Why should we be surprised women now place an emphasis on financial independence - it's a realistic response to years of male dominance, writes Kathy Sheridan.
So we're asked to believe that women rank financial independence as their top priority. Come on, people, this is women you're analysing here. What about those other womany ponderables such as "taking care of children"? Or the "husband/boyfriend"? Or "religion"? Or "work in the home"? There is no polite way to put this. Women, when asked what was "very important" to them by The Irish Times and Behaviour & Attitudes survey, put financial independence above everything else.
So the children and husband/boyfriend came second then? Eh. No. That would be "personal care (skin/hair)". Hmm. And third? "Female friends", jointly with "husband/boyfriend". Which is not, of course, a signal for males to relax.
Combine the "very important" and "quite important" votes, and what do we have ? "Female friends" streaking in well ahead of the "husband/ boyfriend". In fact, once you combine the "very important" and "quite important" in other areas, the "husband/boyfriend" ranks below "keeping physically fit", "leisure time" and "equality of the sexes", but above (again in order of ranking) "taking care of children", "work in the home" and "travel/holidays".
"Women wanting financial independence above all? It didn't surprise me in the least. My first reaction was that The Irish Timesgot it absolutely right," says Finola Kennedy, economist and author of Cottage to Creche: Family Change in Ireland. As a member of the second Commission on the Status of Women back in the early 1990s, she read more than 600 submissions. "There was no question about it. What these woman wanted above all was some money of their own."
This, remember, was on the cusp of the boom. Yet, among the submissions was a letter from a surgeon's wife in Cork who hadn't the money to buy a pair of tights, and another from the wife of a high-ranking Army officer, who had to plead for the few pounds to meet friends for a coffee.
The marriage bar, indefensible tax regimes, blatant discrimination of all kinds, mass unemployment and an absence of childcare had left their legacy: a cohort of women yearning for the means to control their own destinies. Once the legal barriers to equality had been cleared, is it any wonder that women got down to work? And man, have they gone to work. In 1986, just onethird of adult Irish females were in paid employment. Ten years later, the figure was well over half, and it is now edging towards 60 per cent.
So having been out there for quite some time, why the emphasis on financial independence now?
Ian McShane, of Behaviour & Attitudes, believes that women are beginning to pause and take stock after the frenetic Celtic Tiger years. "It's not just about the accumulation of money," he says. "They're asking themselves: 'What's it all about?' They're finding themselves asset rich but time poor. What financial independence means to women is the freedom to make choices, to, say, work a three-day week or to retire at 50 and work part-time."
Maureen Gaffney, a clinical psychologist and chairwoman of the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF), agrees.
"I think the poll is fascinating because it shows that, while women were always very conscious of quality-of-life issues and the need to make choices to maintain balance, they have finally linked up those choices with financial independence. They now see the necessity of being autonomous so that they can make meaningful choices about how to live their lives," she says. "The most important thing about this is that they are showing realism, and are thinking of life in a long-term way."
PART OF THEsurprise this week was that many were surprised at the poll's revelation that a majority of women actually chooseto work. And no, there is no significant class or age divergence between those who work by choice and those who do so by necessity. More than half the women in the labour force defied the stereotype of the stressed-out, hollow-eyed victim by stating that they actually wantedto work (by contrast, 42 per cent said they worked out of necessity).
McShane links this with another poll revelation, that a whopping 41 per cent of all women in paid employment are working part-time, and wonders if they're the ones who - having worked out relatively comfortable working arrangements for themselves - say they are there by choice.
However, as Gaffney points out, the whole question about whether women "choose" to work is becoming less meaningful.
"If you asked men whether they were working by choice or necessity, they would say 'both'. And I think it's the same for women now," she says.
A consistent finding in psychological research going back to the 1960s, she notes, is that women's self-esteem is closely linked to having a number of different roles in life.
"If you're not just an employee, or a friend, or a mother; if you work, and look after your family, and nurture good friendships, those multiple roles are actually a high source of well-being," she says. "In all this research, one aspect consistently linked with self-esteem is being in paid employment. To be caring for your children is the most meaningfulthing you can do, but there's no doubt about it, you don't get the same affirmation or feedback. Another absolutely consistent finding is that women who work part-time have the highest well-being and self-esteem."
