence over state government and policy to include dynastic and family concerns which were shared by both men and women; accumulation of land and wealth, maintenance of status and reputation, and advancement of family members interests, in terms of career and marriage (Luddy, 1995). Gender politics are much more extensive and significant than current theories of politics and of society presume. Women have agitated around their own interests over many more issues than is suggested by mainstream texts. Women’s politics is not something exceptional to be explained as a deviation from the norm. Hence those theories which attempted to explain these exceptions are trying to do the impossible; this attempted to explain something which is not even the case. Their conception of the norm and the exception should be inverted. The main factor inhibiting women’s participation is generally recognized as being the degree to which a society holds negative attitudes towards the involvement of women in politics. In a study of obstacles to women’s political participation in Ireland, Randall and Smyth noted that : Irish women had until the very recent past been subject to a particularly intense, if complex, process of socialization, through the agency of family, school and the Church, into an acceptance of an extremely traditional division of labor between the sexes and its implications for women’s political role. (Randall and Smyth, 1987) For these authors, the socialization process, which transmits traditional assumptions about women’s role in society ( a feature, to varying degrees, of all societies in the liberal democratic world), has been reinforced in Ireland through the Roman Catholic Church, which continues to priorities a home and family-based role for women. This leads to a women in predominantly Roman Catholic countries having less interest in politics than do men, and so being less inclined to participate in the political process and its institutions. This view is modified by later surveys measuring changes in men’s and women’s attitudes towards gender roles over a period of time. These studies pinpoint the existence of two contradictory sets of attitudes regarding women and politics held by the Irish public. On the other hand, there is evidence that suggests increasingly favorable attitudes towards women and men having equal status in society (European Commission, 1996). However, there are indications that attitudes in Ireland towards women’s participation in public life is less egalitarian in Ireland than in other EU countries. In addition, Irish men and women appear least willing to favor equality in gender roles within the home and family, in contrast to attitudes in Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands, whose citizens are among the most supportive of equality in a family context (European Commission, 1992). This finding was confirmed by Whelan and Fahey who found that While Irish attitudes [ on sex roles] are not significantly more traditional than European views, the pattern of results does point to the continuing influence of values that underpin sex role of differentiation. Thus, while attitudes to women’s employment are generally positive, substantial proportions of the adult population consider that there are negative effects for children. Furthermore, significant majorities consider that women can be fulfilled in the role of housewife and indeed that this, rather than jobs outside the home, is what they really want. (Whelan and Fahey, 1994). Thus, two views of women’s role in society, which are difficult to reconcile with each other, coexist in Ireland. On the one hand, participation of women in public activity, be it employment, politics or other public functions, is viewed with greater equanimity now than it was viewed fifteen years ago. Yet women are expected to combine their ‘traditional’ home responsibilities with their activities in the public sphere. The expectation held by a majority of the population is, therefore, that women wishing to become involved in activities outside the home will combine both public and home responsibilities, leading them to assume the responsibility of a ‘dual burden’ that men do not need to assume to the same extent. Although Ireland still has the highest family size in EU, women TDs have significantly smaller families than their male counterparts. This suggests that for women with political ambitions the practicality of pursuing the time-consuming career in tandem with child-rearing is an issue of greater significance than it is for their male colleagues. The issue of family size is related to the access of women to the family support systems, which male politicians can in general avail themselves of more readily than women. While family demands may not deter politically ambitious women, seeking political opportunities have to consider to a greater degree than do men. However, the socially determined constraints on women wishing to engage in a political career are not as all-encompassing in the twenty-first century as they have been in earlier times. The greater acceptance of a broader role of women, the availability of contraception enabling them to limit family size, the higher level of education they enjoy, and the more extensive occupational opportunities open to them all suggest that women and men should have similar access to political careers. None the less, certain obstacles have remained more salient for women than for men. It appears that women with political ambitions try to follow the routes of entry to political life and if these routes are closed to them, they seek alternative ways to gain credibility as a potential candidate. The influence of localism is one that many aspiring women politicians find difficult to counteract if they have not had the opportunity to break into a brokerage network through local authority service, occupational activity or grass roots involvement. In other words, the opportunity for building recognition and credibility as a candidate are more limited for women than for men. Women political hopefuls are more likely to look to their party leaders for ‘sponsorship’ at the candidates election stage in order to compensate for a lower level of access to local networks. Finally, while family connections have been important in determining routes to political power in Ireland, this has traditionally been a more significant factor for women than men. However, social and economic factors. Do not fully account for the small number of women in politics. There are few barriers in the political system itself, and particularly at the selection of the political parties. In recent years, explanations for women’s political under-representation have focused on internal party selection processes as the single most important obstacle to women’s political participation. CONCLUSION : A large number of researches suggested the many reasons why Irish women were absent from politics, exhibiting, in fact, one of the lowest rates of political activity in the EU. The main reason being the lack of political involvement was due to the “disempowerment of Irish women as citizens.” Researchers found that reasons for low political activity included women’s commitments to their homes, lack of monetary autonomy and lack of educational and occupational opportunities. The majority of married men surveyed also preferred their wives to work in the home rather than to obtain paid employment. (Galligan and Willford, “Gender and Party Politics”). However, things are changing rather evolving for the better since the seventeenth century. Women has become more liberal and a large number of female participation is witnessed in today’s political and non –political world. REFERENCES :  Beale, Jenny. 1987: Women in Ireland-Voices of Change. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.  Carty, R. Kenneth, 1980. Women in Irish Politics, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 6: 1, pp.90-104.  Cheryl, Law. 2000: Women, a Modern Political Dictionary. I.B.Tauris  Connelly, Alpha. 1999: “Women and the Constitution of Ireland,” in Contesting Politics Women in Ireland, North and South. Yvonne Galligan, Eilis Ward, and Rick Wilford, eds. Boulder: West view Press.  Fahey, Tony, "Catholicism and Industrial Society in Ireland," pp. 241-264 in J.H.  Galligan, Yvonne and Rick Wilford. 1999 : “Women’s Political Representation in Ireland,” in Contesting Politics Women in Ireland, North and South. Yvonne Galligan, Eilis Ward, and Rick Wilford, eds. Boulder: Westview Press.  Galligan, Yvonne and Rick Wilford. 1999: “Gender and Party Politics in the Republic of Ireland,” in Contesting Politics Women in Ireland, North and South. Yvonne Galligan, Eilis Ward, and Rick Wilford, eds. Boulder: Westview Press.  James, Daybell. 2004 : Women and Politics in Early Modern England, 1450-1700 – Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.  John Cooksey, Michael Gallagher, Inc Net Library. 2005 : Politics in the Republic of Ireland: 3rd Edition - Page 285, Routledge  Lisa M. Bitel. 1996 : Land of Women: Tales of Sex and Gender from Early Ireland. Cornell University Press  Maria, Luddy.1995: Women in Ireland, 1800-1918: a documentary history. Cork University Press  Mullin, Molly. 1991: “Representations of History, Irish Feminism and the Politics of Difference.” Feminist Studies, Vol.17, No.1, p.29  Neil, Collins & Terry, Cradden. 2004 : Political Issues in Ireland Today: Third Edition Manchester University Press.  Randall, Vicky &Ailbhe Smith, 1987. Bishops and Bailiwicks: Obstacles to Womens Political Participation in Ireland, Economic and Social Review, 18:3, pp.189-214.  Whelan, Christopher T. (ed), Values and Social Change in Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1994. Read More