Women in Ireland

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Catholic Ireland has changed much in the last two decades, but nothing fundamental has changed for women there. In Britain a working class woman is oppressed in at least two ways. as a worker and as a woman.

IN SPITE of some widely publicised reforms dealing with discrimination against women, there has been little change in the lives of the mass of Irish women in the South. The increasing awareness of their oppression has merely served to highlight the lack of commitment to effective change.

Legislation on equal pay and equality of treatment in employment in relation to access, opportunity for training and promotion has not become a reality and discrimination against women in employment is still widely practised.

The Employment Equality Act of 1977 made it illegal also to discriminate against women on the grounds of sex or marital status or in recruitment for and conditions of employment.

Maternity Women also have the right to 14 weeks' maternity leave, and to return to their jobs if they want to. For many women, returning to work is not a matter of choice but of necessity, but the difficulty in finding, and the high cost of, child-care imposes an intolerable burden, particularly on single mothers.

A woman's right to work is also being particularly eroded with the rising unemployment rate. Irish women workers are traditionally concentrated in the clothing and food-processing industries, and in light factory work. the industries that have been worst hit by the recession.

Legislation on equal working conditions and treatment has not changed attitudes to women in work. Eileen Flynn, a teacher employed in a convent school in New Ross, County Wexford, was sacked because she had a baby, the child of a man who had been married before but who has been separated from his wife for several years. Her dismissal was, incredibly, upheld by the Labour Court.

Discrimination

In 1982. the Social Welfare Act was amended to entitle married women not living with or maintained by their husbands to unemployment assistance.

In southern Ireland her oppression will be reinforced by the fact that she is a working class woman, living in a Catholic-Sectarian state which does not allow divorce or abortion at all and which strictly limits and controls contraception.

The legal right to contraception and abortion, or its absence, is a pretty basic test of the status of women in any society, or in any political movement.

Last year's referendum on abortion was fought out between those who wanted a constitutional ban on abortion and those who just wanted it banned as it is now.

The pro-choice forces were and are tiny.

Provisional Sinn Fein is a comparatively radical organRoisin Conroy, separated from her husband for many years, had taken a case to the High Court to challenge the discrimination earlier that year, and it was this case that forced a change in the law Pre-natal care However, there are still many discrepancies in dole and social welfare payments to women, married or single, including the duration of time for which unemployment benefit is paid, although women pay the same PRSI contributions. A Campaign for the Unification of the Social Welfare Code is active in challenging such discrepancies and discriminations.

In the area of women's health, cut-backs in the Free State government's spending has seriously affected services. A vigorous official policy of closing down maternity units which, according to the Health Boards, do not have the required 'quota' of births means that women in rural areas face journeys of up to 50 miles for pre-natal care and delivery. An equally vigorous campaign by local people and by the Association for the Improvement of Maternity Services has, in some cases, reversed decisions to close a few units, as in Dundalk last year, but such victories have been few.

Contraception

The withdrawal of medical cards, and the restrictions in granting new ones, have also caused severe hardship to women and there have been cases of particular callousness in withdrawing medical cards from families with handicapped children. The redefining of what is available on prescription to medical card holders has also badly affected women and children, and the provision of a network of local women's health centres ias as far away as ever.

Contraception legislation has, if anything, made it more difficult for women to obtain advice and help in getting safe contraception, with the power to refuse or grant such provision in the hands of local GPs. Well Woman Centres and family planning clinics are still only based in the large cities, as are services and help for unmarried mothers.

isation with a vocal distinctly feminist element within it.

As in this article by Siobhan O'Malley, they agitate Passionately against the conditions women suffer in the 26 Counties.

Yet last November's radical Sinn Fein conference limited its radicalism about women's oppression to trimming the word "total"

from the clause in Sinn Fein's constitution opposing abortion. Now it is merely 'opposed' to it.

A number of Sinn Fein members joined the campaign against the anti-abortion amendment to the Southern Ireland constitution, but the official Sinn Fein line was that they took no sides because they did not recognise the constitution anyway.

The tragic case of a 15year old girl who died giving birth to her baby, who also died, in a churchyard in Granard, County Longford, exposed the isolation of young girls in this situation. The media reaction, with people from Nuala Fennell, Free State Minister for Women's Affairs down, using the tragedy to castigate anybody but themselves, was a sickening exercise in opportunism and buck-passing.

Last year's referendum on abortion, in spite of opening up the whole debate on contraception and the reality of Irish women in their hundreds seeking abortions, out of fear and desperation, in Britain, has had no practical effect. even though both sides of the argument pledged themselves to real support for mothers, married or not.

Endemic sexism

However, the glib suggestion that sex education and contraception is the answer ignores the real oppression of women throughout a society which enforces the inability of women to exercise real control over their bodies and their lives.

Sexism is endemic in Irish society. It pervades the schools, workplaces, hospitals, sports clubs, political parties "There is a vocal distinctly feminist element vulnerable to abuse.

A Meath woman, for instance, recently discovered just how much her family home and family unit were protected by the Family Home Protection Act, when she and her husband were jailed when they refused to surrender their house to a loan company.

The law banning divorce, and the meaningless 'separation' legislation, coupled with the Catholic Church's hypocritical attitude to 'nullity' leaves many women and chilIren in a legal tangle impossible to understand. The Free State, to add to their confusion, turns a blind eye to what is, according to their own laws, bigamy.

H-blocks Illegitimacy is still a stigma and a legal reality, in spite of the verbalising of Nuala Fennell and her cronies, desperately looking for a word to replace 'bastard' There are very many dedicated and committed women struggling to overcome the repressive laws and oppressive attitudes that Irish women suffer. The Women's Centre in Dublin's Dame Street provides a meeting place for women despite a chronic lack of funds. The Well Woman Centres and Family Planning Clinics, the women's refuges and advice centres all provide as extensive a service as they can in the face of prejudice and hostility ag is: sim.

The producers and presen ters of the RTE radio pro gramme Women Today and on TV, The Women': Programme, raise issues importance to women. Womer in trade unions fight sexism ir the workplace and discrimin ation in employment, and il the many campaigns o1 specific issues women battle on, undaunted by the opposi tion to change.

But the experience of recen 'reforms' in regard to womer and the reality of women': continued oppression ha: enforced the belief that the only way to real freedom for women lies in the achievemen: of radical change in society al every level.