So, while that 41 per cent of part-timers may be sacrificing ambition to some degree, in compensatation there is more time for family and friends, more for leisure, more for that surprisingly important "personal care", for "keeping physically fit", and for pondering the "equality of the sexes".
On the other hand, if the workplace was truly an equal place, they would be sacrificing nothing because, according to Gaffney, other studies show that while the majority of part-timers are happy to take time off, they are thinking of returning to the full-time workforce.
"You see it as a phasein your life," she says. "So increasingly that debate about women in the home versus women working outside the home is going to become a meaningless thing."
Which is just as well, because if any subject is guaranteed to raise the ire of all women, it's the one that pits the WITHs (women in the home) against the WWOTHs (women working outside the home). Some 35 per cent of women in this week's survey are described as "full-time homemakers". It is notable that on average those in paid employment have more children and younger children than the full-time homemakers. There is also a significant class divergence. While about a quarter of the ABC1 women surveyed are full-time homemakers, that figure soars to 41 per cent of those in the C2DE category.
Perhaps this - or common sense, in some cases - explains the lower showing among full-time homemakers of financial products such as credit and Laser cards, SSIAs, savings and investment accounts, and even private pensions. Only 38 to 40 per cent of homemakers are likely to have a credit/Laser card, compared to 64 per cent of paid workers. Nearly twice as many paid workers are likely to have an SSIA. Only 14 per cent of homemakers have a private or work pension, compared to 42 per cent of paid workers.
Then again, the shifting nature of the homemaker category - "a phase in your life", in Gaffney's words - is hardly designed for clarity. When the figure for full-time homemakers is broken down, it reveals that fully one-fifth of them are at work, self-employed, unemployed or retired, which muddies the waters somewhat.
Then we must factor in the lucky women who can afford to take time out due to their own money-making skills, as well as the new class of wealthy women that has recently emerged, says Finola Kennedy. These are the women who married a tribunal millionaire, consultant or property developer, who have all the choices, and now choose to spend time with their children, or doing art history courses, or trawling Paris for the right shade of tights. Presumably they also feature among the homemakers in the survey; there is a blessed 1 per cent of all women who have €1,000 to €3,000 a month to spend on themselves.
By contrast, the average weekly disposable income available to Irish women is €60.
Young women in their 20s have more to spend on themselves - about €300 a month - but are also more inclined to say that they are struggling (a story familiar to many parents). The over-65s have less than half that to spend in a month, yet they seem happy with what they have, says Ian McShane. He concludes that this is because their material needs are "modest", which makes Finola Kennedy sigh that "only a man would think that about the over-65s".
"I'd say they're relatively happy because they grew up with considerable lower expectations and more frugal lifestyles - this is the generation that recycled teabags - but their true needs, as distinct from their wants, may be much greater. It's chiropody versus the nail bar," she says.
MEANWHILE, BACK WITHthe WITHs and the WWOTHs, the poll reveals that they continue to hold fairly predictable positions. Nearly half the women surveyed agree that women in paid employment have a higher standing in society than full-time homemakers. The same number agreed that those in paid employment have higher self-esteem.
Break down those figures, however, and it emerges that, while 55 per cent of working women believe that women in paid employment have higher self-esteem, only 40 per cent of home-makers agree. When it comes to child-raising, 71 per cent of homemakers hold that children fare better when raised by a stay-at-home mother (leaving nearly one in three homemakers, interestingly, who disagree). Only 41 per cent of women in full-time employment believe that.
Sadly, the internet, that great white hope of working mothers, has failed to fulfil its promise. A discouraging revelation of the poll is the tiny number of women who are enabled to work from home at any level. Only 4 per cent are doing so, a figure which, according to McShane, has actually fallen since the early days of the internet.
And that other great hope of working mothers, the "husband/ boyfriend", has also failed to fulfil his promise apparently. Most working women, it seems, continue to carry the burden of managing both household and career, with little help from their partners. Of the working women with a husband or partner, less than 40 per cent report that the partner "very regularly" shares the domestic chores, including cooking and cleaning. One-third get help only "occasionally" or "never". And no, carrying out the bin and doing the odd paint job doesn't cut it.
Their greatest worry is crime, which will cause researchers to snort that women are surely being alarmist. Finola Kennedy holds strongly that women have sound instincts. While crime statistics seem to have remained static over the past 20 years, she says, and burglary/assault has dropped dramatically, "all the really nasty crimes have risen, such as assault/wounding, sexual crimes and armed robbery. Of course they're right to be concerned when you factor in under-reporting, electronic gates, bulldogs."
