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— December 2009 - January 2010
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Village, Ireland’s official attitude to abortion
seems to be one of denial and hypocrisy. While
the politics of abortion is complicated - largely
because it is impossible to get agreement on the
extent to which a foetus has the relevant charac-
teristics of a human - simply leaving it to other
countries to provide abortion services to our
typically vulnerable young women is simply a
moral disgrace.
Within relationships too, women are at a
disadvantage: although it may be the case that
neither gender has a monopoly on the initia-
tion of incidents of domestic “violence”, inci-
dents against women tend to be more forceful
and, where they reflect a disbalance in power,
more humiliating and therefore more seri-
ous. Certain types of abuse are almost invari-
ably perpetrated by men against women - rape,
trafficking and prostitution, for example.
While for these basic reasons Village
champions equality rights for women, we are
not fans of licence or of the exercise of rights
purely for the sake of it. It is not clear if the
freedom to appear on Page three, to provide
sexual services or to make pornography - even
if any of these are well paid - is an advance for
women. The early sexualisation in particular of
girls does not represent progress. The Village
office unpredictably divided on whether women
need to subscribe to models of feminism that
foreswear the wearing of “come hither” high-
heels.
Lest we be deemed to be mono-visioned
we note that men too are victims of inequal-
ity. While women lose more in opportunity
and confidence, men lose much in happiness,
fulfilment and humanity through their role and
their perception of their role as including, for
example, machismo or emotionlessness.They
are prejudiced by lifestyles and decisions they
tend to take, that are rooted in society’s expec-
tations of them. For men, life expectancy is
lower - . compared with . years, sui-
cide rates higher - % compared with %,
family relationships often less solid and egos
frequently more fragile than for women. And
men are also victims of discrimination albeit
across a narrower front, particularly if they are
good fathers in failed domestic relationships.
More generally as for the family: for gen-
erations, if not forever, women have been
deprived of opportunities to make full lives
for themselves outside the home. There has
been tremendous progress in righting this
injustice. But the progress has posited diffi-
culties for women who have significant lives
within the home, both because societal recog-
nition is not always wholehearted and because
the maternal instinct often conflicts with the
impetus of an education and career. Happily
too, it has also become normal for men to play
full - though perhaps less often equal - roles in
the home, including in child-rearing. Village
has little sympathy for men who fail to avail of
these opportunities but a great deal of sympa-
thy for men who wish to avail of the opportu-
nities but, for reasons of economy or the law,
cannot. The paternal figures less than the
maternal instinct in the discourse. Men’s rights
to engage fully with their children - and indeed
the corollary rights of children to fully engage
with their fathers, are not adequately recog-
nised in law. For example, paternal leave is
not the norm in this country. More funda-
mentally, a mother may object to an unmar-
ried father’s Guardianship application even if
the father can show he is willing to play a full
role as father; and without Guardianship such
a father’s rights, including to take decisions on
important matters regarding the child, are infe-
rior. If men have shown a sustained willing-
ness to play a full role as a father they should
be afforded equal rights, usually including to
guardianship, access and custody. This should
be as self-evidently in the best interests of the
child as the mother’s cognate rights.
Inequality is a general negative reality for
women. But equality for women should not
be an imperative that excludes indignation at
the deprival of certain rights of men. The fact
that women are still losers in equality overall
does not mean that there is no scope for vin-
dicating men’s rights that are not, or are not
adequately, recognised. Village is a fully-sub-
scribed adherent to feminism because it is still
the case that women have fewer opportunities
in society - across a range of sectors. Village
is a reluctant subscriber too to masculinism
because in family life men, for historic reasons
that for the most part have no continuing worth,
are often held unequal. Whether the discrim-
ination is against women or against men we
should all be more content when it is eliminated
and we are all treated as equal - because we are
all, men and women, equal.
On clerical participation
in bloodsports
Dear Editor
As we digest report after report laying bare the
nefarious deeds committed against young chil-
dren by elements of the Irish Catholic church,
let us not forget that another strand of abuse
exists namely the treatment of the non-human
members of our society by these dog-collared
demigods. .
The high level of Catholic clergy involved in
bloodsports is a scandal that hurts the non-hu-
man members of our society. For years, priests
have been involved in hare coursing, fox hunting
and shooting. Their involvement in these evil
activities has debased the teachings of the Church
that they subscribe too. It sends out a message
that abusing and killing animals for fun is an
acceptable element of being a good Catholic.
