Women, Community and Politics in Northern Ireland
by Grainne McCoy
From: Gender, Democracy and Inclusion in Northern Ireland by Carmel Roulston and Celia Davies
Published by PALGRAVE 2000
Women in community politics
It has often been the work of women in groups which aim to promote non-violence and to counter prejudice and bigotry which has attracted a great deal of attention from outside Northern Ireland. There have been several peace initiatives and movements, which have always attracted many women in both communities, often leading to cross-community work (Jacobson 1997). From the Peace People and Women Together in the 1970s, to the more recent Community development Dialogue formed in 1996, women have taken the first steps to form such movements and have devoted their energy and commitment to keep them going. It does not detract from the contributions made by such initiatives to wonder whether the attention they receive has been influenced by stereotyped images of women as inherently peaceful, or to point out that they form only one (important ) part of women's participation in community movements.
Women have, in general; played a remarkable, though for many years largely unacknowledged, part in community activism. The scale and character of women's commitments to community politics was influenced by `the Troubles', with particular episodes, events and policies producing and sometimes shaping organized responses. To a great extent, however, community activism takes place within the structure of `parallel universe' (Galligan and Wilford 1999:168) that characterises social life in Northern Ireland. Women (as well as men) have often been mobilized in support of their national or religious communities against actual or perceived threats or oppression. Women were centrally involved in the civil rights protests over discrimination against Catholics by local councils and other authorities. A key event was a protest over bias in housing allocation, when 40 young women proceeded to picket the council meeting a few days later (Purdie 1990). The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, established in 1967 to campaign against discrimination in law, policy and employment, also contained many women among its members. As inter-communal violence escalated in the early 1970s, the impact of security policies on predominantly working class Catholic communities brought a strong resistance which women were to the fore in mobilizing and sustaining. Women in Protestant areas were also drawn into community-based movements of solidarity. In both communities, women were to the fore in the creation of support groups for those imprisoned for paramilitary violence and their families, as well as campaigns for special status for such prisoners (Loughrans 1986, Sales 1997).
The parallel universe pattern does not, however, encompass all social and
political engagement. Even during the worst years of the Troubles, women
in Northern Ireland organized actions for improvements in social, welfare
and environmental policies, often motivated by concern for the health and
well-being of their families (Porter 1998). Groups of women displayed great
imagination, capturing attention despite having few resources. In 1971,
for example, an action group of women from the lower Ormeau Road in Belfast
led a cow into the city hall as part of a protest against the implementation
in Northern Ireland of a Conservative government policy to end the provision
of free school milk. The 1970s saw the emergence of many such local and
often short-lived groups, as well as the development of larger campaigns
and networks. Commentators have often noted the extent to which women from
the unionist and nationalist communities were trying to attract the attention
of policy makers to a similar set of problems. Unemployment, poor provision
of services, social exclusion and violence (from the security forces as
well as paramilitaries) affected both communities.3 These communalities
have not always resulted in united, cross-community movements of women,
as Chapter 8 points out, although in spite of many obstacles some have been
created. |
