MEETING THE MACHINE WITH A MOVEMENT
Lauren Heskin on why we need to support women in Irish politics
From the outside, Irish and American politics have very little in common – aside from some problematic border issues, of course. But take a closer look and you’ll start to notice familiar plotlines – women leading mass demonstrations that demand women’s rights be treated as human rights, whether that be through the Repeal the 8th campaign or the Women’s March. In November 2018, the US finally witnessed the fruits of this long-fought labour as women stormed the capital in record numbers as the new class of Congresswomen.
The other striking thing about this overwhelming political success of women at the US midterms was the diversity of it. The newly elected include women like Ayanna Pressley (the first African-American woman to represent the state of Massachusetts in Congress), Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids (the first Native American women elected to Congress), Rashida Tlaib (the first Palestinian-American in Congress), Ilhan Omar (the first Somali-American elected to Congress and, along with Tlaib, one of the first two Muslim women), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (aka AOC, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress).
So, how exactly did American women galvanise the success and support of the 2017 Women’s March into a political tour de force less than 18 months later, and is there anything we can learn as we move into a post-8th Amendment era in Ireland? Because if we want to spark a political and cultural renaissance for women, we need to get more of them into politics.
As Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor points out, “We are currently placed 87th in the world table of women’s representation in parliament [according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union or IPU]. We still have a long way to go.” If we want an equitable and balanced society, we need a greater variety of voices in our local and national government.
According to Minister Katherine Zappone, one of the most interesting learnings from the US midterms was the mobilisation of grassroots support. “I think forming that connection with the communities you want to serve is key.” It might seem an obvious point, but in modern politics it can be easy to get swallowed up in the tit-for-tat nature of policy-making. And the electoral are becoming more aware and more critical of this. Take a look at anti-establishment wins in Mexico, Italy, Germany, Britain, France, and (despite Republicans plugging their ears to it) the United States for proof. 2018 saw a return to the community, a type of trickle-up politics where electoral hopefuls were also social activists, bringing local issues to a national stage, and many rode
How do we convert the spurt of activism bubbling around women’s issues in Ireland to seeing more women in the corridors of power, and do recent rumblings in US politics
hold any clues, asks LAUREN HESKIN.
into Congress on the crest of this grassroots support. A shocked Ocasio-Cortez, upon winning the Democratic nomination from a ten-year incumbent, described the idea as meeting “the machine with a movement”.
Another part of this activist-politician role is the importance of personality, though this has not been a straightforward path for women in politics. According to research done by Louisiana State University between 2006 and 2008, news coverage of women in politics focused more often on personality than issues. As a result, female candidates overcompensated on policy messages and avoided personality-driven topics. But Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential loss proved that there’s no right way to be a woman in politics – talk too much about complex political concepts and you’re boring and untrustworthy; avoid any discussion about your plans for office and speak in repetitive, rambling generalities and you’ll be laughed off the stage… that is unless you’re Donald Trump, of course. I digress. Rather than hide behind their message, women like Pressley, Tlaib and AOC are embodying theirs. Shortly after being sworn in in January, Tlaib told reporters that she intends to “impeach the motherfucker,” referring to Trump. It might seem a little crude, but she is certainly not giving the typical politician’s non-answer answer.
AOC also posted a video on Instagram of her laughing as she danced into her office on the Hill after a Right-leaning site attempted to embarrass her with an old video of her dancing in university. She captioned it “If Republicans thought women dancing in college is scandalous, wait ’til they find out women dance in Congress too!” Which brings me to the next lesson: social media. This new class are wielding it like an authentication tool, merging personality with policy, and, forgive me for the alliteration, but doing it with panache. In two years, they have tamed the big, bad Russian wolf of the presidential campaign, and this proved important come election time, particularly for younger, more difficult to mobilise voters. A 2018 survey by UK educational charity Demo found that almost two-thirds of young people still consider social media an essential element of instigating social change and, even more interestingly, that young women are almost twice as likely as young men to use it as a platform to campaign about things they believe in.
Rather than discard social media to the evergrowing heap of “fake news”, these women are making it work for them. And they’re doing so successfully because they’re tech natives. They use it anyway; it comes naturally to them. And this is a crucial caveat for using social media in politics, says Ciairín de Buis, CEO of not-for-profit organisation Women for Election; you must use social media in a way that’s comfortable to you. “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant example of where you can see someone is absolutely themselves on social media,” she explains, but it can just as easily swing the other way. “You can always tell when someone else is running it; we the voting public are not stupid – we’ll know.”
With this recent flood of women entering US politics, can we expect an equivalent shift from the powerful role of women in campaigns like Marriage Equality and Together for Yes to a
“If we want to spark a political and cultural renaissance for women, we need to get more of them
into politics.”
powerful role for women in government? In fact, the move is already well underway. We can see plenty of examples of female representatives bringing community issues to national attention. Ruth Coppinger pulling out a pair of underwear in the Dáil, asking if lacy knickers matter in a rape trial, Minister Zappone demanding the truth about Mother and Baby Homes, Lynn Ruane campaigning for spent convictions reform, former school principal Mary Mitchell O’Connor tackling gender disparity in third level institutions. Activism is a vital element of politics; as Minister Zappone puts it, “Politics has an important role in achieving that change, whether it is social justice, equality or policies that are fair and just.”
They’re not alone either, as upcoming local elections in May see the mushroom cloud effect of recent social justice activism impacting politics. Yvonne Cahalane, who successfully campaigned on behalf of her son to get access to medical marijuana, is running for the first time in West Cork. Rachael Prendergast Spollen, a key organiser for the Together for Yes campaign, is running as a People Before Profit candidate in Stillorgan. Evie Nevin, the founder of Disabled People Together for Yes, is running for the Social Democrats. Ellie Kisyombe, who co-founded Our Table as a response to the ban on asylum seekers cooking for themselves, is running in Dublin’s North Inner City.
So, what can we do to continue to encourage more women into Irish politics? Well, apart from voting, there are plenty of roles in politics that don’t require you to be the candidate. Campaign managers, directors of elections, canvassers, and communication leads are all vital cogs of a successful campaign. But Ciairín remarks that sometimes the simplest and best thing you can do to convince women into politics is to ask them to run. Many women coming through the Women for Election masterclasses in campaigning admit that they were asked to run multiple times before ever considering it. “So ask someone, even if that someone is yourself.”
We need to build on our recent political successes, not languish in them. As Minister Zappone highlights, “Never take what has been achieved for granted. We have seen in Trump’s America, Putin’s Russia and in parts of former Eastern Europe, where rights and equality so hard fought for can be so easily taken away. We owe it to future generations to ensure Ireland continues its journey to becoming a fairer and just place – and never return to a time when people, mostly women, were treated like outcasts because their actions felt outside what was considered ‘the norm’.”