Gender Discrimination – 100 Years of Partition
With the partitioning of Ireland, Catholics, Nationalists and Republicans all effectively became second-class citizens, ruled by a sectarian Unionist government hostile to their very existence. However, regardless of political beliefs or religious denomination, women in the Six Counties have been continuously treated as second-class citizens, still denied our basic human rights 100 years after partition.
For decades, women from both Nationalist and Unionist communities were degraded based upon religious teachings, with Roman Catholicism and most Protestant denominations advocating the subservience of women from the pulpit. Women were easy targets, demonised for their sexuality and any non-conformism.
A report published in January 2021 found that between 1922-1990, over 10,500 women entered Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in the North. For nearly seven decades, there were four Magdalene Laundries and seven Mother and Baby Homes operating in the Six Counties.
Testimonies from survivors recount the oppressive religious and familial pressure which led them to enter such a home while pregnant, and women were forced to complete domestic cleaning, such as scrubbing and polishing floors, throughout their pregnancies, even during the third trimester when it was dangerous for both mother and child to do so. Testimonies also revealed the traumatic and highly pressurised circumstances in which women would ‘agree’ to give their children up for adoption – many allegations of irregularities surrounding signatures on consent forms, suggests that women who would not consent may not have been given a choice. The report found that victims of sexual abuse were sent to a Good Shepherd St Mary’s home, after giving birth in a mother and baby home, to work in the laundries. Between 1920-1970, women working in these St Mary’s homes laundries would work a full work week in the commercial laundries for the religious order, without payment or recognition.
In Britain, the Abortion Act of 1967 provided reproductive healthcare to pregnant people, but despite remaining under British rule/occupation, the archaic 1861 legislation which outlawed abortion was not repealed for the Six Counties until October 2019. While abortion is now technically legal, political parties in Stormont have continually blocked access to this crucial service, attempting to roll back progress on bodily autonomy and reproductive healthcare. Whilst legal, abortion is not accessible in the Six Counties, with the Executive and Department of Health failing, and refusing to provide this medical care, which is one of our human rights to access.
Women have been the victims of abuse, violence, and coercion throughout the miserable history of the state. 100 years after partition, today in 2021, women are still afraid to walk alone, to venture outside at night. We are not safe, even in our own homes, with domestic violence currently at its highest level in the Six Counties since records began.
Women have been failed by the state time and time again, and it is only the result of tireless grassroots campaigning and organising that women’s rights have progressed at all since the creation of the state in 1921.
So as those in power seek to celebrate 100 years of a statelet that continues to discriminate against us, white-washing our reality, let us instead remember its real history; 100 years of gender discrimination.
