*carer not career!

Point being that no one should be forced into the workforce to make money at the expense caring for someone, regardless of whether they’re a man or woman.

Fair dues Sean. I had it all ready in my head to write, and when I scrolled down to your comment, it’s like you read my mind. Let’s all push to roll this country out if the soggy religion-indocterinated mire it has been floundering around in since the constitution slapped every woman who fought for independence in the face with our catholic-tainted constitution.

I’m surprised no one forced into JobBridge has brought a Constitutional case on this.

Ian
Do you not think that is a bit unfair since at the time of its writing more than ninety nine per cent of the population were Christians and very Conservative in their beliefs?

that’s an excellent way of putting in Sean, if they are not going to remove it all together it ought to be amended to cover all types of care-givers and guardians. It is a completely outdated clause, relevant to the time, and just a part of DeV’s campaign to keep all his ‘comely Irish maidens’ bare foot and pregnant!

Sean, just simply, who’ll pay the bills?

So ending lone parent payments &forcing mothers out to.work is unconsitutional good to know 7 is too young.

It’s just a bit of aspirational fluff with no weight or law behind it. While removing or changing it might be the correct thing to do, if it means I have to listen to right-on whingers and sundry academic worthies wheedle away on TV and radio for six months, then forget about it.

It wont make any difference , nowadays both are at home

now that’s equality people!

That was exactly what I was thinking. Fathers who stay at home to care for their kids deserve the same recognition and protection as mothers who do same.

Completely agree, with the change in the constitution, from this could flow a change is maternity leave, so that a father could take a portion of it, giving the family options.
The reality is that many women earn more than men in the relationship, making maternity leave financially difficult. I know my partner would love to take time of to care for our children.
It is good for the child to bond with both parents and in an economic perspective, if a father took maybe 2/3 months of maternity leave, this would mean someone would get a job during this time and gain experience.

Actually a gender-neutral constitutional recognition of care-work as *labour* would be pretty good.

In addition to the sexism, it is also meaningless. “neglecting duties (even as Parent / carer)” happens anyway – witness the amount of feckless parenting and its consequences in our society.

And the whole “economic necessity thing” ? that is just insulting. A bit like a UN declaration in terms of being a wishy washy aspiration devoid of any connection with macro or microeconomic and societal issues that are bigger than we can overcome.

To make this effective, you would also have to fix ALL failing parents in the country. It is not just a money problem.

@ Mark.

Time for you to get back to the ironing

Laugh for today Rob, nice one!

Well said Ed. Nail on the head!

Think the beginning of true equality started when we had women in the Dail, and a woman president.

First woman president 1990. Women enslaved until 1996. Women’s equality my arse.

Clodagh
I’m not so sure I agree with you but just to ensure that we have absolute gender equality and in the interests of fairness would you be prepared to yield half of all the jobs in Primary school teaching and in Nursing on a legislated basis to men. Would you also agree to the same for entry into Medical School?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by that Richard. I don’t think there should be restrictions on anybody having any job they want based on their gender. However I think that also basing somebody’s employment on there gender is just as problematic.

Richard, are you trying to insinuate that there is a barrier to men working In these areas? Men are free to become nurses, primary school teachers, nursery assistants and many do.. I don’t think anyone is claiming that you have to be female in these sectors, but not as many men apply for some reason..

i think he was trying to compare it to the planned gender quotas in politics

Half of the population is female therefore they should be fully and equally represented in government. Gender quotas in politics make sense. In other areas of employment efforts should be made to reduce discrimination based on gender – whether it be discrimination against men (caring, education, etc.) or women. (Science, technology, engineering, etc.) Both genders are discriminated against by a patriarchal system that incorrectly sees all men as tough hunters and women as meek, stay at home, child-bearers. This antiquated system pervades society, subconsciously supported by members of both sexes, and expects people of both genders to conform to these wrong-headed views – and disenfranchises those who do not.

how do they make sense in one job and not another? I think they are a ridiculous idea in any job to me i don’t see a man or a woman I see a person. I rather see minority groups such as travelers and migrants represented

Because it is the job of politicians to represent the general public. Female politicians are better able to understand the needs of females in our society. Pretending there are no differences between men and women and the challenges they face in society is simply naive. Similar to the “colour blindness” many people assert with regards to people of different ethnic backgrounds. It all too often leads to ignorance of the unique challenges people in these groups face due to racism and sexism. I too want to see minority groups better represented in government – both men and women from those groups – and I’m just as passionate about that. I’m slightly disturbed that you seem keen to dismiss the input of half the population (including half the population of minority groups).

If you believe a woman better represents your political views then vote for her. Simple.

