The divisive ‘Care Referendum’ brings up essential questions for Ireland’s future

On March 8th, International Women’s Day, Irish citizens will cast their votes in a referendum aimed at determining the fate of the controversial “woman in the home” clause within the Irish Constitution.

Originating in 1937, this clause asserts that “the State recognises that by her life within the home, a woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.” It further states that, “The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessary to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

The most generous interpretation of this clause is that it intended to acknowledge the significance of domestic and care work and ensure financial stability for families with a single breadwinner, but unsurprisingly this clause has been criticised for reinforcing harmful and restrictive gender roles.

Despite its assertions, the “endeavour” to support the work women provided in the home was never effectively enforced via compensation or limits on housing costs, for example, that would have meant families could always afford to have a stay-at-home parent if needs be. Instead, the clause was often misused to justify excluding women from the workforce and emphasizing their commitment to domestic duties.

It’s therefore unsurprising that many feminist organisations support a change to the Constitution, feeling that it’s a long overdue update that acts as a commitment to gender equality in Ireland. However, in recent weeks there has been a backlash to the ‘Yes’ campaign, that argues that the proposed changes to the Constitution does not provide enough protection for people with disabilities, or enough acknowledgement of or protection for women.

If voted in, the gender-neutral language proposed would mean that Article 41.2 of the Constitution would read “The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.”

Arguments against the changes

Many people who are in favour of equality in Ireland — including feminists and disability activists — have pointed out that the proposed changes to the Constitution have the same issues of the previous language: it is diluted, indecisive, and fails to enhance Constitutional protections for any individual or group.

It not only diminishes the government’s responsibility, using the weak and non-binding term ‘strive to support’, but it also lacks clarity in its objectives. In contrast to the current Article 41.2, which clearly outlines the support for the mother or primary caregiver to stay at home if she chooses, the proposed article’s focus on ‘the provision of care’ among family members is vague and unclear.

Many people with disabilities are pointing out that the proposed language only recognises care among family members, and does not acknowledge that people with disabilities often want and need independence in their decision for care and want autonomy and options that fall outside of the family.

The proposed language also fails to place any constitutional obligations on the government to provide meaningful support to people with disabilities or their carers. While many discussions around the Care referendum are focusing on gender equality, women who have fought for independence and bodily autonomy should not forget and overlook the needs of people with disabilities – autonomy needs to be for all.

For many women and feminists, the gender-neutral language of the proposed changes also fail to recognise that care work and domestic labour are not, nor are they anywhere near, gender-neutral. Current research reveals that even in modern feminist marriages, women still bear a disproportionate burden of domestic and care work, often while working full-time jobs.

The lack of economic protections from the original clause in the Irish Constitution contributed to the absence of restrictions on housing costs, making it challenging for families to sustain themselves on a single income. In today’s cost of living crisis, many families struggle, especially with the exorbitant costs of childcare, prompting some to choose one parent to stay at home full-time. This responsibility typically falls on women, effectively sidelining them from the workplace.

Despite this confusion, many people will be voting ‘Yes’ to the Care referendum, believing that changing the language around women and the home is an important step to recognise women as equal citizens – but whatever way the referendum goes, we need to remember that the proposed changes are just words, and will still need to be backed up by action.

Ireland’s national identity

Ireland is in a unique state of flux in terms of its national identity. Having been under the repressive rule of the Church for decades, the past twenty years has seen Ireland make incredible progress as we decide who we want to be as a nation, bringing in contraception, divorce, marriage equality and abortion rights.

In many ways, this referendum feels like a lost opportunity to truly build on that momentum, with a lack of clarity surrounding both the Care and Family amendments, and several Irish TDs complaining that “The vast majority of the public don’t even know there are referendums on.”

But whether you are voting ‘No’ to the Care referendum because you don’t think it goes far enough, or are voting ‘Yes’ believing that it’s a necessary first step in the fight for gender equality in Ireland, it is imperative that social policy is implemented to back up our quest for gender equality.

The proposed changes to the Constitution may signify a cultural shift, promoting equal participation of men and women in domestic labour and care work. However, for this cultural shift to be effective, it requires concrete supportive measures and a change in societal attitudes.

When it comes to the issue of gender equality, we can look to both feminism of the past and recent policy changes in other countries to see how specific, concrete laws and social policies were what changed social attitudes.

The wages for housework movement 

Previous feminist movements have sought to have domestic work viewed as labour, undoing gendered ideas of care and domestic work as “intuitive” and “feminine” and instead recognising it for what it is: labour that is utterly essential to the survival and progression of society, and deserves ample compensation.

Silvia Federici, a feminist philosopher, and one of the leaders of the International Wages For Housework campaign of the 1970s, wrote about how the deliberate refusal to recognise domestic work as labour ensured that society would never be equal, as it not only devalued the work of women in the home and kept women from achieving the same financial independence as men, but it also coded domestic and care work as inherently feminine, meaning men would never be expected to take on an equal share of it.

[domestic] labour that is utterly essential to the survival and progression of society, and deserves ample compensation.

She wrote that domestic and care work has not only “been imposed on women but also transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character.” By coding domestic work as inherently female, women’s work has been made both vital and invisible – and unpaid.

