The supposedly seamless narrative about the rise and rise of women in Irish society took a body blow when the politics of Bridget Jones's Diary conflated two related but officially disconnected events. Bridget's dilemma is that she can't choose between two eminently eligible men. The Government's is that it can't discriminate between competing versions of what it means to be female in Ireland Inc.
The slapstick nature of Government policy on women might be funny if it were not so serious. First, they planned to launch the draft National Plan for Women along with a strategic report. Then, Cardinal Desmond Connell's lengthy absence in Rome offered the chance to launch instead referendum proposals claiming to give women the right to physical survival if pregnancy would otherwise kill them. This is supposed to be progress; women are supposed to say thanks.
Women who arrived for the original launch of the plan were politely deferred, one with the surprising advice that it gave her a chance to do some shopping. None who turned up were invited to the main event on the new abortion referendum - not, it seems, a woman's business. You could hardly picture a clearer image of the fracture between women and power.
Anyone who wonders why women don't do better if girls are so smart, need look no further. Despite perceptions that Ireland has arrived in a future that is female, every available indicator affirms that improved as they are, things are much worse than you'd think.
Two female presidents on, Mnβ na na h╔ireann are stuck in a no-man's land between the myths of having it all and having none of it, while being bombarded with the illusion of having choices beyond any man's wildest dreams. Gender stereotypes still colonise the Irish imagination when it comes to what actually counts.
The bad news is that women are free to drink too much, smoke too much, and consume as much as their wallets can bear. In return, the odds against them making it would help Paddy Power the bookmaker become a seriously wealthy man. Better opportunities exist for women who are well-educated, of a certain age and class, and in the right place at the right time - provided they do not challenge the status quo. Once they have children, their life and work opportunities diminish almost beyond recognition. It's not the children's fault: it's the imperative to live professionally as though they hardly exist.
The need to fit into the workplace makes women's behaviour patterns similar to those of immigrant communities in a new land. The tacit message is keep your head down. A review even of the letters' pages in this or any other Irish newspaper shows how silent women remain, after all this time. Women can't afford to take chances because their position is not secure.
Earnings, share of wealth, career prospects and access to power are substantially lower for women in general than men in general. The equally bad news is that even in their traditional spheres, women's needs and work just don't count. Caring for children and elderly relatives continues to be seen as something women do that is as natural to them as breathing, with the corollary that men who take up such work are branded eccentrics. Attitudes to childcare reinforce the age-old membrane that imprisons men on the other side.
Bridget's choice in Helen Fielding's knock-down version of Pride and Prejudice is between self-respect and self-annihilation, sweetened by the prospect of marriage proposals from a gorgeous human rights lawyer (so right-on) and her dastardly-but-gorgeous boss.
Not so in real time. Kathleen O'Neill, the distinguished community worker, called the problem of gender "systemic" when she spoke at the plan's eventual launch this week. The message to other "minority" groups was clear. If a community with some 30 years' work behind it still remains outside the mainstream, things don't look too good. If the mainstream continues to deny the economic disadvantages of being sidelined, the ones who keep suffering are the women (and children) at the bottom of the heap.
The plan's priority within the business of Government and politics was reflected by the fact that Mary Wallace. Minister of State for Justice and Equality, was unsupported by any of her Government or party colleagues, as far as I could see, who presumably had better things to do with their time. This photo-opportunity was obviously not suited to the Taoiseach, his Tanaiste or others of their ilk.
Yet for all the talk of mainstreaming so-called women's issues, the plan's relatively optimistic aspirations seemed to be enclosed in a ghetto set apart from real life. It was hard to tell if you were back to the future or still ploughing through the prejudices of the past. Bridget Jones's experience of the workplace boils down to the excellent advice that under no circumstances must you ever sleep with the boss. In pursuit of same, alcohol units must be monitored carefully and skirt lengths kept reasonably demure.
Sean O'Casey wrote years ago: "Cathleen n∅ Houlihan, your way's a thorny way." It still is. But rarely so visible as when Government itself plays fast and loose with such repellently contradictory "dear diaries".
mruane@irish-times.ie