A REMARKABLE FEATUREof the poll is the extent to which realism, rather than religious or personal certainties, now rules areas of personal morality. Where, 20 years ago, questions on abortion might have seen a pollster having to dive for cover, the answers given now acknowledge complexities, coming down in favour of legislation to allow it. The fact that 42 per cent know someone personally who has had an abortion is surely a factor.
Kennedy probably speaks for many when she says, cautiously: "I'm on the side against abortion. But my considered view is that there are virtually no absolutes. It's a big step to legislate to provide abortion . . . Yet what are we doing about the women who are going to England? Do we feel our hands are clean? How do we reallyvalue that child? We somehow think that the law is the beginning and the end when what matters is the behaviour. How do we behave towards our fellow human being?"
She also hopes for a cultural change "in the direction of reconnecting between sexual intercourse and its potential outcome of human life".
Again, shades of grey are applied in sexual matters by the women surveyed. Nearly three-quarters of them agree that it is good for couples to live together before marriage. Unsurprisingly, more than three-quarters believe that attitudes towards sex are more liberal than 20 years ago. The surprise is in the answer to the question, "was this liberalisation better for men and/or women?". A small number (6 per cent) thought it was better for men, 22 per cent felt it was better for women, but 71 per cent thought it was equally good for both.
There was one major caveat, however. Some 80 per cent (including, crucially, 73 per cent of the 18-34 age group) believe that young women are under a great deal of pressure to be sexually active at too young an age.
Shades of grey also apply to immigration. Two-thirds of the women polled feel that there are far too many immigrants coming into the country. The kneejerk reaction would be to label them as racists, yet two-thirds of them would have no problem if one of their offspring were to marry one of these new nationals - which implies that different concerns are at work.
Women have also virtually ruled out the two great Irish institutions - politics and the Catholic Church - as areas of importance in their lives. Politics is "very important" to only 9 per cent; the Catholic Church is "very important" to 27 per cent.
"Women are so alienated . . . They simply don't relate to them," says Maureen Gaffney. "I think it has something to do with the fact that the Catholic Church and party politics are almost the purest form of male hierarchy. They are there because they suit the way men like to organise themselves - and do so for good reasons - but women just find them boring and alienating. The only way they can get into a hierarchy is to become a version of men, but, for the majority, they can't or won't, so they inevitably become the 'servers' and that may suit some but not an awful lot of women. "So there's an enormous opportunity there for political parties, but they will have to think of new ways of doing things."
It is notable that among dozens of role models chosen unprompted by those surveyed, President Mary McAleese (with 29 per cent) is considered to be on a different plane, despite being nominated by Fianna Fáil.
PERHAPS THE MOSTsurprising aspect of the poll was the staggering show of "personal care (skin/ hair)" in terms of its importance in women's lives. In fact, combine the "very important" and "quite important" votes, and it ranks even above financial independence in women's priorities. Gaffney is anxious that this should not be trivialised.
"Some of the finer-grained research on women shows a consistent pattern: they want to keep the two sides of themselves going," she says. "One side is the more traditional feminine side, the self-care part of it. That may sound trivial but it's not, because they are all tied in with the very traditional role of caring. If you care for others, you have to care for yourself. And there is also the whole decorative thing of being female. That is as important to people as ever it was. In the early days of feminism, it was thought that it would go away, but it is as strong as ever . . .
"The other side - a really different side, the urge to be independent, to be autonomous, to be strong - is growing apace. All the dilemmas women are experiencing now are at the juncture of those two."
The infuriating cosmetic slogan "because I'm worth it" combines the two in a very clear way, Gaffney reckons. "It's why I link that up with another important finding in the poll, the high importance placed on keeping physically fit. That is completely new. It has both elements: decorative, but also because you want to feel physically strong, 'just do it'. All these phenomena are about these two junctures."
Can any of this explain the, eh, low showing of the "husband/ boyfriend" though?
"It's a very interesting phenomenon," Gaffney says, confessing temporary bafflement. "And it's there despite the enormous time invested in our relationships with men. I think it's all part of that change - getting a sense of well-being from other changes."
A similarly probing poll of Irish men will, no doubt, be along in due course.