Danger - men at work
By Maedbh Gallagher
``We need men who will work for Northern Ireland. As I said, men
who will allow us to hold our heads high.''
So as they get down to business then, these are the broad
parameters set for them by the Ulster Unionist Party deputy
leader John Taylor.
He could not help but continue the grand old traditons in his
speech proposing David Trimble and Seamus Mallon as the top two
in the Assembly.
But while old wardog Taylor chose not to see Sinn Féin sitting
across from him, he simply did not see the women.
Never mind Sinn Féin's five women Assembly members, he didn't see
the two Women's Coalition representatives, whose name might have
dropped a big hint, and worse, he didn't see the few Ulster
Unionist women seated behind him.
Taylor did not see the 13 Assembly members out of 108 who are
women. It's a small number, but they might as well have been a
bunch of tulips as far as Taylor was concerned.
It remains to be seen if the 13 women will be the unlucky 13.
it is significant that of the 13, five are women representing
Sinn Féin - Bairbre de Brun, Michelle Gildernew, Mary Nelis, Dara
O'Hagan and Sue Ramsey.
They face an even bigger challenge than that to be faced by their
party in the Assembly. For while political development will be
the joint enterprise of progressives and republicans on this
island in the years to come, it would be naive to think that the
problems common to women in all political parties will
miracuously disappear in the fledgling Assembly.
Instead, like the Rev Ian in his second coming in the form of a
practicing democrat (never mind in the form of his son), the
problems will all be there under a new guise and wearing a new
tie.
Whether it be with the pseudo-liberalism of the Alliance Party,
the split levels of the SDLP and Unionist Party or the
struggling-with-it nature of Sinn Féin, their women Assembly
members will be hard tasked pushing their equality agenda.
But if that agenda is to mean anything, the Assembly must not be
about how many are on the Assembly seats - even if they are
women's - it must be about just how many people include women and
demands specific to women and ways of doing politics that women
want.
If that is to be the case, men in Sinn Féin will have to give way
to women, even if their voices are not loudest.
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