Mary Kenny: A self-professed feminist who was devoted to women in his life
THE late Garret FitzGerald was sometimes described as a feminist, in that he sought to advance the liberation of women.
He certainly thought of himself as a feminist, and in his own life, he never omitted the influence of his mother, and never failed to show both devotion and respect to his wife: and if we judge a man by his actions more than his words, he certainly passed that test.
He also actively sought to bring women into politics and was both mentor and guide to Gemma Hussey and the late Nuala Fennell, who had such successful political careers under his stewardship. With the full support and encouragement of Garret, Nuala brought through a bill which abolished the archaic status of illegitimacy in Ireland, which had previously stigmatised those born outside of marriage.
But there were some clashes: and I recall a notable episode on a 'Late Late Show' in 1970 when Gay Byrne had assembled a group of us radical feminists, including Nell McCafferty, June Levine and myself, to devote the whole programme to the subject of Irish women's liberation. It was one of the first times we had the opportunity to speak about this new wave of feminism in the public realm. But halfway through the programme, Gay Byrne suddenly announced that Garret FitzGerald had been sitting watching the show at home and had felt so engaged by the subject that he asked if he could come and join us, and Gay had eagerly agreed.
The announcement was greeted by a sustained, and entirely spontaneous, orchestra of booing from the assembled group of women, panel and audience. "You're hijacking our show!" we cried. There was huge resentment, both of Gay and of Garret, that these two men couldn't have let the women have their say, uninterrupted, without trying to muscle in on the act. Garret, all innocence, protested that he was a male feminist. Oh, yeah? Maybe so, we all agreed afterwards, but he is also a politician. And a politician knows just when to jump on a bandwagon. Even if he was sincere -- and he certainly was sincere -- the prevailing feeling of the sisters was that men just won't let women speak without putting their oar in. It's the "pasha complex": in a hareem of women under the Ottomans, you had to have the male, the pasha, take charge.
All the obituarists are right about Garret FitzGerald: he was a decent man, a true patriot, a fine intellectual, and an original political presence who advanced the cause of peace and reconciliation.
His intellectual side had a brilliant edge, sometimes. He was once placed next to Margaret Thatcher at an official European dinner, and Francois Mitterand, the French president was at the next seat along. Garret and Mitterand spoke French literally over Mrs Thatcher's head, mostly discussing the works of French Catholic writers of the 1930s. Mrs Thatcher was puzzled about this discourse about the likes of Georges Bernanos and Francois Mauriac: her father, Alderman Roberts, had taught her that the French were decadent and she quizzed Garret about his common cultural ground with Mitterand.
But was Garret, as so widely claimed, a feminist? He was really more of a liberal, with a sympathetic opening to feminism. It is sometimes assumed that liberalism and feminism go together, but it isn't always so: radical feminism is more akin to Marxist thinking, and separatist feminism has more in common with a kind of puritanism. Remember that the original slogan of the Suffragettes, under the Pankhursts was: "Votes for women, and chastity for men!" Even in 1911, there was a feminist element which believed that all men were potential rapists.
The divorce referenda in Ireland brought out some of that tension between liberalism and feminism. As part of a programme to modernise Ireland, and enhance the notion of pluralism, Garret sought to delete the constitutional prohibition against divorce. Liberal feminists were certainly supportive of this -- Nuala Fennell, for example, had done a lot of research on broken marriages and realised that it was altogether necessary to have a provision for divorce.
Yet, some feminists thought the approach precipitate: you had to introduce property law first, which would give a divorced wife the entitlement to half of the marital property before you went about dissolving marriages. Women from a rural background were particularly aware of this. I remember my late friend and radical feminist Mary Cummins being furious about divorce proposals in 1986: "What would you do with the family farm? Women would be out on their ear!"
Small wonder it took nearly 10 years to get through a plebiscite on divorce: and even then, in 1995, the result was on a knife-edge. In rural Ireland, marriage has always had a financial dimension. Garret was a sophisticated intellectual, and sophisticated intellectuals can miss some of these bread-and-butter points.
A liberal is not the same as a radical, either, and in the great condom debate, many liberals were careful to tread prudently. It's just 40 years ago this Sunday that our group of feminists carried out the famous 'condom train' stunt -- provocatively bringing condoms back from Belfast and declaring them at the customs. Liberals, such as Mary Robinson, declined to be part of it -- it seemed a touch vulgar at the time .
In Dail Eireann, my recollection is that not a single TD, with the exception of the mavericks Dr John O'Connell and Dr Noel Browne, spoke up for the free availability of condoms. Garret would proceed at his own pace towards changing the law: and that is what a wise politician does -- he must lead, but he must not be too far ahead of public opinion. He was a lovely person and a great Irishman, and he respected women fully: but he was, in the end, more of a liberal than a feminist.
- Mary Kenny
Irish Independent
