A NEW REPORT has highlighted the racism and sexism that women from ethnic minority backgrounds have experienced while canvassing in local elections.
The report, ‘Different Paths, Shared Experiences: Minoritised Women and Local Politics in Ireland‘, was produced by Maynooth University researchers Dr Pauline Cullen and Shane Gough for the National Traveller Women’s Forum (NTWF) and AkiDwA (The African and Migrant Women’s Network).
It was launched virtually today by Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman, whose department provided funding for the research. O’Gorman said the research highlights “the need for all areas of society to provide support to civil society partners and collaborators to improve minority women’s opportunities to influence local governance”.
“The recommendations make clear that discriminatory behaviours and attitudes still unfortunately persist in Ireland. This is something the Government is committed to tackling,” he said.
The research was conducted in 2021 and involved interviews with minoritised women who may have considered running or will run for election as well as unsuccessful candidates, ethnic minority women in public office and representatives of political parties and advocacy groups.
The report outlines that for Traveller, Roma, and black women, racialised identities “carry specific penalties” although all migrant women experienced forms of sexualised and racist abuse. This abuse occurred both on and offline, and included in-person racist and sexist harassment, abuse and intimidation.
One interviewee described how some people “just open the door, it’s enough to see your face and they shut it again” while out canvassing.
New research finds that ethnic minority women interested in political candidacy report that ‘they didn’t fit’ or experienced rules and political culture as exclusionary
— National Traveller Women’s Forum (@NTWFIRL) March 31, 2022
Campaigning and canvassing for minoritised women involved incidents of racist and sexist abuse #DifferentPaths pic.twitter.com/r8ZFyIY6T2
Another described how racist and sexist incidents that she experienced while canvassing affected her.
“[It] actually puts the fear of God in me in a way, that I wasn’t able to cope and then it gave me a thing of wanting to always have eyes in the back of my head because with canvassing, you don’t know who is following behind you,” she said.
Downplayed experiences
Concerns were also raised in the report about the links between abuse and stereotypical representations of minorities in traditional media.
While all women participants acknowledged they had experienced racism and sexism, some downplayed these experiences and their effects.
The report also found that there is apprehension about raising issues of sexism and racism because of the political costs of doing so, as well as a lack of clarity about where to report such issues.
It found that for women from ethnic minority backgrounds, racism and sexism can act as both motivators and suppressants for candidacy.
One particular suppressant for Traveller and Roma women was their sense that the majority population would not vote for them.
“I could run to make a point, but I know I am not going to get the votes,” one interviewee said, explaining that “the knowledge that the majority of the settled population are not going to vote for you, that the numbers are against them, is what deters Travellers from candidacy”.
Cullen said that the minoritised women who took part in the research shared experiences of exclusion from electoral politics, despite them being engaged in essential political work in building their own communities.
“For Traveller and some black women, community activism was more likely to be in service of their own communities with less involvement in majority community organisations. Much of this kind of work is less recognised as leadership or political work and is not usually where political parties look to when recruiting candidates,” she said.
Not enough support
Speaking at the launch of the report, Independent Senator Eileen Flynn said she hopes the research will lead to change for women from ethnic minority groups going forward.
“Being a Traveller person in the houses of the Oireachtas is different than being somebody from the general population because for me, if I make a point or if I’m doing something publicly on TV and radio, I get all that nonsense like: ‘Sure what would the ‘knacker’ know?’, as well as the sexism. That’s very, very tough, and women are not getting the support that we need, even in politics,” she said.
“I think it’s really critically important that we get outcomes now for women from ethnic minority groups because we’re not looking for any kind of special treatment, but we want to see equality and we want equality in politics.
We’re not just Roma women, migrant women, black women, Traveller women, we’re women with minds of our own, we’re women who come from these communities, but also want to be professionals in politics, in whatever it may be, and we have the right to that equality of opportunity.
Labour area representative for Greystones Anne Waithira Burke spoke about the level of online harassment that she received while she was canvassing during local elections.
“The first thing you’re going to be asked is: ‘What are your credentials? What are you offering our country and if so, why can you not go back to where you came from so that you can give it to them and not here?’,” she said.
“The one question that I asked is, I’m in this country long enough, and I belong here. This is where my heart belongs. So why can I not be part of the change that is happening that is gonna affect myself, as first generation, but also the generations to come?”
Quotas
Burke said it is “high time” the Government introduced quotas to ensure that women from ethnic minority backgrounds can be involved in politics.
“What’s the point of you saying you’re going to make legislations and policies that affect the Roma community, that affect the Traveller community, the African community, yet you do not live our lives? You do not understand the issues that we face. So it is high time we woke up and said Ireland is a diverse community and it’s high time we have that particular representation and true representation of all walks of life,” she said.
There’s not enough people who are our mentors and people we can look up to in these spaces. It’s high time that we started doing something like that. I’m really hoping that the Minister will keep his word and implement some of the things that are recommended in this report, because they are important, and they affect each and every one of us.
The report recommends a number of measures to address the issues faced by women from ethnic minority backgrounds seeking election.
This includes legislation for the local election gender quota to incorporate a quota for ethnic minority women, as well as the introduction of a diversity panel in the Seanad with gender parity.
It also calls for State funding for political parties to diversify their membership and candidate lists, and to require political parties to collect and publish diversity data on membership and candidates, including funding of candidates separated by gender and ethnicity.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say