Jennifer Horgan: We know the State has never ‘endeavoured’ to help women in real, legal terms

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Scoil Treasa Naofa CBS, where he cast his vote in the referendum.

I expected a yes/no result.

I suspect the first no is a protest vote against government.

Another part of me is nervous that a regressive force is strengthening in our beautiful country. The boulder many of us are trying to push up that hill — well, it feels like it just slipped back down a bit. The far right is certainly celebrating today.

Whatever the truth of it, I’m shocked that friends of mine who have decided not to marry or who live as single parents remain unrecognised in our constitution. They deserve better.

If I’m shocked by the first no vote, I’m saddened by the second, the article that keeps the reference to a woman’s place in the home. It’s a truthful representation of where we are as a country, but I’m embarrassed that it is in our constitution.

I thought about the suffragettes as I walked to vote. Not too long ago, women had no vote; they couldn’t be members of public boards or local authorities; their education was considered unnecessary; and upon marriage, their property became their husband’s property. 

The first suffrage association in Dublin was founded by Anna Maria Haslam, a middle-class Quaker from Cork. Alongside her husband Thomas, she worked to secure equal voting rights for women. As I dropped my ballot into the box, I thanked them hoping that my children, two girls and a boy, would be waking up soon, with nothing constitutionally presumed of them by virtue of their biological sex.

It was not to be.

But the saddest part of this second half of the referendum was how allyship broke down. I was accused me of being an ableist, white, privileged, feminist for voting yes. I countered that I’m also a family carer of two disabled parents.

What bothered me most was the assumption that I wouldn’t vote on behalf of other people.

Many people vote on behalf of other people. I want better for disabled people, as well as my own family. I want better for children with complex needs. I empathise with people whose realities are not my own.

White, privileged, able-bodied women are not inherently bad because of their whiteness, their privilege, or their physicality. Indeed, some such people historically pushed progress for the rest of us. Women like Ann Maria Fischer, and Hannah Sheehy Skeffington fought for us all, not just themselves. Their privilege didn’t make them better than poorer women, obviously not. It did afford them the freedom and the time to fight.

None of us is one thing. Many of us who voted yes to care, to remove sexist language, are carers and have been cared for, and are also disabled.

I understand people who voted no to the care amendment because they felt the wording didn’t go far enough or that it gave expression to the state’s mistreatment of people with disabilities.

But I never heard anyone explain how a no vote could do anything positive. I waited weeks. I never heard it. 

The injustices experienced by people like Senator Tom Clonan are injustices of the status quo. He understandably fears ‘expression in the constitution’ based on his reading of the word ‘strive.’ As a family carer, I chose to read the word differently. I also chose to welcome constitutional recognition of non-gendered care. I saw it, perhaps foolishly, as a hope for an Ireland wherein gender won’t determine anyone’s duties.

Neither of us can know how the new article might have played out.

A yes vote offered at least a glimmer of hope for change, not in itself, but in what might have followed. As Rossa Fanning, the Attorney General, advised the government, the word ‘strive’ could have had significant financial implications for the state. It could have created “real potential for a significant volume of litigation.” As the Yes to Care campaign said all along, the change would do no harm, and could have brought positive change. Maybe Rossa Fanning was overstating it. We will never know.

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What do we know?

We know, or at least give lip service to the idea, that the reference to women in the home is sexist. It has been tested. We know for definite, with absolute certainty, that the state has never ‘endeavoured’ to help women in real, legal terms. It is a sexist lie. We have chosen to keep it.

I accept that, but I refuse to accept being called ableist for voting yes. I believed people could push for real change through legislation, on the back of a yes vote and with a recognition of care. I hoped to make the word ‘strive’ work for us in a meaningful way.

But I was in the minority and I respect and accept that too.

I will back the people who voted no in the second half of the referendum for genuine and not sexist reasons. We wanted the same thing — we just disagreed about how best to get there. I’m disappointed that it got ugly. I celebrate any constitutional or legislative win for people with disabilities.

But I can’t celebrate this. I still want equal recognition of my son, and my daughters, in our constitution. I still, against the tide, care about that.

I still want to get somewhere better. I think most of us do, or at least — here comes that word again, and a little less certainly now than last week — I hope we do.