Should we erase the word ‘mothers’ just to make ourselves look cool? I say no

HAPPY International Women’s Day – but are we happy women, really? How could we possibly be happy, chained as we are to the kitchen sink, condemned to domestic slavery, denied the chance of real (ie, men’s) work, forced to look after our repulsive children, downtrodden, belittled, undermined and hideously victimised by a couple of sentences in the Constitution that, uh, few people had ever even heard of until this Government decided to liberate us from its cruel clutches.

But, boy, have we made up for lost time over the past month. I am so grateful to so many male politicians, commentators, spokesmen for NGOs and professional bodies – and random blokes on Twitter – for showing us we were being oppressed by a line in Bunreacht na hÉireann that said how bloody amazing we were.

If you can get out of the house – although you’re probably the one stuck at home with the children off school for polling day – make haste to the ballot box to purge the offensive paragraph that says, in slightly more archaic language, the hand that rocks the cradle runs the country.

And let’s also get rid of the line that promises to support stay-at-home mothers, at least before the Supreme Court gets a chance to force the Government to honour it. That case was due to be heard next month. Oh well. Erase the word ‘mother’ entirely from the Constitution because it can only have been put there by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. Oddly enough, the German constitution promises that ‘all mothers shall be entitled to the care and protection of the community’. Who knew McQuaid drafted that too?

And while you’re at it, just to make things interesting, let us vote to include a completely inexplicable concept into the Constitution, and wait until the manure hits the fan to find out what it means. Putting ‘durable relationships’ on a par with marriage without actually defining the term, said one legal expert, is akin to ‘building a house in the Constitution and saying, “don’t worry, we’ll put the foundations in later”.’

Don’t worry that the Government has refused to share the hard facts of what impact these changes will have on family law, immigration law, succession law, taxation law – the allimportant interdepartmental discussion documents – until AFTER the referendum.

And whatever you do, don’t let your voting intentions be influenced by anything as boring as robust intellectual arguments or statements of demonstrable truth.

For this referendum is all about feelings, not facts. Never mind that the ‘care’ referendum won’t do a blessed thing for carers and may even make their lot worse, if the Supreme Court’s plans to examine their rights under the offending Article 41.2 next month are stymied because you have voted it out today.

Ask not what the practical effect of a ‘yes’ vote will be (less than zero) but rather how it will make you feel (great, progressive, pleased with yourself since you don’t have to care for a profoundly disabled 18-year-old on less than €100 a week carers’ allowance). No more mention of ‘mothers’ in the Constitution. Aren’t we the woke ones? And just think how fantastically cool and enlightened we’ll look to the rest of Europe, and especially those backward Germans, if we elevate something called a ‘durable relationship’ to the status of marriage. Think for a second of all those poor, poor people in durable relationships who’d love the status and privileges of a legally binding commitment without the hassle of having to make a legally binding commitment. Doesn’t your heart bleed for them?

THE Government has made no secret of the fact that this referendum is about how it makes you feel – and how it makes them look – rather than actual realities. Media Minister Catherine Martin has refused to delete a tweet falsely claiming the Constitution says ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ on the basis that some women ‘feel’ that’s what it says. Equality Minister Roderic O’Gorman has said it criticises women who ‘choose to work outside the home’ when it absolutely doesn’t. But he ‘feels’ that’s what it means. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said a ‘no’ vote would be a ‘step backwards’ even though he can’t possibly point to a single real, tangible change it would make.

He says it will ‘add in special recognition for family carers’.

If only he knew someone in Government who could do something practical for carers without having to change the Constitution at all?

And 98% of family carers are called ‘women’, Leo, and they’ve got special recognition in there already. Taking it out will simply deny the efforts they make every day without pay or in poorly paid employment outside the home due to ‘economic necessity’.

This International Woman’s Day, I don’t see one wisp of a benefit for any woman – and especially not for any carer – in the proposed amendments.

Let’s keep mná in the law and sod wibbly feelings. Vote no.