Vision in national women's plan inadequate

This week Mary Wallace announced a draft National Plan for women, designed to facilitate the implementation of the Bejing Platform for Action (PfA) which was framed at the UN global conference on women in 1995.

There is much that is important in the PfA. For example, discrimination against the girl child in many countries could mean she might not even be allowed to be born, and if she is, will receive less food, education and opportunity than her brother. Similarly, real discrimination against women, such as lack of equal pay for equal work, or of educational opportunity, remains a crucial issue.

However, the PfA goes far beyond that, and so does the Government strategy. The underlying ideology is that women are by their nature oppressed and that their oppressors are men. In this view, the answer is to ensure economic independence for women, and that means participation in the paid workforce.

Even in regimes where oppression by males is blatantly obvious, such as that of the Taliban in Afghanistan, it turns out on examination not to be so simple. Even in Afghanistan, are all men oppressing all women? Or would it be more true to say that some men are inflicting savage restrictions on women while also inflicting suffering on some other men such as the Hindus who were told to wear a yellow identifying strip? When we move away from the Taliban to the Western world, it becomes even more murky. Can we say, for example, Mary Harney is oppressed because of her gender? Or that she is more affected by that than an unemployed man from Dublin South West is affected by poverty and lack of access to the structures of power?

I believe the answer to that is No. That is not to say that women do not suffer specific and real discrimination, much less to say that men are now the more oppressed gender. It is simply to say that adherence to a certain strand of feminist ideology is woefully inadequate as an explanation of the complexities of people's lives.

Sadly, it is this inadequate vision of feminism which informs much of the draft National Plan. Research commissioned by the Department of Justice was distributed in the press packs. This report, The development of Mechanisms to Monitor Progress in Achieving Gender Equality in Ireland, by Dr Yvonne Galligan, contains much that is interesting and valuable. But it also declares as a fact: "Nevertheless, the legacy of women's subordination has led to continued discriminations against women. These discriminations are socially constructed. They can be economic, such as women's lower income and less access to wealth than men."

Women's lower income is a great deal more complex than alleged subordination to men. When you compare childless women of comparable educational background to men, you find that the income disparity almost disappears. When you compare women who are parents to men, the picture is different.

Feminists of the old school would declare that this proves their point, that the disproportionate amount of caring for children which women do damages their lifetime earning capacity. However, this ignores many women's desire to take time out to dedicate themselves to being mothers, and also reinforces the idea that only paid work is valuable.

Sure, organisations such as the National Women's Council give lip service to the counting of women's unpaid work in the national economy. If it is so important, why the emphasis on lifetime earnings in paid employment? Resulting disparities in pensions could be dealt with in other ways.

The Draft Plan declares: "Ireland will advance a strategy aimed at increasing the proportion of women in employment, promoting family-friendly policies in employment, increasing childcare places and taking action with the aim of reducing the gender pay gap." This is boggling, given the furore there was about individualisation. It is as if that debate never happened, as if it is an unquestionable good that all women should be in the paid work force. Once again, family-friendly is code for facilitating work outside the home.

Even more disappointing is the section on violence against women. It, too, operates in some kind of bubble which ignores all the scientific evidence that a minority of men are violent and so are a minority of women.

Quoting the PfA, Yvonne Galligan declares: "Violence has been identified as a mechanism used by State and society to keep women in a subordinate position". How then do we explain large gender-neutral prevalence studies which indicate that domestic violence, serious and minor, is as likely to be inflicted on men by their partners as vice versa?

These studies show that, in approximately half of all intimate relationships where domestic violence occurs, both partners use violent acts, with the remainder divided equally between male-only violence and female-only violence. That is not to deny that the outcomes for women are often more severe. But it does not fit a neat stereotype of women as oppressed gender.

Mary Wallace has declared a wish to consult widely. I wish her luck. When it comes to consultation, some women are more equal than others. For example, the National Women's Council is allegedly the largest women's representative body in the State. However, it is avowedly feminist, which leaves those who either were never feminist or are recovering feminists with nowhere to go.

I know they have 154 women's organisations as affiliates, but it is profoundly undemocratic because affiliation is not the same as membership. The only way affiliates can directly affect policy is by passing motions at the a.g.m. Last year it took hours to achieve a quorum, and this year the NWC are begging affiliates to attend. That's hardly a great advertisement for their representative capacity.

Twenty years ago, in The Sceptical Feminist, Janet Radcliffe Richards pointed out that justice only for women quickly becomes no justice at all. Worse still is the prospect of "justice" as defined by a narrow version of feminism which excludes many of the real concerns of women. Mortgages, for example, are more relevant to women's oppression than most of the PfA will ever be. But who will be there to represent that voice in the consultation process on this draft plan?

bobrien@irish-times.ie