Women in politics
Representatives of the Donegal Youth Council talk about women in politics.
When we eventually go to the polls in May, the female half of our voting public won’t have a huge number of women candidates to choose from. At the time of writing, out of 42 constituencies, only 64 women candidates have been announced to run- a shockingly small number of women candidates, and an appallingly underrepresented constituency.
To examine this, I asked three representatives of a political body that has no problems whatsoever with female representation - the Donegal Youth Council - on their thoughts surrounding women in politics.
The Donegal Youth Council has always maintained a female majority and stands as a pretty unique example of gender equality as far as politics is concerned. So why are other political structures so slow to move? Clr April Robinson, Raphoe suggests that although women are more than capable of doing the job, not many feel the need to go forward for election, especially as women’s roles in society are still changing and people are just used to voting for men.
She adds: “that there is a big stress for women between the ages of 18 and 30 something to do.... well...womanly things, and politics isn’t necessarily for everyone, I feel we have a strong group of young women on the youth council and most are all up for doing what we can now, but when we get older, our ambitions and opinions in politics may change.”
The point about politics not being womanly is a historically valid one. Most well known women politicians are either noticeably hard-nosed and considered masculine (Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice for example) or simply extraordinary characters like Mary Robinson here or Barbara Jordan or Olympia Snowe in the United States.
Rachael Kelly, Lifford, agrees that Ireland still suffers from paternalism, but not just at the polls: “Ireland still has a biased attitude towards women in power, although i do think that this is slowly but surely easing. A lot of people in politics are powerful and professional, such as doctors and solicitors, and there is still a gender inbalance here too”.
So the consensus seems to be that women in politics are affected by circumstance, tradition and the notion that it isn’t a feminine pursuit, but also that it is, like women’s roles in society in general, changing slowly.
When the councillors were asked about the council’s gender balance, all of them thought it was a very encouraging sign that more and more young women are getting involved in politics, and more importantly they stay involved. Erin McGettigan from Milford referred to “the epidemic of double standards is coming to an end in secondary schools”, which certainly gives hope for those double standards dissipating on a wider level too.
Above all else, there is hope that inequalities are slowly but surely evening out. Even though only 23 of our TD’s are women, 6 out of the island’s 16 MEP’s are, the few women ministers that are in the cabinet are very prominent, and one of them, Mary Hanafin is continuously mentioned as Bertie’s successor as Taoiseach.
All three councillors have hope that a real change is happening and that, eventually, gender imbalance will be eliminated. “I believe that in several years, top line politics may well be lead by the great young women we have amongst us, and be more like the youth council, as our generation are far more educated in politics” says Robinson, “we'll be there...give us a few years.”
By: Paddy Duffy
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