REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE CENTRE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN POLITICS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE LAUNCH OF THE CENTRE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN POLITICS AT QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY
If anyone ever asks why we need a centre for the advancement of women in politics please feel free to tell them this story!
In the summer of 1969, over thirty years ago, yes, but not exactly the Dark Ages, I was preparing to come to Queen’s to do law. Like all my fellow and sister undergraduates, I received a letter from the Faculty with strict instructions that we were to prepare ourselves for our studies by buying and reading a book called “Learning the Law” by one of the most eminent legal scholars of the day, Professor Glanville Williams.
I did as I was bid knowing this book was Holy Writ probably Holy Grail, the key to all that was to follow.
The reading was going well until close to the end on page 192, I ominously came to a section entitled very simply “Women.” There was no corresponding section entitled “Men”. The section opens with the following words:
‘It is difficult to write this section without being ungallant. Parliament, it is said, can do everything except make a man a woman or a woman a man. In 1919, in the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, it went as far as it could to perform the second feat. The results so far have not been striking’. He went on
‘Practice at the Bar, ….is difficult enough for a man: it is heartbreaking for a woman. She has a double prejudice to conquer: the prejudice of the solicitor and the prejudice of the solicitor’s lay client. Combined, these two prejudices are almost inexpugnable’. And still the man went on…
‘It is not easy for a young man to get up and face the court; many women find it harder still. A woman’s voice.., does not carry as well as a man’s.’
But thank God, we women had some glimmer of hope for according to the eminent Professor, the technical Bar qualification is a good enough stepping stone to posts that do not demand actual practice at the Bar. Most women barristers, if they do not marry, take this way out.’
Five years later in 1974 when I and two other undeterred women were called to the Bar of Northern Ireland, without a trace of irony, the gift presented to each of us by the Benchers on the day of our call was a specially bound copy of – yes, you guessed it – ‘Learning the Law’ by Glanville Williams.
What was true of the law then, was true of many, many spheres of life and in particular spheres of public influence, among them the sphere of politics which profoundly shapes so much of our lives. It is a story that is changing but a story of much unfinished business.
And that is why this Centre is so close to my heart and why I am particularly proud to be here, to launch it. This has to be a proud day for Queen’s men and women everywhere because the work of this Centre holds the promise of a world in which all the gifts, talents, insights and wisdom held by members of the human family are properly nurtured, harvested and used.
I commend those who had the foresight to make the establishment of this unique and much-needed Centre, a reality. To say that the people of this island have a keen interest in politics would be an understatement but when it comes to making politics, when it comes to active and full participation in public life, a manifest and worrying lop-sidedness is visible.
The politics of this island operates much like a bird on one wing or a car on three wheels. Anyone who wonders at our capacity to go around in circles or to take the long way to obvious destinations would do well to ask whether, and to what extent, it is because the political engine is firing on only half its available cylinders. I am sure that those of our male politicians and political leaders who have been champions of women’s equality and champions of a society rooted in balance and in justice, must at times have felt keenly the absence of the power and the insight of those other cylinders.
This Centre has the key to unlocking the whys of this reality and more importantly of being itself an agent of one of the most obvious and essential social corrections, by actively promoting the participation of women in political life.
The equal representation of women in political life is not just some rather vague nice aspiration like the cherry on top of the iced cake. What is missing is not the equivalent of the cherry - what is missing is much more critical, it is the leaven in the cake.
Anyone in public life knows only too well that political life is as burdensome as any life can possibly be. In politics there are no timetables but frequent deadlines, there is no assurance of career progression, there is plenty of risk, there is plenty of cynicism and little thanks, the rewards have all the altruistic and personal subtlety associated with vocations but the cost of those rewards is often high, and paid, not just by the politician, but by family and friends too.
No one could sensibly contest that a life dedicated to politics is anything but difficult and demanding for men, but the added traditional, cultural, societal and family pressures on women, in the absence of compensating support structures, mean that for many, the political life, or even the path which might eventually lead in that direction, is not seen or pursued as a viable option.
No society can afford to effectively exclude any one of its constituent elements let alone one half of that society. If we use only half our resource it can be no surprise that we realise only half our potential. What makes this Centre so exciting is the new opportunities it offers, the future vista it holds out of a society where the fullest potential will be helped to reveal itself.
The role of women is specifically referred to in the Good Friday Agreement which affirmed "the right of women to full and equal participation". While there is no specific legislation to support this commitment, the Northern Assembly elections saw the return of 14 women out of the total membership of 100 in the Assembly. In Dáil Eireann there are 21 women members among the 166 TD’s. In the last Westminster elections in Northern Ireland, it was marvellous to see women from a wide political spectrum break a decades long taboo and join their male colleagues on the back benches.
The numbers of women in each parliament is disconcertingly low and clearly we still have some considerable way to go to address the imbalance. The momentum though slow is however inexorably in the right direction but it needs help. The sheer excellence of the female role models now making their political contribution whether as MP’s, T.D’s, MLA’s or Ministers is already giving other young women pride and courage. Their positive witness is an essential part of the tools needed and this Centre is another.
I take great comfort from the fact that Glanville William’s book is so outdated today, that some women didn’t just submit to the prejudices and strictures which circumscribed their lives, but took them on, shifted their kilter, made them uncomfortable, made them unfashionable, exposed them for the inegalitarian, biased but poisonously powerful weapon they are. They are still taking them on day in and day out. Glanville William’s career as an eminent jurist would certainly come a cropper in front of the Equal Opportunities tribunals - for today we are not so much learning the law as unlearning those laws of man which created all those Thou Shalt Nots, specifically for women. This Centre will help us find a new energy with which to build a new culture of consensus through the full empowerment of women, an empowerment to political leadership without frontiers.
I would like to congratulate everyone associated with the establishment of this Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics. It is all the more pleasing for me that it has been established here in Queen’s where I spent very many happy days. I wish you well in your important work in the cause of women in politics which is the cause simply of politics itself.
Thank you.