Tralee: "Has Womens' Freedom Been Won?"

kerry | worker & community struggles and protests | event notice Wednesday October 03, 2007 23:36 by sean moraghan - Tralee SWP

A Public Meeting on Women's Liberation in the 21st Century

"Has Womens' Freedom Been Won?''

A Public Meeting with Speaker: Marnie Holborow

VENUE: Grand Hotel, Thursday 4 October @ 8pm.

Hosted by Tralee Socialist Workers party

In the words of Lindsay German, author of 'Material Girls: Women Men and Work':

''Women may have gained rights to employment, but few have the resources to lessen the family burden.

Increasing numbers of women over the past two decades have contributed more to global economic growth than either new technology or the rapidly industrialising giants of China and India. In the 1970s many of us thought working outside the home would be liberating for women, freeing them from financial dependence on men and allowing them roles beyond those of wife and mother.

It hasn't worked out that way. Women's labour has been bought on the cheap, their working hours have become longer and their family commitments have barely diminished.

The reality for most working women is a near impossible feat of working ever harder. There have been new opportunities for some women: professions once closed to them, such as law, have opened up. Women managers are commonplace, though the top boardrooms remain male preserves. Professional and managerial women have done well out of neoliberalism: their salaries allow them to hire domestic help.

But more women face worsening conditions: the supermarket or call centre workers; the cooks, cleaners and hairdressers; all find themselves in low-wage, low-status jobs with no possibility of paying to have their houses cleaned by someone else. Even those in professions once-regarded as reasonably high-status, such as teaching, nursing or office work, have seen that status pushed down with longer hours, more regulation and lower pay''