Sir, - I suggest that The Irish Times correct misleading references made by your columnist John Waters in the letters page (December 18th) to a letter I, in good faith, co-signed with four colleagues (December 17th).
First, I am sorry that Mr Waters feels that in the past he has been "attacked" and unsupported by "leading Irish feminists". As a columnist who is in a position to comment on gender issues nationally, week after week, especially regarding the explicit problems he has with "feminism", it must be difficult to deal with the associated criticism this must generate. However, nowhere in our letter did we "attack" or mention Mr Waters or any other individual in a personalised manner.
Instead, in the hopes of moving the debate forward, beyond personalities, we raised issues that relate to both men and women (including suicide, parenting, violence and road deaths) in a wide social context. In addition, the letter raised issues which have been researched widely in both feminist and masculinities perspectives in the social sciences, and not just "feminism".
Second, we stated that it is a complete distortion of gender and social science if the fact that "feminist writers" who have been advocating equality (parental and otherwise) for over 30 years are ignored in this debate. Instead of engaging this point, Mr Waters merely ignores it and offers us a list of "several dozen leading Irish feminists who", he says, "have attacked me in the most vicious and personalised terms for daring to suggest that fathers should have equal standing with mothers as parents of their children". Again I am very sorry he experiences criticism (something intrinsic to a successful journalistic career surely?) in this way. But nowhere in our letter did we state that fathers should not have equal standing with mothers. In fact, we highlighted the opposite assumption.
Finally, nowhere in our letter did we identify ourselves collectively as "five feminist sociologists" specifically in the negative sense that John Waters labels us as such in his letter of response. In fact, some of my colleagues, who are better known for their work in other fields apart from "gender", are surprised they have been represented as such.
As social scientists, gender is an important part of our work and we clearly have, among others, a contribution to make in this poorly informed debate. - Yours etc.,
Dr Linda Connolly, Department of Sociology, UCC.
