Token male the only title Nally will win

Whenever someone like myself timidly suggests that this presidential campaign is sexist, someone pipes up that isn't it strange we had nothing to say when the Presidency was dominated by men. The logic is clear: it's pay-back time for the patriarchal male who dominated his gentle sisters for so long.

I am not a patriarchal male. The fact that the Presidency was previously monopolised by individuals who all happened to be men did nothing to benefit me, or any other man I know. It is hardly to my credit but, in truth, I am more dominated over than dominating. Most of the men I know could say the same thing, although some of them find it advantageous, for the moment, to disingenuously join in the current wave of triumphalism at the sweeping away of the alleged past.

The fact that, up until 1990, the President was always a man was simply that - a fact, a consequence of history, an anomaly perhaps but certainly not something that gave me any power as a man. Moreover, there were obvious historical reasons why it was so. The nature of the labour market, virtually up until the beginning of the present decade, was such that most forms of work required a degree of physical strength, which is, in the main, a male attribute. It should not surprise us, therefore, that the economic and political hierarchy which developed to serve and oversee an economy based largely on physical labour was itself overwhelmingly male. To have it otherwise would have been deeply destabilising of society.

The nature of work is rapidly changing, however, and physical strength is not as relevant as it was. It is right and reasonable, therefore, that society's hierarchical structure should adapt accordingly. It is also right that women should fight for this to occur, and even that they should take extreme action to combat the inevitable inertia of the system. All systems are inert, not because they are male-dominated, but because they are systems.

The problem arises when we accept as gospel the caricatures of past behaviour which revolutionaries quite legitimately present to hasten the process of change. Thus, we acquiesce in a description of so-called "traditional" society as overwhelmingly male-dominated, patriarchal and misogynistic, when in reality it was simply the outcome of a pragmatic set of responses to the circumstances of the time.

From the convenient standpoint of hindsight, we describe a society in which all power lay with men. In truth, while most political and certain kinds of economic power did reside with men, there were other forms of power which we choose to ignore. Women had spending power, moral power over children and sexual power over men, but the revolutionary rhetoric does not seek to draw attention to such complexities.

It is inevitable that a response based on such selective remembering will be more in keeping with the caricature than the reality, and will invite into being a form of society which, far from reflecting the values underlying the revolutionaries' critique, will embody the extremes of revolutionary rhetoric. In our efforts to supplant a society which we misrepresent as gratuitously oppressive of women, we are in danger of creating a society gratuitously oppressive of men.

There are already lots of examples of how men are now the victims of the failure to deconstruct invisible forms of power: discrimination against fathers, the societal refusal to engage with the ethical dimension of gender relations, the double-bind which now threatens male strength with societal sanction and male weakness with ridicule and marginalisation.

The present election campaign reflects these trends in an unprecedentedly public and symbolic manner. The difference between this election and, say, the 1966 contest between Eamon de Valera and Tom O'Higgins, is not simply that this contest is female-dominated, whereas the previous contest was, allegedly, male-dominated. More fundamental is the fact that this contest is quite designedly, even gratuitously, female-dominated. (Despite Derek Nally's nomination, he will be no more than a token male candidate with no chance of success, tolerated only with a view to preventing embarrassment to the political process.)

This campaign, therefore, represents an implicit attack on men in a way that no previous presidential election was an attack on women. For this is not simply an instance of reverse discrimination with a view to obtaining an eventual overall balance, nor even tokenism taken to a ridiculous extreme. The most interesting thing about it is that it affirms a sensibility in our society which is deeply misandristic, which believes that men should now be downtrodden in a manner the rhetoric suggests women were downtrodden in the past.

The idea of a President for Mna na hEireann seemed like a good idea to begin with. As a symbol of the shift in our society from one set of norms to another, it was something that both women and most reasonable men could agree on. There was no reason to believe that, as President, Mrs Robinson would do other than uphold the ethical principles of the feminism for which she has been a lifelong advocate. But, because her Presidency was appropriated by an influential element of strident misandrists, it developed along quite different lines, coming to be perceived, not least by the President herself, as predominantly a Presidency for women.

Thus, while it was trumpeted as evidence of a move towards a more pluralist and inclusive society, it symbolised simply a thrust for different forms of exclusion and oppression.

FOR example? Well, for the past seven years, President Robinson has been up and down the country reaching out to women's organisations of every size, shape and hue. This was good. However, there is one serious and committed organisation in this State which devotes itself to fighting against the kind of invisible discrimination which more and more serves to make the lives of men unbearable. This is Parental Equality, which helps fathers fight the system for the right to be with their own children.

Two years ago, the chairman of PE, Mr Liam O Gogain, wrote to Mrs Robinson explaining the aims and concerns of his organisation. He asked that representatives of PE be allowed to visit the President, to explain what they were seeking to achieve. She refused, citing her heavy workload.

In the present scheme of things in modern Ireland, this is of no consequence. If there was evidence that a leading male politician, let alone a male President, had refused to meet, for example, the representatives of an organisation campaigning for unmarried mothers, there would be uproar. That would be a story. But there is no feeding frenzy to draw attention to discrimination against men, and so this incident has no news value.

This hypocrisy is one element of what we now seek to institutionalise in what will be our first premeditatedly sexist Presidency.