Women in politics

This chapter highlights the complex dynamics of gender politics in practice, making it relevant for our understanding of how group-based interests are expressed in representative politics. In studying women/gender politics in Ireland, it focuses on one aspect of representative politics, and in so doing highlight the working of Irish democratic processes and practices from a viewpoint that adds nuance to the rich knowledge base provided by other perspectives. The chapter explores the causes and the consequences of women’s absence from public life. Gradually, as issues of women’s rights and status in society came onto the political agenda in Ireland, political structures evolved and institutionalised the expression of these demands. The pattern of women’s representation in local government has been similar to that at national level. By 2010, Irish political parties had come to recognise that interventions were required to secure women’s place on candidate lists.