People before Profit - meeting on women's issues

national | anti-capitalism | news report Monday March 13, 2006 12:18 by Cathy Swift - People before Profit Catherine.Swift at may dot ie 086-0679708

Tigers of a different stripe - women in 21st C Ireland

Third of a series of public workshops and discussions on issues of topical importance to Irish citizens - hosted by People before Profit, a group of community activists who seek to deepen links between individual campaigns through cooperation and mutual support. Speakers included Niav Keating of BODY, Mary Muldowney of Alliance for Choice, Goretti Horgan of SWP and NI Anti-Poverty Network, Anna Pas - Polish journalist working in Ireland and Orla O'Connor of National Women's Council. Meeting was chaired by Ailbhe Smyth of WERRC, UCD. (If anybody has views on what they would like to see discussed at future People before Profit meetings please contact Cathy Swift)

Tigers of a different stripe: women in 21st C Ireland

On Friday 10th March, People before Profit held their third public forum, this time on the role of women in 21st C Ireland. Ailbhe Smyth of the Women’s Studies UCD and a member of the People before Profit Steering Committee chaired the meeting. Introducing the concept of People before Profit, she described how a group of community activists had decided to come together to create a forum in which current issues in Irish society could be questioned, debated and critiqued. The aim is to push back neo-liberal policies which are crushing public spirit and adversely affecting peoples’ interests and well-being.

The first speaker was Orla O’Connor, Head of Policy at the National Women’s Council who spoke on childcare. This is an issue which clearly affects all parents but the lack of affordable childcare impacts particularly strongly on those on lower incomes and particularly on lone parents and part-time workers. Women figure strongly in these groups with 32% of women working less than 33 hours per week as opposed to 7% of men. Where both parents are working, it is generally the woman’s income which is spent on child-care.
O’Connor stressed that the issue of childcare had been ignored at a political level because of ideological reasons; childcare is seen in Ireland as the private concern of families and, in particular, the concern of women. This was clearly the premise behind the marriage bar in the civil service but this thinking is still evident even today and informs the thinking of many of the key decision makers both in the civil service and in politics. The majority of these, she noted in passing, are men whose families are grown.
The context in which current discussion of childcare has begun has been the negative impact on economic growth and the need to facilitate women’s return to work or training after child-birth. In discussion of the 2006 budget, no consideration was given to the possibility of a national child care system and instead, emphasis was put on provision within private homes.
The Women’s Council, in contrast, favour a publicly funded and accessible childcare system along the lines of those operating in the Scandinavian countries with a system of funded parental leave. Subsidies for childcare should be available to parents both at work and on social welfare and these should be on a sliding scale, so that the maximum resources are directed towards those on lowest incomes.

The second speaker was Mary Muldowney of Alliance for Choice speaking on abortion. She gave figures of 7000+ women who are still going abroad to Britain and Europe for terminations and estimated that 1 in 10 Irish women may have had an abortion. The picture of traumatised young women presented by those who were anti-abortion was very far from the truth and instead many women were married and already had children. Indeed, lack of proper childcare provision was cited as one of the reasons driving such women to make this choice. Trauma over the decision was significantly affected by the legal, economic and medical barriers erected by Irish society. For example, because of the need to acquire information and to travel, Irishwomen are the highest % of those presenting for late abortions in Britain and this, in turn, makes the procedure more invasive.
The current situation in Ireland has resulted from the consequences of the X case but we still have no legislation which takes those decisions into account. An attempt in 2002 to reverse the consequences of the X case through referendum was defeated and the silence on abortion is slowly beginning to end. The reality was that abortion had always existed and if Ireland did not have the ability to export its problems, illegal, backstreet abortions would exist in some number here. In fact, it is known that, amongst those emigrant women who cannot easily leave the state, such abortions, sometimes, botched, have already begun to occur. The cost of an abortion (including travel from Ireland) is approximately 1000 euros and thus is often an inaccessible option for lone parents or those on low income.
Alliance for Choice believes that access to comprehensive family planning is essential for Irish women and that access to abortion should be one element within that total package. There is, however minimal political will for such an option. The Labour Party will legislate for the X case if they come to power but this will make little difference as the right to abortion in the case of suicide is not sufficient. Those who have in the past attacked the pro-choice groups have also attacked other developments such as the right to contraception and divorce and the claims that Irish society will dissolve if these rights were granted have not come to pass. Denying women the choice to avail of abortion has not and will not eliminate the social need.

