The Constitution should be changed “without a shadow of a doubt” to reflect changes in the roles of women in society today, says May Fitzgerald (92).
This is the view of some elderly women who will be voting on the proposals to change constitutional references to the role of women in referendums to take place on March 8th.
In the ballots, the Government proposes expanding the definition of family in the Constitution to recognise “durable relationships”, such as cohabiting couples and their children, and replacing the language around “women in the home” with language recognising care within families.
The Irish Times spoke to a group of women at a Friends of the Elderly social event on Wednesday to ask about their views on the forthcoming votes.
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“In my early days of marriage, companies wouldn’t take women into the job. It’s not that you didn’t want to work, or your husband didn’t want you to work. Companies didn’t take women because they were married,” she said.
“If my husband was alive now I’d be 68 years married. When I was a young one, I worked in the printing trade, but when I got married that was the end of my working career. There was no question of me looking for a job of any description.”
Women today were “highly educated, they have the same degrees as the men, and they’re capable of concentrating on their children and their home and going out to work as well”, Fitzgerald said, while men now “do a lot of the help in the home”.
“Any of them I know, you’d see them wheeling out the babies and they know how to feed them. When I got married, my husband didn’t know one end of the child from another,” she joked, adding that the Constitution should be changed to reflect the changing roles of men and women in society today.
Fitzgerald said she would be voting in a way that she felt would be good for her grandchildren and their future.
“At my age [the referendum] wouldn’t be that high up on my list, but I have to think of my grandchildren and their future,” she said.
However, while Fitzgerald will “definitely” vote, “nothing has come in the door” in the way of information on the referendum so far, she said.
At the Friends of the Elderly social event others said they had the same problem.
Dublin woman May, who did not want to give her surname, said: “I’m aware it’s coming up, but I don’t particularly know much about it because we need booklets to read it and see what it’s about.
“Hearing it on the television, it’s so quick, so it doesn’t register. Whereas if you have a booklet it sinks in better,” May said, adding that she “always votes” but has to take more time to consider her stance.
“I was a woman that was in the home from the day I got married. My ex-husband wouldn’t allow me to work,” she said.
Asked whether she felt that women who worked in the home during those years got enough respect for this work, May said: “Well, I didn’t.”
The proposed changes to the Constitution in this referendum was not of high priority to her, May said, and she would not be in favour of the changes to the definition of the family, saying: “To me it’s always been a man and a woman.”
Betty, from Dublin, who also did not want to give her surname, said she had “fought long enough to get a vote” and would turn out on March 8th when she had made a decision.
“A mother needs to be there, I think so anyway. I spent my life with mine ... I was just happy to tod along, mind the kids, the husband was working, worked all his life. We had a comfortable living. I’m a bit old to change my ways,” Betty said.
The referendum would not make any practical difference to people’s lives, Betty felt, saying: “The women were ruled, they’re not ruled any more now. It won’t make any difference to women nowadays.”
Rita Tracey (87) told The Irish Times she felt a woman’s place was in the home.
“I was always in the home rearing four sons. You should be in your home when your children are young and do what you like when they’re reared,” she said.
However, Tracey added that she had “worked all my life”, since the age of 14.
Asked whether the Constitution as it is made any difference to her life and ability to work while raising children, Tracey said: “Not at all.”
“I think they should pay the women to stay at home and then they would probably stay at home more,” Monica Finnerty said.
“I had no choice really because money wasn’t there to look after my children, so I had to go to work. I stopped working to rear my children but I didn’t know my husband was going to die in his 40s so then I worked until I was 65. I’ll study what they’re saying first and decide, but I’ll definitely vote, I always vote,” she said.
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