Contents
With a referendum today, Ireland will probably be formally saying goodbye to the “domesticated woman”. A look back on International Women’s Day.
Article 41 of the Irish Constitution defines a woman’s natural habitat quite precisely: a woman’s place is home. The state therefore strives to ensure that “mothers are not forced by economic necessity to work while neglecting their domestic duties.”
In short: The woman should not work, but should clean and cook. One could argue sympathetically and in the context of the time that the drafters of the Irish constitution had already expressed their appreciation for unpaid family work in the 1930s. One could also deduce that women are economically secure in the event of a divorce.
When the Catholic Church still determined everything
However, history shows that the wording was never implemented in this sense. On the contrary: the constitution served to “domesticate” women. In the strictly Catholic society, the constitutional article was used as an argument that a woman’s place was at home, at the stove, writes the Irish Times. And therefore not in working life and certainly not in politics.
The Irish government took up the discriminatory anachronism a year ago. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said at the time that it could not be the case that the constitution stipulated what duties women had to fulfill in the household. Such discrimination has no place in the constitution; it must be identified and eliminated little by little.
The old braid should come off – on International Women’s Day 2024
And that is a long road in Ireland, as in Switzerland and other countries. Women in Ireland have long lost their public sector jobs on the day of their wedding. They were not allowed to apply for a passport without the husband’s consent. It was simply not intended for a woman to travel without her husband. And certainly not moving out of their natural habitat. There was no right to divorce in Ireland until 1995.
On International Women’s Day 2023, the government announced that it would delete the disturbing constitutional paragraph by vote within a year. She kept her word. Irish people can vote until 10 p.m. on Friday to eliminate the anachronism.