The third speaker was Niav Keating of BODY, a pro-choice activist group. They believe in developing lobbying and mass protest techniques to draw attention to a variety of problems concerning women’s sexual health. Why, for example, should condoms be taxed at 21%, thus making them less accessible than they should be? Why is there still a lack of comprehensive sex education? The notion that simply telling teenagers that having sex should be avoided is not a realistic one. Since formation last December, BODY had already mounted a successful media protest involving building a cage of coat-hangers enclosing 17 women outside the Dáíl. This had achieved substantial publicity, in newspapers and radio. They are currently applying for funding from pro-choice groups. Speaking personally as an anarchist, she felt that lobbying politicians only brought about limited change as can be seen in the current position of the various political parties. Sinn Féín and Labour both support a small degree of change; the others have either no position or do not want change.

The fourth speaker was Anna Pas, speaking as a Polish women who was working as a journalist in Ireland. She had been disappointed by the lack of coverage of International Women’s Day which had been an important festival in Communist Poland, deriving originally from public protests about the low value given to women’s work. Since 1989, it still remained a day when women were presented with chocolates and flowers by their partners but had ceased to be a public holiday. However International Women’s Day still presented Polish society with the opportunity of asking questions about issues such as discrimination against gays and lesbians. On the whole, globalisation and emigration were providing Poles with opportunities to gain new experiences which were not open to them at home and increased the possibility of examining these issues with open minds.

The fifth speaker was Goretti Horgan, speaking about issues affecting poorer women in northern Ireland. Beginning with abortion, she pointed out that this was also a class issue in the north as it was not available on the NHS despite years of lobbying and recommendations by various bodies such as the Committee for Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Thus, northern women must travel if they wish to avail of this right and/or pay money to private, profit-making, clinics.
On childcare, the notion of publicly funded arrangements was anathema in a world where the State was increasingly seen as having no role. Tax credits for child care were disadvantageous to women on the lowest income and in fact, represent welfare for employers. Many pregnant women today are being faced with an impossible dilemma – having abortions is bad but choosing to have a child was also bad if, in anyway, this impacts on your ability to do paid work.
On other issues, neo-liberal policies and globalisation were making the lives of women ever more difficult and the work/life balance is increasingly skewed. Women are not only responsible for much of child-care, they are also increasingly responsible for care of the elderly and those within the family circle suffering ill-health or disability. Access to welfare is being increasingly tied to employed work but this removes the woman from her family and forces her to accept low-paid, low-status and often part-time or contract work which makes it difficult to carry out the other responsibilities which society has delegated to her. We have to accept that much of the woman’s role as society has defined it to date is as valuable as that of paid jobs and, unlike such employment, it is work which must be done locally and cannot be outsourced to Singapore. It is not enough to say that women must seek jobs in managements positions or as judges and MPs – such women will employ other women (often migrant women) to act as nannies for their children; the question for society is “who will look after the nanny’s children?”

Ailbhe Smyth, summing up the speakers’ presentation, drew attention to yet another aspect of exploitation, one to which attention has been drawn at a recent conference of the Association of African Women in Ireland. This is the genital mutilation suffered by all too many and the lack of supports for women in Ireland who might have suffered this barbarity. The twenty-first century was not only bringing different forms of old problems – it was also presenting new problems for what in many ways was a new society. The materialism which is often vaunted by our politicians and media presents collective action as a synonym for shopping in Dundrum; People before Profit seeks instead to recognise the real needs of real people and, acting together, to improve the situation.

Discussion from the floor referred to the American Workfare system (where to get welfare, you must work a certain number of hours) and the increasing effect of this idea the Irish Social Welfare system, symbolised by the use of the term “activisation”. Questions raised included: should we be using terms such as “working class women” when issues such as short term contracts, agency work and lack of career opportunities affect us all? Why is feminism now a dirty word and why do so many modern women support a ‘raunch-culture’ which is almost facilitating soft porn? Why do so many women voluntarily agree to support their partnership (with or without children) by accepting the junior role? Is a system which involves both partners pursuing careers with equal urgency compatible with setting up joint households?

One proposal for concrete action involved a protest to the partnership talks by women with collapsible cots or with buggys to highlight the need for resolution of issues such as child care. (That SIPTU is happy to simply support tax credits was seen as an abdication of concern for the less well off.) It was also suggested that a letter showing solidarity with women in Iraq should be written. Finally it was agreed that the whole range of People before Profit discussions, from public transport to health, should have at their core, the effect of such policies on both men and women and that women’s liberation should be one of the key issues for the organisation.

The next People before Profit meeting is entitled "Your health - whose business?" and will be held at the IFI. Eustace St., Dublin on April 7th at 7:30. Anybody wishing to suggest other topics for meetings or who would like to organise a People before Profit meeting in their own area are asked to contact Cathy Swift at 086-0679708 or [email protected]