Aisling Curtis | Senior Staff Writer
As we all know, the student body recently elected its largest ever number of female sabbats, as well as the first female president and ents officer in over ten years. It was a watershed moment, a major success for the Women for Election campaign that ran this year, a crucial point amongst the younger generation in Ireland. With representation among TDs in the Dáil still hovering at an abysmal 26 women out of 166, a Students’ Union comprising 80 per cent women is an unprecedented success.
45 years ago, the Dáil featured only 3 female TDs, so congratulations to equality for progressing by a further 23. At that time, women also couldn’t buy contraceptives, drink in pubs, keep their jobs if they married, outright own their own home, refuse sex with their husband, or take a restraining order against a physically abusive partner. Times have changed for the better, and now there is nothing that a man can outright do in Ireland that I also can’t do.
But are we equal yet?
A male friend recently told me he was tired of apologising for the mistakes of his gender, of his contemporaries and his forefathers. Frustrated, he told me that he couldn’t fathom why, though the structures are now in place, they’re still often not used. But, sadly, it’s not as easy as giving people the opportunities and expecting them to latch onto them, when they’ve been told – quietly and intrusively – their entire lives that those opportunities aren’t for them. Its not as easy as telling women: look, here’s this seat in parliament, here’s this CEO position. The barriers we faced in the past were explicit and tangible and so simple to directly address: remove the overt discrimination, remove the blatant prejudicial prevention, and – voilà! – surface equality has been achieved. The barriers we face now are implicit at different levels, not in plain sight. Silent barriers placed upon women, and barriers that they place upon themselves.
Various psychological studies have shown that girls receive lower marks on maths tests when they’re marked by name, but higher when marked anonymously; that a laboratory applicant with a male name is more likely to be rated as competent and offered a higher starting salary; that women who negotiated for higher salaries were penalised more than men; and that the subtle shades of linguistics in STEM job listings can influence the appeal and sense of belongingness that women feel, and affect their likelihood of applying to the job. These inequalities were enforced by both men and women. Women were just as likely to rate the male candidate as more hireable than the female, and penalised all candidates for negotiating in their jobs.
There’s this unpleasant idea that surfaces from certain corners, that feminists hate men and think they are the source of their inequality woes. And yet women are just as responsible for facilitating the obstacles that litter the path to success. It’s not the fault of “men” – either the tangible group, or this hazy mythical construct that dangles equality out of my reach. The rational, educated men I know are perfectly happy to see women achieve their same success.
Instead, the problem is this: it’s difficult to eradicate structures and norms that are implicit in a society, elusive and intangible, shaping the most unconscious strata of our minds. An understanding of gender roles manifests in early childhood; social-learning and cognitive developmental theories suggest that we’re highly motivated to acquire the roles and interests of the “boy” or “girl” self-image that we have assumed. When boys and girls are driven at the most intrusive level to pay more attention to their gender roles, to what other men and women are doing, to their own-gender models and to those in positions of power who share gender with them, it’s easy to see how women can fail to put themselves forward, to take positions even if the option to do so is there.
But the election of four women to the Students’ Union shows that consciously targeting an issue can result in capable individuals running when they might’ve been reluctant before. Though the opportunities may be in place, we can’t just assume that our job here is done. Years of cultural norms weigh upon us, shaping both those who want an opportunity, and those who give it to them. Though we all look forward to a day when it’s not a big deal what the gender split is, inadvertent inequality is still alive and well. We must be sure to address that too.
