Struggle must go on for rights of women

AS psychologists fixate on men being from Mars and women from Venus, International Women’s Day marks an interlude to come back to Earth and focus on the reasons for some of the differences – and shameful inequality. The day is dismissed by some on the basis that the women who might best profit from it are least likely to be even aware it exists.

If anything, this should incentivise us to embrace it more ardently. To demand a better deal for the hundreds of millions of women trapped perennially in grinding poverty, battling inequality, is our duty, not a slogan or hotly trending hash-tag.

American academic Cheris Kramarae wrote: “Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.” Hardly a subversive or socially seismic thought; yet given the pervasiveness of discrimination even in our 21st century, it needs to be kept in mind.

We have seen empowering anti-sexist campaigns as a dynamic for transformational legislation. And they are welcome, such as they are. But each generation produces a ripple which becomes a wave, only to ultimately crash against a rock of resistance and eventually disappear.

One hundred years ago, a group dubbed and dismissed as “those obstreperous lassies” went on to secure the vote in Britain, becoming immortalised as suffragettes.

In the 18th century in a ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women’, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote: “I do not wish them [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.”

In much of the world, the wait continues. Modern Ireland is not immune. The basic principle of equal pay for equal work was included in the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Yet men still dominate the workplace and are the main decisionmakers in business and politics.

Too many women find themselves behind when it comes to equal opportunities and income. Today is significant and is likely to be for some years; or as long as what is deemed as a right for one gender is not guaranteed to another.