Some of the “snidest comments” levelled at high profile women usually come from other women, former Tánaiste Mary Harney has told a conference in Kerry.
Speaking at the third annual Women in Media conference in Ballybunion on Saturday, Ms Harney said far too often women are commented on for “style over subtance”.
Highlighting the importance of “women power” Ms Harney said, we have never needed more women in power, but warned how women are often the biggest detractors to other women.
“Women are criticised because of their appearance, their dress, their weight. In my own experience the snidest comments usually came from other women in the media and that has been my experience.”
During her contribution to the discussion ‘Working in the media and politics. Are men and women treated differently?’ Ms Harney said often women in the media love to pit women against other women.
“You remember Orla Guerin and Bernie Malone? We now have what’s called the ‘Battle of Blackrock’ - Mary Hanafin and Kate Feeney. Mary Lou and Joan Burton are being pitted in articles I keep reading and I think some women journalists like to pit the woman against the other woman, or the story about Liz O’Donnell wears the same dress on the same day as Lucinda Creighton....
“I wonder would anybody ever have noticed if Dick Spring wore the same suit as Garett Fitzgerald?”
Ms Harney said in order to address gender imbalance we need to change attitudes but she insisted it’s also about “women power”.
“Very often women won’t vote for another woman, some of the bitchiest comments made about a woman are often made by another woman.
“Your rival is very often not the other man in the constituency it’s the other woman,” Ms Harney said.
Speaking about gender quotas in politics, Ms Harney said she has also believed that candidates should be selected on merit. “However, I have come to the conclusion that the government’s recent initiative is an honest attempt to climb up that big hill. But what I am observing is that there are a lot of women being added to tickets because you have to have a 30 per cent or else your funding will be halved.
“But are they [female candidates] being put in places where they can win? And will we have more after the next election? I certainly hope so.”
She said the election of Mary Robinson as head of state in 1991 was one of the the biggest things done for women in politics in Ireland but expressed regret that there is still only 16 per cent of women in the Dáil.
“You won’t get good governance if you don’t have a critical mass of men and women making the decisions,” she said.
While caring for children is also huge challenge for women working in politics, Ms Harney said caring for elderly parents is also an increasing issue which must be addressed in Irish society; the burden of which generally falls on women.
“I don’t believe I could have done my political job when I lived in Dublin if I had children, it would have been impossible,” she revealed.
“I never heard many men [in Leinster House] worry about the fact they didn’t see their children. That has been my experience in Leinster House, but I constantly heard women feeling guilty about their children.”
In her address, broadcaster and journalist Olivia O’Leary also spoke about the challenges of being a mother and working as a journalist.
She recalled how once she was 25 minutes late for work in The Irish Times newspaper because her child was sick and said she was “ticked off royally” by the news editor at the time.
“He said to me out loud in front of the whole news room, ‘you can’t expect us to suffer just because you had a child’.
“I was never lonelier as a journalist then the day that I had a child, because we still live in a world where women are left to bear that weight alone. They are criticised and they are left to bear that weight alone.”
The ‘Women in Media’ conference started in Ballybunion, County Kerry, two years ago to specifically acknowledge the lifetime achievements of two women with strong links to the north Kerry town – the late Irish Times journalist Mary Cummins, and the late bestselling novelist and Irish Times journalist Maeve Binchy.
The first winner of the Mary Cummins Award for Women of Outstanding Achievement in the Media was RTÉ’s Miriam O’Callaghan. Last year former Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy won the award.
Ms Kennedy will present the award to this year’s winner at a gala dinner in Kilcooly’s Country House this weekend.