Women In Politics - Gisele O'Connell

As the first in a number of articles and interviews marking international women’s day, Gisele O’Connell from Carlow shares her views on women’s role in politics;

Women have consistently had a subordinate position within the political sphere. At no time in history has the number of women elected to Dàil Èireann surpassed fourteen per cent of total membership. In spite of significant social changes, the use of a proportional electoral system and no obvious bias among voters, the number of female Teachtaì Dàla (TDs) remains stubbornly low by international standards.

There are many causes for the lack of representation of women in politics. Part of this is due to the degree to which society has historically held a negative attitude towards the involvement of women in politics. Many people still hold somewhat traditionalist assumptions regarding a woman’s place in society. There are also on-going concerns about the challenge presented to women in combining motherhood with employment. However, I believe it is fair to state that this attitude is gradually shifting and therefore, it is a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation!

So what exactly is being done to encourage more women into political activism and participation? We are aware of the Oireachtas crèche facility and also the rather generous paid maternity scheme. These incentives are an effective way of making our political institutions more family orientated and less male dominant. However, many of the difficulties for women to emerge onto the political scene are due to candidate emergence at the nomination stages of the election game. Due to this, there have been several Government proposals such as changing our electoral system to that of a list based system. This would mean that political parties would have to put a list of candidates forward to run in an election with a certain proportion of these to be female. Furthermore, there are current proposals to introduce a ‘Quota System’. This would entail that political parties would be encouraged to run a certain percentage of women to stand for an election or else they may run the risk of losing state funding. However, there are arguments for and against this scheme. Some individuals claim that this will certainly improve the male to female ratio within Dàil Èireann, which is of course, a positive step forward. Interestingly enough, the opposition to this has been predominantly driven by feminists who believe that this will only encourage a ‘token female’ in public office. Furthermore, they claim that any position or job should be rewarded solely on merit rather than on an obligation purely based on gender, race, age and so on. Whatever initiative is taken, it has to be acknowledged that we are now finally beginning to see the benefits of a woman’s voice in parliament.

I believe we need a woman’s voice in politics to represent the concerns of women today which may be overlooked by our male counterparts. It is imperative that we see an increase in female representation which will not only voice the concerns of motherhood and parenting in the current climate but can also add very unique opinions and will offer a different vantage point on topical issues which may be neglected by men. Furthermore, I believe if we succeed in achieving better representation, it will create a more dynamic and exciting parliament which will be echoed across the global stage.