Women, Community and Politics in Northern Ireland

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To examine the relationships between women and politics in Northern Ireland is to reveal a somewhat contradictory state of affairs. As many researchers and commentators (for example, Roulston 1996, Wilford 1996) have observed, until recently women have been noticeably absent from the leadership structures of mainstream party politics. The presence of women, on the other hand, has also been a feature singled out for commentary (Morgan and Fraser 1994, Rooney and Woods 1995, Gray et al. 1997, Miller et al. 1996). Many hundreds of women contribute positively, and with enormous energy, to the social and political fabric of Northern Ireland at every level. For the most part, they are to be found in the hundreds of voluntary and community organisations through which the citizens of Northern Ireland attempt to compensate for the deficiencies of democratic politics and government in their region. Women have been described as the ‘mainstay of community groups’ (Pollak 1993:81), whose activities have helped to hold the society together through years of great adversity. Women’s groups operate at many levels in the community in Northern Ireland. The scope of their activities is very wide, from campaigning on domestic violence to dealing with all the issues that affect their immediate neighbourhood. Yet the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland expressed concern that ‘the inequality and marginalization suffered by women in the economic, political and social spheres undermine their status as full citizens’ (ibid.: 82).