The National Women’s Council (NWC) consists of insiders with unparalleled, unaccountable access to the corridors of power. It just likes to posture as an outsider from time to time. It claims to cherish diversity but in fact marches in ideological lockstep. It routinely excludes whole swathes of Irish women.
There is only one reason that a fuss has been raised about its exclusion of women politicians from Government parties from its rally (renamed as a protest) on March 5th. This time, they excluded powerful women, who have access to platforms of their own. Normally, it just excludes women that have little power.
I attended NWC (then NWCI) meetings as a representative of a small home-birth organisation some 20 years ago. NWC is a membership organisation, allegedly a representative body for all sorts of women’s organisations.
There was a catch. Every member organisation had one vote, no matter how many members it had. So a 10-member organisation had the same amount of votes as the ICA, then the biggest Irish women’s organisation. It was a highly effective control mechanism as the policies were decided by votes of the member organisations at AGMs, but the proliferation of tiny, like-minded organisations could skew such votes. NWC claimed to speak on behalf of thousands of women but how many ordinary members of the cumulative membership of all the organisations did it really represent?
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I was unable to establish from its website if this ‘one organisation, one vote’ still pertains. NWC does state clearly, however, that you can only join as an organisation if you agree with all its values. Instead of reflecting the views of the women it alleges to represent, it openly admits it ensures that the women represent the views of NWC.
In its 2020-2024 Strategy, it sets out success criteria, written as if its objectives were already achieved. For example, in relation to economic equality, it states: ‘Through reflection of NWC framing, NWC has influenced its members and non-members campaigns/positions on key issues for women’s economic equality.’ Note that both members and non-members will reflect NWC framing rather than NWC reflecting member organisation’s concerns.
That is equally true of abortion. NWC is militantly pro-choice and constantly campaigns for expanded access to abortion. Therefore, NWC cannot claim to represent one single pro-life woman of the sizeable minority who hold these views.
Even concerning apparently uncontroversial issues such as economic equality, NWC pushes tax individualisation, a policy that actively discriminates against women and men who want to work full-time in the home.
In its January submission on taxation, NWC states that because couples can transfer part of the standard rate tax band between a higher and lower-earning partner and the higher earner is likely to be male, “this creates a financial disincentive to do paid work, a financial incentive to do unpaid caring work and operates as a social sanction on patriarchal norms”.
Lip service
So while NWC pays lip service to caring work, its mantra is economic independence for women, which excludes those choosing freely chosen economic interdependence, no matter what the gender of those partners.
NWC never lacks a hard neck. It excluded two of its own member organisations from the platform on March 5th, that is, Fine Gael Women’s Network and the Green Party Women’s Group.
It is also staging a protest outside the Dáil as if it did not have unparalleled access to ministers inside the Dáil. For example, take emails this writer was given sight of that were among documents released under an Freedom of Information request.
The documents concerned consultation meetings regarding the abortion legislation review. That consultation took place with the Minister for Health and pro-choice organisations only, most of which were members of the NWC co-ordinated Abortion Working Group.
In the exchange of emails in response to the invitation to meet, Alana Ryan, Women’s Health Coordinator of NWC, responded to a member of Minister Stephen Donnelly’s diary team by stating: “Unfortunately Orla can’t do 3.30 – would 2pm or 5pm work on Tuesday?” (Orla O’Connor is the NWC’s director.)
The casual tone of this exchange implies an astonishing level of access, to the degree you can ask the Minister for Health to re-arrange his diary to suit yours. Meanwhile, other women do not receive even the courtesy of a reply to a request to meet the Minister.
Minister Donnelly later moved from categorically stating that the position of chair of the Abortion Review would have to go to government tender, to inviting a small number of unnamed people to apply, a move loudly and immediately applauded by NWC.
NWC receives some €850,000 in funding from State and EU money. (It also gets €30,000 from the US Center for Reproductive Rights.) Excluding women politicians from the government is just part of its colossal hubris.
Its slogan, ‘No woman left behind’, is a joke.
NWC will keep its head down until this controversy blows over and then go back to its privileged access to government, leaving behind many women who do not share its values. Just business as usual, nothing to see, because the powerless are so easy to ignore.