Women are expected to do the majority of the unpaid work of caring for others, writes AILISH CONNELLY.
WHEN MY daughter was born, one of the first things that was said to me by a well-meaning visitor, who had had the decency to show up with a big box of chocs for moi, was that now I could relax, I had a girl to look after me in my dotage. Pardon? There I was, proud as punch of my new girl child, thinking things had changed, that we had moved on from the cheerless, monochromed, 1950s perspectives, that my beautiful daughter, born at the dawn of a new century, would benefit from an enlightened age. Belgian chocolates in his paw or not, only the stitches restrained me from hopping across the bed to pop him one.
"Women make up more than half the world's population, yet perform two-thirds of its work, receive one-tenth of its income and own less than one-hundredth of its property." Such went the informal slogan for the United Nations Decade for Women which ran from 1976 to 1985.
The numbers haven't moved much in the 20 odd years since, and we may examine the statement and deduce that it really doesn't apply to us, does it, living here and now in the new Ireland, with our equality legislation and jobs for the girls? That's for the poor unfortunates you might see photographed in the broadsheets, with the misery and decrepitude etched into their faces, beings who could possibly be from another planet, one which we throw some scraps to, when our consciences are sufficiently pricked.
Except, who is it gets the phone call to bring the ailing relative to the hospital appointment? Who are the ones expected to provide the majority of the care for the young and the aged in this country? Who is to be on hand day or night when the phone rings, to make sure the medication is taken? Mná na hÉireann. That's who. Before Im accused of making vast generalisations, I know a significant number of men - sons, brothers, nurses and doctors etc are involved in caring roles and professions and are voluntary and involuntary caregivers to ageing or sick relatives.
But it is a cross-cultural fact that women are expected to do the majority of the unpaid work of caring for others, whether that woman is wrapped in a hijab or high-stepping it in Louboutin heels and a Diane Von Furstenburg dress. Geography, social class, religion or income matter little in a world where caregiving is a gender issue. And if you don't do it because you have other family commitments or a job, if you pay for someone else to do it, then you are stuck with the guilt.
The proliferation of ads on the internet for private carers for the elderly, for instance, would attest to the beginnings of a sea change in attitude towards this whole difficult, emotionally fraught, area. But if you are a woman you are almost duty-bound and, if you are a single woman, what else would you be doing?
If we are box-marked as carers, in the business world women are also stereotyped as bitches and bullies. A woman can only get to the top by tramping all over everybody else. At least the BBC had the sense on The Apprentice to show both genders bitching and bullying, ludicrously self-obsessed young men and women, who espouse such views as "I don't have regrets, I do what I do and deal with the consequences", from one Helen Speight, and, "there are two kinds of people in the world, winners and . . . I dont know how to spell the other word . . . I can't say it", the latter gem from self-effacing fired contestant, Ian Stringer.
In the gilded world of Sex and the City, the movie, rumours swirling around the set had it that the four women stars were at each other's throats. They couldn't possibly be just friends or work colleagues, fatigued at the idea of working again in such an intense atmosphere, having done so for the guts of the previous decade and perhaps slightly jaundiced at the prospect of starting up the whole intrusive merry-go-round once more.
There had to have been intrigue and manipulation at work to get them to sign on the dotted line. Or was it just good business sense to go for it? How many offers of jobs will you get in your mid-forties and fifties with a multimillion-dollar pay cheque?
A captain of her industry and writer extraordinaire, Marian Keyes, used a quote similar to the United Nations one recently in one of her radio interviews about her new book, This Charming Man, a book which explores violence against women. Some women I know have been buying the book to give as presents to other women friends who mysteriously, as Roddy Doyle put it, "walk into doors". Keyes has done a huge service to all women by writing with such humour and pathos about this dark subject.
And that's the thing, women help each other, in all sorts of ways. They turn up to celebrations with joints of ham and salads and trays of cakes under their arms. They wash and clean, ferry and fetch, listen and advise, and they generally don't get paid for it.
My daughter will have many opportunities open to her. She may climb any mountain but many of the peaks she will have to conquer are societal attitudes towards her gender.