The sickening sight of priests blessing
hounds while wishing hunt followers a good
hunting season is offensive and shows no
respect for creation. For the so-called lead-
ers of our moral guidance to mix with animal
abusers shows how comfortable some priests
are within a climate of fear and abuse.
Yours faithfully,
John Tierney
Campaign Director,
Association of Hunt Saboteurs
Dublin
On the insidious new Centre
for Effective Services
Dear Editor
I warmly welcome Niall Crowley’s case for a
new political class, (Village Magazine, Nov,
Dec ) and his plea for a new type of partici-
pation in the democratic process. However,
having worked in the community and adult
education field for over twenty years, I con-
sider that the current régime is working
actively against the building of this kind of
capacity.
For example, when I started in this field,
adult and community education was reach-
ing out to marginalised and neglected people,
citizens within communities who had been
failed by the education and the economic sys-
tems and those who had been excluded from
the public domain, such as women working
at home, people with disabilities, and unem-
ployed people. At that time, the Department
of Social Community and Family Affairs sup-
ported community groups to create educa-
tion programmes, services for unemployed
people, childcare and so on. Indeed, the
Community Development Programme, CDP,
was explicitly designed to address the needs
of these groups and individuals.
However, the move of community-related
affairs to the Department of Community,
Gaeltacht and Rural Affairs has led to the
gradual erosion of support for the commu-
nity sector, and now the final death knell is
sounding, through the work of the Centre for
Effective Services.
The Centre for Effective Services was
established in to focus on services to
children and families and to streamline these
services to serve their needs, I presume out-
side of the education and health systems.
Its role is to provide technical and
organisational expertise to organisations
in Ireland that offer support to children and
families at community level.
If the primary role was to offer support
to children, you would assume that it would
start with child support agencies. However,
the first action of the Centre was to review
local and community development work.
Its terms of reference, set out in a docu-
ment available on the website, were to apply
learning from international best practice,
to find out ‘what works’ in the current pro-
grammes, and to make recommendations for
improvements where appropriate.
However, in practice, CES is identifying
programmes that do not conform to ‘inter-
national best practice’ and cutting off fund-
ing which they got on the basis of their work
for marginal people and communities under
a model that developed in Ireland in the
absence of state provision of these kinds of
supports.
The real outrage is at the attack on the
least well off: people who are disenfran-
chised in so many ways, in such an under-
handed manner, while purporting to improve
support for them.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Bríd Connolly
Lecturer, Department of Adult and
Community Education,
National University of Ireland,
Maynooth, Co Kildare
On a woman’s place
Dear Editor
It’s just too easy (and lazy) of Villager to have
a go at Dev’s Constitution of and quote
selectively from Article as many have
done before on the recognition given to the
role of women in the home.
Mrs Justice Susan Denham of the Supreme
Court has argued that Article . “does not
assign women to a domestic role”.
Instead she says that it “recognises the
signficant role played by wives and mothers
in the home. This recognition and
acknowledgement does not exclude
women and mothers from other roles and
activities.” The Chief Justice, Mr John Murray,
also feels that the Constitution “implicitly
recognises similarly the value of a man’s con-
tribution in the home as a parent”.
What’s more, the late and much-respected
Mr Justice Brian Walsh of the Supreme Court and
the European Court of Human Rights was sur-
prised that no woman has yet taken a case to
have the next part of Article honoured by
the State. That’s the part which says that the
State shall “endeavour to ensure that mothers
shall not be obliged by economic necessity to
engage in labour”. Of course this referred only
to women then - it was written over years
ago. Mr Justice Walsh was opposed to deleting
Article .. “because it imposes an obliga-
tion on the State to do something in this area.
There’s no point in relieving the State of an obli-
gation which the Constitution imposes on it.”
It might surprise the male bastion of the
Village (as alluded to in your search for more
women writers) that there are many women
who only wish they could stay at home to care
for their own children, even for a few years.
There are many couples who can no longer
make the choice to have either partner at
home given the size of many mortgages and
there are men who would gladly trade hours
in the workplace for more hours at home with
their children. For all these people Article
.. offers recognition of the contribu-
tion families make to our society - which is
more than just an economy after all.
Yours faithfully,
Jill Nesbitt
Br ay,
Co Wicklow
“there are many
women who only
wish they could
stay at home to
care for their own
children”
