For years, Ireland has prided itself on the determination of its voters to extract themselves from a constitutional straitjacket of Catholic social teaching and anachronistic views about women and girls.
The liberal torch was lit in earnest in 1995, when the people of this former Catholic outpost voted to remove its constitutional ban on divorce, albeit by a hair’s breadth. Ireland found itself on firmer ground in 2015, when the constitutionally recognised institution of marriage, on which the family is based, was extended to same-sex couples. That same year, the country passed, without incident, its Gender Recognition Act, allowing trans people to apply to have their preferred gender legally recognised by the state.
The progressive holy trinity appeared to become whole when, three years later, Ireland comprehensively overturned its constitutional ban on abortion.
But Irish women who, like women all over the world, disproportionately bear the burden of domestic duties and caregiving – without which the staying power of systemic patriarchy or global economic output could not hold – have always known the crowns we wear are still crooked.
And so it has proved, after the unequivocal rejection of two proposed changes to the Irish constitution, a document that dates from 1937 and whose provisions on the role of women, caregiving and the nature of the family were written under the Catholic church’s unmistakeable influence.
That the referendums were held simultaneously on International Women’s Day, and the stunning defeats were delivered just in time for Mother’s Day, has only added insult to injury to an antagonised electorate who turned up in greater numbers (the national turnout was 44%) than this constitutional debacle anticipated.
In the first referendum, defeated by 67.7% to 32.3%, the government had asked citizens to expand the constitutional definition of family from being “founded on marriage” to include “durable relationships” such as cohabiting couples and their children.
It did so without providing guidance or reassurance on what a durable relationship might constitute. This, despite the fact that Ireland, an enthusiastic member of the EU, had already transposed the concept into Irish law to meet its EU legal obligations. Irish courts have also already confirmed that durability is a steep hill to climb.
It wasn’t just anxious farmers fearing estate wipeouts or succession wars by throuples, “poly pods” or “non-nuclear” offspring who had concerns.
As we learned in a near comical 11th-hour leak, Ireland’s attorney general wasn’t convinced it could be predicted how the courts would in the future, interpret the term “durable relationship”. This unpublished advice, coupled with the general failure to provide adequate guidance, contributed to a stunning rebuke of non-marital families, despite the fact that more than 40% of Irish babies are born outside of the traditional family based on marriage.
So much for valuing all the children of the nation equally.
In the second referendum, the proposal was to replace article 41.2, an outdated, largely inoperative and, for many, offensively sexist clause around mothers’ “duties in the home” with a new clause. The proposal recognised that family members provide care for one another regardless of gender, but appeared to let the state off the hook.
That referendum was preceded by a thoughtful and thought-provoking citizen’s assembly on gender equality whose recommendations were ignored by government. The government’s proposal went down in flames by a historically high “no” margin of 73.9% to 26.1%.
But the notion that this drubbing is, as some campaigners claim, a victory for motherhood in general, or stay-at-home mothers in particular – let alone carers and people with disabilities, whose voices were largely ignored in the referendums – is misleading.
Had there been a proposal merely to remove the offensive women in the home provision, it would probably have been consigned to history where it belongs. Instead, many women, including close friends and contemporaries, were placed in the invidious position of voting to retain the clause in order to express their contempt for the care amendment. The irony will not be lost on women, who make up 98% of full-time carers and 80% of paid care workers in Ireland.
The road to the failed family amendment stands in stark contrast to the information campaign and parliamentary scrutiny process that preceded the same-sex marriage referendum. And it stands in even greater contrast to the abortion referendum that went through a full process of scrutiny by parliament, including the publication of draft legislation signalling the probable shape of abortion law if the constitutional ban was overturned.
A cynic might surmise that these referendums were set up to fail, such were the confusing and lacklustre campaigns and the rushed means of launching them.
With local, European and general elections looming, these constitutional questions will not be revisited in the lifetime of the current coalition government. Not only have we retained the highly offensive women in the home provision, there is now nothing in the constitution that values care in the home or in the community.
There are lessons here for other countries. And that is because the complex issues surrounding the extent to which governments should recognise (and fund) enforceable socioeconomic rights, as well as the provision of childcare, specialist disability services and elder care, is not going anywhere anytime soon. Nor are declining fertility rates, shrinking workforces and rapidly ageing populations, not to mention the wildcard of migration, which played an alarming cameo role in Irelands’s family and care referendums.
These factors are fuelling anxious debates in many developed economies struggling with slowdowns in population growth, and in countries that are fighting far right and fascistic/“incel” movements agitating to row back on the rights of women and girls.
If we are to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, we need to go back to the drawing board and have an honest conversation about the vital social and economic contribution of women, inside and outside the home. We need to stop trying to “fix” women into a society and workforce designed by and for men, but instead design barrier-free societies for all.
Now that we’re stuck with it, maybe Irish women should make belated use of our 87-year-old “women in the home” provision, finding new and ingenious ways to flex its potential. If we accept the undeniable reality that the common good can’t be achieved without the unpaid work of women, and that work commands constitutional protection – in the form of financial compensation and other benefits – imagine how empowered women would be, the resources they would have and how much more equal the world would be?
Come to think of it, a constitution that actually recognised the contribution of women? Maybe that’s what a potent system of patriarchy fears most of all.
Dearbhail McDonald is an Irish journalist and author
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