It pretty much does say that though. It says it recognizes that women “BY their role within the home”. There is scope there for any women who is not defined by a role in a household, or additionaly no talk of males who may stay at home It should be amended to say the state recognizes that those who’s roles are within the home etc.

Seems like I’m right! This is up for discussion tomorrow. Aren’t they in an awful hurry? They never move this fast when it’s in OUR interest, only their own. They’re definitely plugging a loophole….

I think the constitution is a fine document written up by our fellow countrymen in a vastly different time.I think the majority of the constitution is there to protect us (article 40 in particular) and to help guide us in a way(whether we take it on board or not!)We should definitely amend certain parts of the constitution by referendum to give it more credence to our society today but to get rid of it in its entirety for something “streamlined” would be very disruptive ,destabilising and frankly wasteful.

What needs to change is the referendum process, in how we as the citizenry get to amend the constitution without our TD’s etc having had to vote on it first!!!!We should be able to get x amount of signatures and have a vote.It would be direct democracy and would ultimately change the shape of the constitution for all our citizens benefits and not just those in positions of influence (Tds,Senators,Judiciary etc)

The practical measure for Direct Democracy you suggest would itself require a referendum. Amending ‘parts’ of the constitution would require a series of referendums (referenda?) that would be more time-consuming, costly and wasteful than re-examining the whole document. Streamlining our constitution to make it fit for our ‘vastly different time,’ and to make allowances for eventualities that could not have been foreseen by its architects, does not have to be destabilizing. It could be the very opposite. We are, in many ways, a semi-detached citizenry. We tend to vote and then ‘leave them at it’ until the next time. A process of re-examining our constitution would allow us to re-examine our priorities as a people, question our assumptions, and engage as citizens. This would be a good thing, surely?

No I dont we have quite enough “process and re-examination” and no real action already! I just think that getting people voting in referenda would get them much more involved if they knew direct democracy worked so there would be no “semi-detached” citizenry.My point is that with continuous referenda it would help the constitution flow and change with the populous and the times.It could be easily organised to occur bi-annually so that you dont have a vote every second week.A secure online voting system could be set up also to vote online if you wished (UK,Switzerland,Estonia etc already do this).That takes care of wastefulness.All very do-able.Your idea of reinstating a brand new text that suits us now will one day be outdated anyway so Why not just amend as you go?…literally changing with the times!

Wait there’s Religion in the constitution?

We badly need a Married Mothers Allowance. Why should a mother be victimised for commuting themselves to the father of their children

A Twin Tub I think.

That’s it… Thanks .

this is a quote from the constitution without a comment, right?

Remove that nonsense while they’re at it.

It’s the preamble, you might of well of said “I’m not a racist but…..” at the start of the constitution.

frightening…

im not bron in Ireland so i dont feel it is for me to say… but i would vote for a version 2.0 of the entire thing if i were Irish.

Mother of god!!!

The preamble is, thankfully, non binding

The whole thing is an anachronism. Isn’t it time, given the period of upheaval and soul searching we’re living through, to give ourselves a new Constitution that respects and reflects ALL citizens of the nation?

@Julian – Why is it not for you to say? We have a generation, a quarter of which was not born in Ireland, but are settled here. Are their opinions somehow less valid than someone who moved to Boston 40 years ago and has no intention of coming back?

But it has been used to argue for rights in court.

@Emily: Well, if you put it like that… in the 6 years living in Ireland i often found that the Irish people are very proud of their constituion and criticising it as a non-national has often caused offence (where none was intended). I just wanted to state that i am in favour of a remake of the constitution without causing havoc in the following comments.
Personally I’m a strong believer in a separation of church and state and would remove all influence of the church from the law, starting with the consitution. I think it is a good safety measure that a referendum is required to make amends to the constitution but having one for each of the required changes would cost millions (if not billions). Re-writing the whole thing would make more sense (keeping the overall consensus). There seem to be others here that would agree.

Newsflash braniac you can’t remove things from the constitution “on the QT” it requires a referendum.

How about just changing it to ‘person in the home’ since many men now fill this role quite well.

But if your partner were to want the same thing Aisling why should he not be given the same right? Why as a mother does your rights take precedence.

Nobody is talking about forcing women into the workplace at all. I’m not sure where you get that idea from?

This article defines womens contribution to society ‘by their role within the household’. There is no scope for those women who want to be recognized for a contribution outside of the household as is the case for most women these days and additionally no scope for those men who want to have their work within the home recognized.

Feminism is about choice & freedom to choose you can be a stay at home mam & still be feminist.

I did say it should be changed to be gender and family type neutral to allow any caring adult in the family to avail of the opportunity. My experience of feminists has not been to choose but to do the ‘traditional male’ roles and ignore the ‘traditional female’ for the sake of equality therefore not allowing freedom of choice I apologise and have been corrected. CABK I stand corrected.

