Women challenged to use equality differently

Merriman Summer School: Institutionalised male attitudes to the role of women in society remain much as they were, for all the liberating legislation of the past 30 years, according to the chairperson of the Arts Council, Ms Olive Braiden.

Ms Braiden was addressing the 37th annual Merriman Summer School in Ennistymon, Co Clare, yesterday.

In a paper entitled, "Is it true that the women are worse than the men?", the former director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre claimed that "in attempting to secure for themselves a greater role in politics and public office, women are getting virtually nowhere".

Ms Braiden said that it seemed over the past 40 years that the more things had changed, the more they had stayed the same.

She said: "The images and role models being projected on to young women continue to be as unrealisable and as doomed to failure as ever.

"If before, in my youth, you could not be too holy, well now you cannot be too thin. If before, the model for womanhood was to be 'serving of others' to the point of self-abasement, then today the model is 'go and get it' at any cost."

Ms Braiden, however, noted that "the profound positive change for women in my lifetime is that women are increasingly the authors of their own fortunes and sometimes misfortunes. Equality is very slowly taking root . . . that is a huge shift - the shift from dependence to independence."

However, in spite of the shift, Ms Braiden said that "for a significant segment of the population, this fundamental change in the status of women has not been seen to be entirely beneficial, either for themselves or for society as a whole."

Such criticism pointed to the downside of a "liberated society" - an increasing abuse by women, young women in particular, of alcohol, nicotine and other harmful drugs. Serious questions were also being asked as to the effect on the male psyche of the increasingly independent role of women.

Ms Braiden later asked: "If liberation is the liberation to allow the female mice on to the treadmill on the same terms as the male mice, what real progress has been achieved?

"In our increasingly materialistic society, what will be the long-term benefit for women if all they do is further fuel the greed that increasingly motivates our country and our people?

"Women have the memory, and many have the actual experience of discrimination and of oppression. The challenge now is not to become 'worse than the men' but to have the confidence to believe that a different model for society is possible. Surely this is what our experience teaches us."

She went on: "Now that women have choices, it is important that we are leaders and not just followers. Equality must mean more than being just another consumer. We have to have the confidence to contribute to the context and the shape of our society.

"The shape of the society I want for myself and for my family is different to the one I see growing up around me. Values, status, worth, are increasingly denominated in material terms alone. Cars, boats, exotic holiday homes and brand labels are the sub-conscious abacus for calculating the esteem in which we regard our neighbours and ourselves.

"I don't know if the women are worse than the men but I see no evidence to suggest that they are any better in this regard."