Is the hold of conservative forces over Irish women’s sexuality finally ending? asks Fiona Dunkin.
The history of female sexuality in Ireland is particularly complex – one littered with examples of oppression and punishment, shame and stigma. From the eighteenth century until the late twentieth the Catholic Church and its supporters sought to exclude ‘penitents’ and unmarried mothers from society within the Magdalene Laundries.
The 1980s saw the disquieting case of the Kerry Babies, in which a woman who had sex outside of marriage was publicly denigrated and maligned – and in keeping with her ‘character’, falsely accused of infanticide.
This image of the deviant woman served the purpose of contraposition against that of the chaste Irish woman, valuable solely in terms of her procreative functions within the marital structure -evident within the very foundations of the southern State, as established in the 1937 Constitution.
This document states: “In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman [sic] gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”.
A tenuous link is drawn here between womanhood, motherhood, and the family home – notions presented as inevitably and inextricably bound together, designating the preordained role of the female, deemed necessary to the cohesion of Irish society.
Indeed, this exemplified of a concerted process of de-Anglicisation – a return to ‘traditional’ value systems, in the creation and consolidation of the Free State. Ireland was morally superior to Britain, with such morals embodied in the behaviour and actions of women.
Women in Ireland of the 21st century, however, are encouraged to openly display and celebrate their sexuality – are they not? Women in Ireland of the 21st century are encouraged to make their own decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health – are they not?
Perhaps not. Still today exist characterisations of the deviant woman. We have the ‘slut’, animalistic and ruthless in terms of seeking out of her pleasure, shamed for engaging in sexual pleasure. We have the women who ‘take the boat’, forced, due to legislative cowardice and apathy, to travel overseas in order to avail of a reproductive right.
It is quite clear that consciously or otherwise, directly or indirectly, there exists within Irish society a continued exertion of punishment of women – women seeking to separate pleasure from procreation, sexuality from reproduction.
Contraception represents perhaps the ultimate symbol of such decoupling of these concepts. It was not until 1979 that the Health (Family Planning) Act saw the legalisation of contraception. It was not until 1993, that restrictions regarding condoms and medical prescriptions, though still required for the contraceptive pill, were lifted.
However, it was the tweaking of legislation just two years ago, that heralded a real change of scene in terms of female reproductive revolution in Ireland.
Levonorgestrel, a form of emergency contraception, or the ‘morning after pill’, was made available ‘over the counter’ in pharmacies. For the first time, women were, in effect, permitted to individually determine their reproduction in a retrospective manner. For the first time, such power seemed to have transferred from the doctor’s pen to the woman’s prerogative.
But has this power truly been extricated from its previous beholders? Has the medical profession truly allowed women to grasp hold of reproductive power in its entirety? Have deeply entrenched societal norms regarding female sexuality truly dissipated?
The recent survey finding that 84% of women endure “negaitive experiences” accessing this treatment and the continued ablity of the phramacies to refuse to despense it on moral grounds indicate society and State in the Republic have someway to go.
Also, why are alternative forms of female contraception, such as the Intra- Uterine Device (IUD), so strongly discouraged in Ireland? The fundamental question, however, is perhaps this; has our past seeped so deeply into our present that is has left, in its wake, an indelible mark, on our thoughts and actions today?
These are the questions Re(al)- Productive Health campaign wish to ask. However, we also wish to seek to effect a semblance of tangible change. We wish to learn from women’s real experiences in accessing emergency contraception. We wish to campaign, in a targeted manner, on specific issues and seek to assist in the visioning of real alternatives.