Why don’t men have the right to stay home and look after their kids Domacles?

you dont see the line where it states that a womans place is in the house? I can help you find it.

Protecting a stay-at-home parent isn’t a bad thing but the wording here is completely outdated.

They do have that right. I know plenty of men who do. No one is stopping them doing so.

And it’s “Damocles”.

If it was in the Norwegian constitution we’d be holding it up as something to aspire to. There is no obligation to stay at home but if you want to the country will support that, maybe just make it gender neutral and move on.

Julian

It recognises women as the primary care givers to children. Which they are.

I think people are looking for something to get wound up about.

It’s not enshrined in the constitution tho is it? One sex has its right enshrined in the constitution to be a stay at home parent and the other does not.

Much ado about nothing, jimboandbear. You do understand that men and women are different don’t you?

In what way will the state support them, Damocles? If all the working women of Ireland decided in the morning that their jobs were to the detriment of their duties within the home and quit, would ‘the state’ step in and feed their children and pay their mortgage for them? Because, unless it would, they are ‘obliged by economic necessity’ to abandon their vital role in the home, with all the neglect of their primary duties that entails…

The state already supplies support for them, under child allowance, under tax allowances for married couples under single mother’s allowance.

Now I know you’re going to say “ooh that’s not enough, a woman can’t give up a 100K job and live on that.” but then no one expects them to, safety nets are what is needed, not safety hammocks.

And there’s maternity support. I’m wondering how long it’ll be before someone demands that for men as well.

So in your view, men and women both deserve to have rights to stay at home with the kids, but only women deserve to have those rights enshrined in the constitution because men and women are different?

Bravo. That makes so much sense.

I work in an area that is about 80% male. Should industry bodies start using gendered language in their documents and declare that men are the primary software developers?

That’s not what I was going to say at all, Damocles ;) I was going to suggest (mildly) that any woman who finds herself unable to feed, clothe and house her child on the 140 euros a month she receives in child benefit is “obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to neglect of their duties in the home.”

I am not suggesting that the state should step in and fund every mother in the country to stay at home if she wants to, merely pointing out that it is disingenuous and anachronistic to claim that it will ‘endeavour’ to do so.

“it is disingenuous and anachronistic to claim that it will ‘endeavour’ to do so.”

I endeavour to provide for my family, am I (in this respect) disingenuous and anachronistic? If I didn’t endeavour to provide for my family in such a way would I not be considered a feckless lout?

Similarly the state, as guardian of society, endeavours to do the same. But then it does get called a feckless lout.

@Damocles, the ‘disingenuous’ refers to the use of the words ‘endeavour to ensure’ before ‘that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to neglect of their duties in the home.’ If the constitution undertook to ‘ensure’ that women wouldn’t be obliged to work through economic necessity, women could challenge the constitutionality of their obligation to work. Because the wording is ‘endeavour to ensure’ the article becomes an aspiration rather than a commitment, a reflection of how its architects would like Ireland to be rather than an attempt to make it so in reality.

Oh it’s a semantics issue.

You should have said.

That’s an absolutely disgusting attitude.

Ireland needs to cop on and get with the times. Hopefully this is amended. It is highly offensive in this day and age.

Micky we think of women a few times every minute, science proved that but thinking of them in a kitchen is not something the modern Irish lad thinks about. We are equal in every way.

Saying that someone is not obliged to go out to work, isn’t that the basis upon which the social welfare safety hammock is built?

I would be inclined to agree with micky here louise, and your comment just goes to show how women of this day and age are getting far too uppity, you should be seen but not heard like it used to be.

and by “you” you mean “chauvinistic men” a minority in the country, right?

I bet your mother is so proud of you Francie, if she’s allowed to speak that is :)

I thought that phrase was used about children. I heard it often enough when I was growing up! If my father had ever said anything like that to my mother…!!!

When used it be like that, Francie? I thought “seen and not heard” was used for children. I heard it often enough when I was a child! Now, on the other hand, if my father had ever said that to my mother…!!!

Kevin Higgins spoken as an authority on what/how modern Irish lads think.

It does not say they don’t have to work! My reading is that the state recognises the contribution of homemakers and that the state should endeavour to provide an economy where a person can be a homemaker. In my understanding this should mean a single average income should be sufficient to support a family. In this way 1 parent may choose to work in the home. But that’s just my interpretation.

Hope you have the bunker built in the garden Johanna, if not you better get moving!

a very fatalistic attitude. should WWIII really be on the horizon there are a lot bigger worries than mothers being drafted. and this law would not prevent it either.

a very nobel reason…take the widest possible view…and then see how it affects you…
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