Friday 8 March 2013

How equal are women in Irish society?





Today marks International Womens Day around the world. Women in Ireland are constitutionally guaranteed equal rights to that of their male counterparts but has Irish society atually come that far? On paper its all well and good but in practice are Irish women still suffering from lack of equality in practice?

PW users and members have documented the grave injustices in the Irish courts and the difference in sentences for perpetrators of sexual violence and those whom carry out what society would deem less serious offences (
http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=13220). Some attackers have been asked to pay a fine in lieu of a custodial sentence and others have been given community service all without a second thought from the judge on the ramifications on the decisions and how they would affect the victims as a whole.

Twenty One years on, days after the X Case anniversary, a women still does not have the right to decide the fate of a foetus in her womb merci a la influence from a staunch Catholic set up and conservative coffin dodger politicians whose notion of womens rights come straight out of Misogny for idiots. Each year thousands of women are forced to 'get the boat' as the expression has become known because of a lack of adequate options for women to decide how they live their lives.

The Civil Service still sees a lot of the top positions dominated by a male hierarchy (
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...311048868.html) keeping women down the pecking order. All a person has to do is to look at the Dail to see that most of the positions are taken up by men and the political appointments are particularly male dominated , is politics a male only pursuit?

I could go on and talk about the Magdalene Laundries and the men like Neary whom were removing wombs unchecked in the HSE whilst he was a medical practitioner. Ireland still has a long way to go, we are doing the minimum but its just not good enough...


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