This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Irish feminists buoyed by victory in the abortion referendum have their sights set on removing a section of the constitution which refers to women’s place in the home.

The clause has no direct legal implications in contemporary Ireland, but politicians and activists have long argued that its archaic and sexist language undermines women.

Commonly known as the “woman in the home” clause, its existence “constitutionally relegates women to second class citizenship”, the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, said in 2015.

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Article 41.2 of the constitution says the Irish state “recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The state shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

A constitutional conference in 2013 recommended change, and when the prime minister, Leo Varadkar, took office last year he promised it would be one of the issues put to citizens in a referendum.

The vote could be as early as October, potentially alongside the presidential election. Options include removing the clause entirely, or replacing it with a gender-neutral reference to the work of carers.

Although the change is likely to be largely unopposed, many hope the debate about its removal will offer a chance to discuss wider issues around women’s status and gender inequality.

“Its continued existence, even as a constitutional dead letter, is symbolic of the latent sexism we don’t like to admit still informs our society,” Niamh Egleston, a law student in Dublin, said.

Some, however, argue that the vote on the clause should only come after the battle for abortion rights has been completed by passing legislation approved in principle last week.

“Of course [the ‘woman in the home’ clause] should be repealed as it is a archaic throwback,” said Bríd Smith, a lawmaker with the People Before Profit party. But, she added, “calling another referendum before we have finished the work needed to make sure women don’t have to travel abroad or purchase [abortion] pills illegally would be a mistake.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leo Varadkar has pledged to put calls for the removal of the ‘women in the home’ clause to a public vote. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

The Proclamation of the Republic, read out during the 1916 rebellion, was addressed to “Irishmen and Irishwomen”, an overt reference to gender equality. Irish women gained full voting rights in 1922.

The first woman elected as a member of the House of Commons in Westminster was the Irish revolutionary Constance Georgine Markievicz, in 1918, although as a member of Sinn Féin she refused to take up her seat.

In the following decades, laws and traditions left women restricted, both in the workforce and wider society, with marriage and motherhood seen by many as being incompatible with a career.

When the 1937 constitution was being drawn up under Éamon de Valera, who would go on to become taoiseach, feminists accused him of trying to erode Irish women’s political and social achievements.

“Mr de Valera has always been a reactionary where women are concerned,” Gertrude Gaffney, a reporter for the Irish Independent, wrote in 1937. “He dislikes and distrusts us as a sex and his aim ever since he came into office has been to put us into what he considers is our place and keep us there.”

Restrictions included a bar on married women working in the public sector, which was only removed in 1973; and a married man could mortgage or sell a family home without his wife’s knowledge or consent.

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By 2016, more than half of adult women were working, but the gender pay gap is still around 15%, and one in 10 board members at listed companies are women.

Since the abortion referendum, activists are focusing on issues such as the gender pay gap, sub-par sex education and the cost of contraception as ways to continue improving gender equality.