Madam, - The recent survey into women's attitudes commissioned by The Irish Timeswas most interesting and welcome. It was, however, surprising that the two main commentators were both men. Thus one read of surprise on the part of one at the "remarkably high number of Irish women reading books nowadays". Why should this be a surprise and why should the fact that 42 per cent of women read a book once a week or more often be remarkable?
In order to make sense of this "remarkable" finding the commentator says this may be "evidence, perhaps, that a new generation of Irish female novelists is making its mark on its target audience". This interpretation assumes that Irish female book readership is only or primarily of fiction, of female authors, and Irish authors. I would say this is quite a supposition.
It was also striking that of the myriad variables in the study, the only two for which more detailed analyses were presented were: monthly budget and number of sexual partners by age group. I wonder if female analysts would have made the same choices - especially in the case of the second variable. It was a pleasant relief to see that on the third day of the series Kathy Sheridan commented, as this added some welcome balance to the analysis.
Concerning the findings on abortion, which have elicited some debate, there seemed to be surprise that 54 per cent of women now believe the Government should legislate to provide abortion in Ireland. These findings should come as no surprise, as social research and public opinion polls have documented similar results over the past two decades. For example, in a study published by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Women's Rights (1988), I found that 58.4 per cent of the Irish adult population believed abortion was permissible under certain circumstances. The questions used in that study were replicated in a study carried out by Rundle, Leigh, McGee and Layte for the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (2004) on a state-wide representative sample of 3,312. In this more recent survey, 51 per cent said abortion should be permissible in all circumstances and 39 per cent said it should be permissible under some circumstances. These authors noted that "the acceptability of abortion in various circumstances has increased substantially in the population over time". However, they noted that "the hierarchy of circumstances in which abortion may be permitted has remained similar".
There has also been much discussion following The Irish Timessurvey of the relatively low importance accorded by women to politics and the implications of this for female participation in the Dáil. I think it is important to note in this context a related finding which seems to have gone unnoticed, namely the importance accorded by women to "current affairs": deemed "important" or "quite important" by 62 per cent overall. Thus, while politics per se may not be accorded as high an importance score as one might wish to see, the strong interest in issues of the day potentially could be translated into a stronger interest and involvement in politics. - Yours, etc,
Dr MARGRET FINE-DAVIS, Senior Research Fellow, Director, Social Attitude and Policy Research Group, School of Social Sciences and Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin 2.