A raised eyebrow does little to counter underlying culture of sex scandals
THE resignation of Dublin TD Patrick Nulty over inappropriate messages on social media is yet another Dáil scandal, hot on the heels of last summer’s ‘Lapgate’ incident, reminding us that Ireland is no different from the rest of the world when it comes to political sex scandals — they will keep on happening as long as we content ourselves with the raising of an eyebrow but do little to change the underlying culture.
That was the verdict of some female Oireachtas members. Take Senator Ivana Bacik, deputy leader of Seanad Éireann, who believes we need to fundamentally shake up the male-dominated culture in both chambers and having more women elected would help to achieve that.
“I do believe that having more women elected would help to change the culture so that incidents like this [Nulty and ‘Lapgate’] would not occur again,” she says.
If that’s the case, we certainly have a mountain to climb in Ireland. The Dáil has one of the highest proportions of male politicians in any national parliament in the world. It has always been at least 85% male.
We have just 25 female TDs out of 166, which puts us in 88th place in the world tables of female representation in the lower house of national parliaments and we’re at 25th place out of 28 in the EU.
But if we were to change those abysmal statistics by electing more women, would having bigger numbers around necessarily make a difference to the culture of the Dáil? Over time, and by electing women based on their competence, it probably would but we won’t know for certain until, and if, that happens.
Certainly, many would agree that Ireland would be the lesser without the presidencies of the two Marys. The National Women’s Council of Ireland also believes that we need a more women-friendly Oireachtas.
“More women in politics would undoubtedly make a difference,” says Louise Glennon of the NWCI.
“We believe that more women in the Dáil will make a significant positive impact on the political process. This position is supported by numerous studies which show that increased diversity in decision making has largely positive outcomes for both business and politics.”
Other countries, too, have some catching up to do. The US is only a little better than Ireland in the number of women in Congress. It remains to be seen if Hillary Clinton will make a bid for the White House and break what she calls the “highest, hardest glass ceiling”.
What kind of president she would turn out to be, if she stands and if she is elected, would be very important. But for women, just the symbolism of a female leader of the world’s most powerful country would be groundbreaking, just as John F Kennedy’s election was for Catholics and Irish-Americans, and Barack Obama’s was for black people.
Of course, the problem in having so few women leaders is that if they mess up it tends to be seen as setback for women generally. Thatcherism didn’t necessarily transform Britain for the better, for example, and double standards mean that while America might get over George Bush dragging the country into a phoney war in Iraq, it would likely be far less tolerant of similar misadventures by a female president and would probably think twice about ever a having a second one.
But even if America gets a woman president, having a critical mass of female leaders there, as elsewhere in the world, would be generations away and until we do have such a critical mass, we’ll never be able to fully judge what difference they make.
America has had its fair share of political sex scandals, and they have always sparked calls for more women to be elected to help sort out the mess. However, like Ireland, little progress has been made. In the decade I worked in Washington, there were at least nine high-profile sex scandals. The Clinton/Lewinsky affair overshadowed them all because Bill Clinton held the highest office in the land. But it was not the most audacious.
Take former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner, known to have a penchant for displaying his genitalia on the internet; or San Diego mayor Bob Filner who once asked his Irish-American communications director to work without her underwear. Then there was Senator John Edwards, who ran for president in 2008 knowing he had fathered a child in an extra-marital affair.
THERE’S a saying in Washington that, for Republicans, politics is the most fun they have and, for Democrats, politics is the most fun they have with their clothes on. Maybe so, but American sex scandals always manage to cross party lines.
Former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich was widely reported to have divorced his wife after having an affair while she was in hospital. He married mistress Marianne Ginthe, but divorced her after she apparently declined the offer of an ‘open marriage’.
It is also worth noting that Gingrich was among those leading the charge to impeach Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Another was Bob Livingstone. It made fascinating political theatre to watch him lambaste Clinton then, some weeks later, dramatically resign on the floor of the House after admitting to an extra-marital affair.
Another scandal that made headlines during a US presidential race involved Democratic Senator Gary Hart, who liked to visit Oughterard, Co Galway, to write and relax.
He’d dared reporters: “Follow me around. I don’t care. You’ll be very bored.” But, of course, reporters and readers didn’t have a chance to get bored. Soon Donna Rice was unearthed, Hart admitted an affair with her, and, on May 8, 1987, he dropped out of the race. “Only half of me wants to be president. The other half wants to go write novels in Ireland,” he famously said at the time.
European countries have not been immune either. François Hollande comes to mind in France, along with fellow countryman and former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kann; while Silvio Berlusconi has brought much embarrassment to Italy.
Our nearest neighbour has seen its fair share of scandals. Former British prime minister John Major’s four-year affair with Edwina Currie came to light in 2002. Two years later, Boris Johnson was sacked from the Conservative front bench for lying about an affair, though this didn’t stop him twice being elected London mayor.
In 2012, Australia’s parliamentary speaker Peter Slipper was forced to resign for sending lurid text messages to a former staffer.
Of course, having an affair doesn’t mean someone is an ineffective leader. Despite his affair with Lewinsky, Clinton was credited with bringing much economic progress to America and left office with a 65% approval rating, the highest end-of-term rating of any US president in more than 40 years.
So will some male politicians always behave badly, regardless of how many women are around the place? Probably so, just as some female leaders may also misbehave. Ultimately, what really matters is electing people of the right calibre, regardless of their gender — and having plenty of such candidates up for election.
Women, however, would probably be far less likely to mess up, since they invariably have to fight harder to advance their careers in politics or elsewhere. As Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics, put it: “Women run for office to do something, and men run for office to be somebody.”
