What part do men play in family and work roles?
- There is a lack of focus on men’s contributions to home life in Ireland mainly
due to the strong belief that the private sphere is female-oriented.
- Men's roles are typically that of the chief earner in the family
Can gender equality exist in a patriarchal society?
- Because the government tends to stay out of family affairs due to rooted family traditions, Ireland does not provide cheap child-care facilities which prompt mothers to stay at home and raise children. But as more wives and mothers participated in paid work, the division of household tasks and child care between couples shifted. The shift occurred when women changed their attitudes on going to work and men had to participate more in the home. From this, attitudes are beginning to change about what defines male and female roles.
- In Irish culture there is a reciprocal trend occurring in home and work. Women going to work allow men to become more involved with their children and do a larger share of the household work that is normally done by women.
- If the government can put more of an emphasis on children’s care and not expect women to stay home, women and men will be able to share childcare responsibilities which will lead to more equality between men and women.
How are gender roles changing for the future?
- Ireland’s increasing divorce rate denotes a trend in the “depreciation of the marriage imperative” (Seward et al. 2005). This means that as divorce increases, the value of marriage decreases. This trend is a cause for more divorces and the use of contraception to delay pregnancy.
- More women are entering the work-force and not relying on men to care for them. Ways of reconciling work and family for men and women are important so that Ireland can retain its traditional culture and step up to integrate into a larger cultural trend. If this cannot be done, the family is at serious risk.
- Irish society should allow for the integration of public and private spheres in work and family for children to grow up not recognizing the differences in the two.
- Traditional family models work because men and women provide complementary roles to one another; however, the patriarchal system is causing men and women to work against each other and operate in different spheres. When the attitudes of male-dominance and female-subordination change to view men and women’s contributions to work and family as similar, only then can the boundaries between men and women thin, and they can work together rather than against each other.
Some useful websites to consider when focusing on men and gender issues in
Ireland:
Ireland's National Development Plan (NDP), 2000-2006. Your Plan - Your Future
- This website outlines the newly adopted Irish policy called Gender Mainstreaming as a strategy to
promote equal opportunities between women and men in the National Development Plan
- A website showing the promotion of equality and diversity in higher education
