Actions in power speak louder than rally talk
I’M OLD enough to remember a time when a women’s rally attracted a very small motley crew indeed. A handful of eager students and arty types, a bunch of butch-looking women, a scattering of mothers with children and perhaps a female reporter assigned to cover the achingly non-event. In terms of political representatives, there might be an address from the late Monica Barnes, one of the handful of female politicians who pledged to devote their Dáil career to advancing the cause of women rather than serving up more of the same.
Feminism was niche back then. International Women’s Day was not a day to rival St Valentine’s like now, but an obscure event celebrated in gay bars or privately at home. Calling oneself a feminist was admitting to being a bra-burning man-hating harridan.
The row about next month’s women’s rally appears to have turned what should be a day of unity, of women gathering together in common cause into a divisive and exclusive event, underpinned by a Mean Girl vibe.
But, paradoxically, the clamour from female politicians for admission into the line-up of speakers is also a sign that feminism has become mainstream in the space of a few decades and that the battle to persuade public opinion is won.
THIRTY years ago it would have been unimaginable for a tightlipped justice minister to criticise the National Women’s Council’s decision to exclude government members from speaking as ‘regrettable’ or for a veteran TD like Gemma Hussey to tick the organisers off in public.
Politicians of their prominence would have run a mile from addressing a raggle-taggle army of hardcore women’s activists. Now they are desperate to climb up on the podium and brandish their feminist credentials for the masses.
As the first minister to become pregnant while in office, Helen McEntee has been a pioneer in securing maternity rights for female politicians. Her swift reaction to Aisling Murphy’s killing and the rise of domestic violence during lockdown gives grounds for hope that she will be an effective ally for women.
But apart from her, it’s hard to name another member of Government who lifted a finger to break the patriarchy’s stranglehold.
POLITICS is a dirty game where the priority is survival but surely those who take up the mantle of feminism have a duty to live by some of its credos. Mary Lou McDonald, who has been anointed as a speaker, has devoted her career to apologising for terrorism, the most aggressive and destructive form of patriarchy, rather than promoting principles of solidarity and sisterhood. She has hardly earned her place on the podium, except in one respect, which is that she is not in power, at least not yet, and can’t be held to account for her services to women.
In contrast, Helen McEntee and her sisters in Cabinet can. Perhaps their exclusion is a warning signal from the National Women’s Council that it’s not enough for female politicians to nail their colours to the feminist mast or mouth platitudes about women’s safety and career opportunities.