How Coalition Deceives Women

mises by the political parties reflected the importance of women’s issues and the pressure which the women’s movement could bring to bear on votes. The politicians, whether they liked it or not, were forced to have policies on women. Issues such as equal employment, childrearing, divorce, family planning, Social Welfare inequalities, and even abortion were raised through pressure from women’s groups, and got a brief but public airing. Even the most backward politicians recognised that they must publicly make some stand on women’s issues.

Echoing this pressure, female representation in the Dail has also risen, giving potential to a hitherto lacking women’s voice in that great seat of male supremacy. Unlike previous election campaigns, where women were exhorted to vote for any famale candidate simply because she was a woman, women’s groups examined the candidates’ actual commitment to women’s issues.

But after the political mouthings and somersaults, what actually are we left with? In reality a sordid coalition deal between a bourgeois Fine Gael and an all but defunct Labour Party. Election promises not intended to be taken too seriously, are being quietly shelved. The special attention to women’s issues promised by Fine Gael has become so much brouhaha . The all too familiar ‘wait until later ladies’ rings out again.

One of the major carrots in the ‘women deserve better’ Fine Gael campaign was the £9.60 wages for housework promise. Even Fianna Fail was forced to react to the glossy ads which showed a dutiful housewife ironing her old man’s shirt. And it is this i image of the housewife, in her place, ironing, which is re-establishing itself into Coaltion thinking. Any promises relating to work outside the home have been given very short shrift indeed.

The £9.60 so eagerly awaited and so expensively advertised, has been defreforms which would have aftected groups such as single parents and widows have been put off. The subject of divorce was shelved early on in Labour’s sell-out for a place in the Dail.

And the old chestnut of family planning: we are told that ‘the service will be overhauled’ — whatever that means. Like many other coalition policies it is left sufficiently vague as to mean anything.

So what is the reality for women? In essence the majority of promises ed women’s issues has fizzled out. As far as women are concerned the coalition government would seem to echo good old charlie’s philosophy of “tan Irish solution to an Irish problem” — close your eyes boys and hope the woman’s thing will go away.

The fact that women have an increased representation in the Dail may not amount to a great deal either. We must remember that those elected are first and foremost members of conservative parties and may be towed into line without too much trouble. Some in fact could’nt wait to get into the Dail before they compromised their previously stated positions on particular issues. It is debatable just how many of the women elected because of their supposed commitment to women’s Seeing as the Labour Party has already welched on divorce what hope for socialism?

and election fireworks which surround- votes.

The kitchen sink issues will continue to represent these Whilst this government will probably not last very long it should not obscure the fact that bread and butter attacks are at present being made on working class people. What is blatantly obvious is that women, far from making gains, will be the particular victims in the cutbacks in the standard of living. Working class women haying none of the privileges of their more wealthy sisters, may have a very bleak future under this coalition government.

The monetarist response of the government to mounting unemployment and increasing deprivation shows that they hold no solution to the growing capitalist crisis. Their response is an attack on the working class and this means increasing cutbacks and rising prices. be put well and truly to the bottom of the list. The traditional glorification of the role of women in the family should _ also be expected; this, incidentally re-emerges throughout all the cries of capitalism. All those fine policies espoused,concerning women’s role outside the home, have already bitten the dust. The Labour party programme would make particularly ironic reading for women now, if they had a sense ing and so on. Quite the reverse; with increasing unemployment, women will soon be hearing the cry : ‘jobs for the men; women - back to the home!’ It is precisely at this point,when we are being told again to tighten our belts that women must organise a strong and united fightback. It is imperative that any illusions which the women’s movement has in liberalism, be broken. Capitalism has no answers, The immedjate task for the women’s movement must be to re-organise, re- structure, and campaign around those promises which have been broken. And it is not sufficient to ask; we must, rather, demand Demand — to make sure that women’s issues cannot be shelved. Demand — that all the things the Labour Party mumbled about in obscurity, but jettisoned in government, be put back at the top of the agenda.

The election has provided some important lessons for the women’s movement ; it has shown that women are capable of exerting pressure on the politicians; and, like it or not, women’s issues were a significant part of the election campaign. Equally, it has shown the willingness with which the cvalition 1s ready to dump those same issues. We must recognize that no single advance for women has, in the past, or will, in the future, come willingly from a government which is based on capitalist princinles. Victories will only be won by consistent and well-organised outside pressure It is up to us all to make sure that Garret’s election words : “women deserve better’ become a reality - not by any faith in a shaky coalition, but rather by strength and unity in ourselves.

GLEN SPRAY

SOCIALY © REPUBLIC

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erred, we are now told: probably this will be indefinitely. Even the general tax

| of the absurd. No creche facilities, no equality of employment, no job train-