This post by Sean Ellis originally appeared on Sean's blog HERE.
Imagine a world where a woman is not listened to. Where medical experts are not listened to. Where 80% of our elected politicians are men, considering the fact we have introduced gender quotas.
This is Ireland today in 2016, not 1950.
Then imagine men lecturing women on the need to be ‘sensitive’ at a time of pregnancy. As if they are not emotionally aware of their own body. As if they don’t have the capacity to heed the changes happening to them, both physical and emotional.
My wife is pregnant with our first child. A truly joyous and monumental thing. We are scared, we are overawed but most of all we are happy. But there is no point pretending that it is ‘we’ all the way. That there are two of us fully in this process together, because that is not the case.
From the time that faint line showed up on the test, there has been a distance. Small at first, then growing. Growing more every day. A realization on my part that I am detached from this process. That my body stays the same through it all. I try to feel some change, in fact, I wish I could. But the truth is I can wake up every day and feel the same as the day before.
I do small things to make life easier for my wife. Dried toast in the morning because sickness has robbed her of her appetite. A rub on the back as she gets sick. I do all the cleaning as to allow her to save her much-needed energy for more important things. All these little things help and my wife is grateful. But she and I both know that it is her taking the brunt of everything.
I am just the man waiting on the bus for nine months. Never getting sick, never feeling light headed. Never worrying what my body will look like after I have given birth. And most certainly never worrying that I, or my baby, could die throughout this delicate and life changing process.
So can you imagine how my wife, or any woman, must feel when they hear a male politician say ‘we must be sensitive in such instances’. And then imagine how they feel when they are told they have no control over their own reproductive system. That should they, or their baby, encounter problems they are a potential criminal in the waiting.
We like to think Ireland is this progressive country. Moving with the times. After all, we passed a referendum allowing the LBGT community to marry. But when it comes to allowing women control of their own bodies this is a big no-no.
First, we need to talk. We need to let male politicians find phrases. Phrases like ‘abortion on demand’, like ‘it is a sensitive matter’, like ‘what will things look like if we repeal the eight amendment’.
Well, one thing that will happen if we repeal the eight is we will give women in this country control over their own bodies. We will also give them the ability to make decisions should their own life be in danger. Should their babies life be in danger. Now that would be a truly progressive thing. Although personally, I fail to see this as anything other than a given thing.
The world will not end. And men will get no closer, try as they might, to experiencing an ounce of what their partner, wife, friend, sister, Mother is going through. The Catholic Church will soldier on , as always. And just maybe the women of our country can feel like they have a say on this subject after all
So when the Governments much vaunted Constitutional Convention (talking shop) is put together. Let’s hope that the representation of women is made up of a far higher number than 20%. After all, this is one matter where gender balance should most definitely be tipped in favor of women.