The feminist movement to recognise and pay women for their labour was an attempt to not only make that work visible, but also to eventually de-gender it. If work is paid, it is valued higher and garners more respect and the people who are paid to do it become empowered. If work comes with adequate compensation, respect and empowerment, it is more likely that men will start doing their fair share. Were the Irish Constitution to acknowledge care and domestic work as labour that deserves protection and compensation, we might be getting somewhere.

If the Care referendum passes and its vague language is implemented, it will be up to social policy to progress gender equality so that domestic work and parenting responsibilities begin to be divided up equally between men and women, so that women can move towards being treated equally in the home and can achieve equality economically and in the workplace.

These steps need to include State-subsidized, affordable childcare so that women always have the option to work if they choose (ironically the reverse of the right that was never properly enshrined in the original Constitutional wording), and policies that actively and specifically push men to take on an equal share of parenting responsibilities and domestic work. Some countries have shown that major steps towards equality can be taken – but only through specific and mandatory social policies.

By coding domestic work as inherently female, women’s work has been made both vital and invisible – and unpaid.

Mandatory parental leave for fathers 

In 2020, Switzerland passed a law that mandated new fathers take ten days of paid paternity leave. The law was passed via referendum, and was an important step in the relatively conservative country’s journey to gender equality. Switzerland’s mandatory paternity leave law seems somewhat influenced by countries like Sweden, who are taking much more assertive steps around gender equality and parenthood, where two parent households are entitled to 480 days of paid parental leave; 390 days of which are paid at approx. 80% of the parents’ wage.

Initially when Sweden’s parental leave laws were introduced, there were concerns that while it seemed progressive, the nature of gender roles and expectations meant that women were expected to stay at home with the children and less than 10% of fathers took any of the shared parental leave.

Through subsequent reforms, Sweden has made a vital adjustment, specifically earmarking that 90 of those 480 days of wage-replaced leave must be taken by each parent. In order to take that extra three months of paid parental leave, the working parent (typically the father) has to take the time off work. The impact of this “use it or lose it” incentive was enormous; since 2016, the amount of men taking parental leave grew rapidly – and now, there is a social stigma against men who fail to take their parental leave.

Parental leave is still not equal gender-wise, as women take, on average, 69% of parental leave days while men take 31%, but the rise has been significant and the impact culturally and socially has been remarkable. It’s typical that parents who’ve shared parental split leave continue to share other childcare responsibilities, such as taking their kids to and from preschools or staying at home with a sick child.

Workplaces have thus had to create more work/life balance as they acknowledge how parenthood affects workers of all genders, avoiding meetings that occur before school drop-off and respecting workers’ rights to switch off in the evenings. And Swedish parents’ experience of parenthood itself has improved. Studies show that Swedish men who take parental leave report not only feeling less stressed and more secure in their parental role, but they report feeling more engaged with their children, and perceiving their romantic relationship far more positively than fathers who don’t take leave.

For mothers, generous parental leave that is shared between mothers and fathers means that women are less likely to experience symptoms of depression, poorer maternal mental health, including depressive symptoms, general mental health, psychological distress and burnout.

The impact of mandatory paternal leave also helps promote equality in the workforce. Norway has implemented similar policies as Sweden, and since 2018 fathers get 15 weeks of non-transferable parental leave, nearly 90% of fathers use their leave. The gap in labour force participation has narrowed, with more women returning to the workforce. This is also significantly affected by Norway’s extensive subsidised childcare system, which children are eligible for as soon as they reach their first birthday.

Gender equality in the home needs to trickle down

It’s important to note than neither Norway nor Sweden’s incentivised paternity leave has solved the issue of gender equality. Studies have shown that despite the progress made by the Nordic model of parental leave, women are still taking more leave than men, are still treated as the default caregiver, and do more domestic work in the home.  Speaking about the findings, Amanda Lundeteg, who runs Allbright, a non-profit organisation working to improve diversity in business, said that “Sweden lives a bit on old merits, I think. We cannot achieve equal workplaces if we do not start sharing equally at home.”

We cannot achieve equal workplaces if we do not start sharing equally in the home – but as Sweden and Norway have demonstrated, we don’t start sharing equally in the home by choice. Gender roles and the idea of women as caregivers and default parents are so entrenched that it took two of the most progressive, equality-driven countries in the world changing their laws and essentially making it mandatory for fathers to take significant paternity leave for the tide to begin to shift.

We cannot achieve equal workplaces if we do not start sharing equally in the home – but as Sweden and Norway have demonstrated, we don’t start sharing equally in the home by choice.

NEXT STEPS

This is the reality of patriarchy: change does not always trickle up. Society and culture can change to a point, but when it comes to deeply entrenched ideas about gender and equality, change needs to start at the top and trickle down. Social policy that actively, assertively, even aggressively promotes gender equality needs to be implemented so that our culture changes.

The proposed changes to the Irish referendum do not offer specific rights, promises or protections to the women of Ireland; they are symbolic changes. Those changes are an important step for some voters and not enough for others, but it’s clear that it is beyond time for Ireland to take meaningful steps towards gender equality and to institute laws and government policies that will reshape how we think of domestic and care work. Whatever decision Irish voters take on March 8^th, it is going to be what we do next that really makes the difference.