Last week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he would like to see a referendum on the provision of the Constitution that acknowledges the support that women in their homes give to the State. In its interim report, the Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality recommended that article 41.2 be deleted and replaced with non-gender specific language. Ivana Bacik, the Labour Party leader who chairs the committee, described the article as an “outdated gender stereotype” that had “no place in a constitutional text”.
This is the latest example of the gender-erasing mania that has gripped society of late. (It is notable that it is only ever the female gender being erased.) It started long ago with the erasure of feminine suffixes, as when authoress became author and actress became actor. Then breast-feeding became “chest-feeding” and expectant mothers became “pregnant people”. Now the only mention of the word “woman” in the Constitution is to be erased.
Progress and removing outdated things is all very well, but before we consign something to the rubbish heap, we would do well to understand the reason for its existence in the first place, lest we discover afterwards we have destroyed something valuable.
Those who have experienced a mother’s loving influence in the home are acutely conscious of the vital role that a woman plays in the life of her family
Contrary to some reports, article 41.2 of the Constitution does not state that a woman’s place is in the home. Rather, it acknowledges the invaluable work that women do in the home. It is proper that it should.
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Those who have experienced a mother’s loving influence in the home are acutely conscious of the vital role that a woman plays in the life of her family. For those who have not, its absence is felt even into adulthood. Article 41.2, therefore, expresses a universal and timeless truth when it “recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”. Her role is rightly treated as foundational to the family, and consequently to society. That is why the acknowledgment belongs in our society’s foundational document.
Strangely, feminists who decry the article as outdated, also bemoan the fact that women’s unpaid work in the home is not recognised and contributes to the so-called “gender pay gap”. Yet in their next breath, they exhort us to remove any recognition of that work from our Constitution.
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The criticism that article 41.2 is outdated falls at the first hurdle. All women invest time in their homes, not just those who are at home full-time. The reality is that a minority of women with young children work full-time outside the home (just over 42 per cent, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and many make adjustments to work flexibly, or from home, to achieve that “life within the home” to which the Constitution refers. Other mothers working outside the home work part-time – often to have more time at home with their children.
In any event, the provision applies to all women and mothers. Is the vision of woman as home-maker a gender stereotype? Perhaps. But that is not the question. The question should be: is it true? The self-evident answer is: yes. The fact is that women are, always have been, and always will be, more interested and invested in the finer details of home life than men. That is not to say that men do not contribute to the home, or that all women are interested only in the home. It is merely to acknowledge the universal truth that a woman makes a house a home, and the work she does in creating a supportive, nurturing environment for her family is beyond price. Its value is such that the State could never afford to pay for it.
Of course, there is another undertone – or admonition – in Bacik’s statement: if you, as a woman, are considering leaving behind your high-flying career to stay at home to mind your own baby, it is you who are an “outdated gender stereotype”.
Why is it an insult to one’s sex or an outdated notion to want to create a home? To care for one’s own family?
It is sad to see women, like politicians, who are praised for their achievements, seek to deny some small recognition to those who, by remaining at home, choose a different way of life – a smaller way of life in the eyes of society, and one that gets no public recognition generally. There are award ceremonies for women in almost every non-domestic field of endeavour. There are scholarships offered to young women, simply because they are women. There is recognition by civic institutions and print and broadcast media of women who are “trailblazers” in their careers. But the diversity brigade stops there; one small sentence in the Constitution praising the quiet work done by women in their homes is too much.
It is difficult not to regard the current push for amendment as yet another typical, reactionary response. Lacking the humility or wisdom required to understand why those who came before us saw fit to pay constitutional tribute to the women and mothers of this country, our current political class simply sees words it finds triggering, and immediately calls for them to be expunged.
Why is it an insult to one’s sex or an outdated notion to want to create a home? To care for one’s own family? Why is it emancipation for a woman to look after someone else’s home, teach someone else’s children, work for someone else’s husband, but not her own? And should a woman devote time to caring for her own family, why is it too much to ask that all the countless hours she puts into that invaluable work be recognised by the State – even if the recognition be mere lip service?