Ireland has decided to revise its constitution to remove “sexist language”

The latest amendments to the basic law of the Green Island were made in 2018

Ireland has decided to say goodbye to sexism once and for all! The country’s government on Tuesday announced plans to remove it from the constitution. Thus, they plan to remove lines about “women’s place in the home” from the main document of Ireland, and also revise the definition of the concept of family.

When Ireland’s third president, Eamon de Valera, drafted the 1937 constitution in close consultation with the Roman Catholic Church, he sought to shape some kind of ideal nation. The basis should have been primarily spirituality. On St. Patrick’s Day 1943, Valera gave a speech that perfectly described his vision of the future of the “ideal Ireland”: “The Ireland we dreamed of was to be a home for people who valued material wealth only as the basis for a good life. People who, content with modest comfort, would devote their leisure time to spiritual things. A land whose countryside would be bright with cozy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyful with the sounds of labor, the play of strong children, the competitions of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens. Whose fireplaces would be a place for a wise and serene old age. In short, a home of people living the life God desires.”

However, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. Reality began to change rapidly. Ireland began to gradually move away from the Catholic vision of the country. The state repeatedly amended its constitution: first in 1973, removing from it the declaration of “the special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church”; then in 2015, becoming the first European country to vote to legalize same-sex marriage; The latest edits date back to 2018, when the country began to move further and further away from the “Eamon de Valera ideal.” This year the republic legalized abortion and removed blasphemy as a crime.

Now, at the next referendum, due to take place on March 8, 2024, the government will ask voters to approve two proposed amendments to the Family Values ​​section of the constitution.

The First Amendment would replace the provision limiting women’s place in the home with a new government commitment to value the work of all family caregivers.

The second amendment would expand the definition of family to include all households in “long-term relationships,” including about a third of couples with children born out of wedlock. This part of the country’s constitution now obliges the state to “protect with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it from attack.”

It was worth expecting something like this. Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said during the 2015 referendum campaign that the constitution still “does not truly reflect the Ireland we live in today”. It is clear why this was said by a politician who openly called himself a person of unconventional orientation.

Standing next to him, Michaul Martin (Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense of Ireland, as well as Deputy Prime Minister of the country in one person), whose Fianna Fáil party was founded by the same Eamon de Valera and has long defended the constitution as the greatest example of his statecraft, said : Tuesday’s proposed changes “reflect the reality that many more diverse family models make up our society.”

But Dublin does not risk quickly immersing its own constitution in “European values”. Contrary to the recommendations of the all-party committee that considered this issue, the government decided not to try to add a new provision on “gender equality” to the main document of the state. Politico believes that the inclusion of this clause could turn a simple campaign for change into a toxic battle over transgender rights.

Varadkar said the three-party coalition had decided the constitution already contained a “overarching commitment to equality” and should not detail it further.

“We believe that elevating a particular category, such as gender discrimination, may inadvertently undermine other categories, such as those related to disability, race or ethnicity,” the country’s prime minister concluded.