Women's roles in Irish culture
Ireland, progression that comes from the west. When I say progression I mean that the farther west one goes the more progressive they are in equality. This has been my observation at least. Over the past 12 days I was surprised by the environment and responses I had. Ive learned that Ireland has made fast progression toward gender equality.
Ive seen through interviews and research that Western Ireland had more fluid sex roles a long time ago. More like the early 1900s. Lookin at Hofstede’s website we see that Ireland scores a 68 on the masculinity scale. This means a lot of different things. One part of it is that the country generally has separate gender roles. We see that the predictor of this depends on latitude but Ireland has a correlation with longitude. Western Ireland had harsh weather and rough terrain. Because of that, women and men needed to put in all their efforts. Everyone had to work outside and do manual labor. It was essential if they wanted to survive. Where as as Eastern Ireland like Dublin and such had more differentiated roles because the conditions were more stable.
I believe that as technology advanced people from the west could travel more easily. Leading them to move back East. Causing the expansion and fast progression of gender equality. Women now have the same jobs as men and vice versa. There is still progress that’s needs to be made but from what Ive learned women are proud of how far they have come and love that more traditional values aren’t as prominent when it comes to women’s roles. Feminist, whether they identify as that not, are more for total equality not just men and women.
Interview 1
Rachel is a women who worked at the YWCA. She brought us coffee everyday we had class at the church. She was roughly 30 years old and engaged. I thought she would be the perfect person to interview. I asked her general questions about women’s roles and how she felt about them. Rachel said that she has never felt treaded unfairly or underpaid. This could be the fact that she works at a Christian organization. I then asked her if she remembered how her mother was treated. She explained that she didn’t remember much but never remembered her being treated differently. Her father was home quit often. She also stated that now days people are more concerned with equal rights for everyone, not just women. “Would having kids make you want to stay home with them,” I asked. Any mother or father would want to stay home and watch their kids grow up she simply said.
Interview 2
Pete is a 67 year old man that l met at an Irish pub one night. I told him I was doing research and he was happy to help. He gave really good insight that I was surprised to hear from him. I asked him relatively the same questions I asked Rachel. Very different answers were given. I started out by asking if he felt women were treated equal in the work place. He said, “I think now days they are but it hasn’t always been like that. Back in my day women were treated like objects only good for raising kids and cooking.” He told me that he’s proud of the way women fought for all their rights. Pete has 4 daughters and told me that they are all very successful and love their jobs. A couple of them even have high positions in their company. He gave me some information about western Ireland too. Apparently they call it hell over there so the people that lived their put in a lot of work no matter a man or women. Everyone helped with manual labor because it was so important for living. Overall, Pete thinks that Ireland as a whole as made great progression. He ended with this, “I think different generations pushed for different issues but regardless we are headed toward equality.” That wasn’t the only thing we talked about but that’s he important stuff I’d say.