2 July 1998 Edition
Danger - men at work
By Maedbh Gallagher
``We need men who will work for Northern Ireland. As I said, men who will allow us to hold our heads high.''
So as they get down to business then, these are the broad parameters set for them by the Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader John Taylor.
He could not help but continue the grand old traditons in his speech proposing David Trimble and Seamus Mallon as the top two in the Assembly.
But while old wardog Taylor chose not to see Sinn Féin sitting across from him, he simply did not see the women.
Never mind Sinn Féin's five women Assembly members, he didn't see the two Women's Coalition representatives, whose name might have dropped a big hint, and worse, he didn't see the few Ulster Unionist women seated behind him.
Taylor did not see the 13 Assembly members out of 108 who are women. It's a small number, but they might as well have been a bunch of tulips as far as Taylor was concerned.
It remains to be seen if the 13 women will be the unlucky 13.
it is significant that of the 13, five are women representing Sinn Féin - Bairbre de Brun, Michelle Gildernew, Mary Nelis, Dara O'Hagan and Sue Ramsey.
They face an even bigger challenge than that to be faced by their party in the Assembly. For while political development will be the joint enterprise of progressives and republicans on this island in the years to come, it would be naive to think that the problems common to women in all political parties will miracuously disappear in the fledgling Assembly.
Instead, like the Rev Ian in his second coming in the form of a practicing democrat (never mind in the form of his son), the problems will all be there under a new guise and wearing a new tie.
Whether it be with the pseudo-liberalism of the Alliance Party, the split levels of the SDLP and Unionist Party or the struggling-with-it nature of Sinn Féin, their women Assembly members will be hard tasked pushing their equality agenda.
But if that agenda is to mean anything, the Assembly must not be about how many are on the Assembly seats - even if they are women's - it must be about just how many people include women and demands specific to women and ways of doing politics that women want.
If that is to be the case, men in Sinn Féin will have to give way to women, even if their voices are not loudest.
``We need men who will work for Northern Ireland. As I said, men who will allow us to hold our heads high.''
So as they get down to business then, these are the broad parameters set for them by the Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader John Taylor.
He could not help but continue the grand old traditons in his speech proposing David Trimble and Seamus Mallon as the top two in the Assembly.
But while old wardog Taylor chose not to see Sinn Féin sitting across from him, he simply did not see the women.
Never mind Sinn Féin's five women Assembly members, he didn't see the two Women's Coalition representatives, whose name might have dropped a big hint, and worse, he didn't see the few Ulster Unionist women seated behind him.
Taylor did not see the 13 Assembly members out of 108 who are women. It's a small number, but they might as well have been a bunch of tulips as far as Taylor was concerned.
It remains to be seen if the 13 women will be the unlucky 13.
it is significant that of the 13, five are women representing Sinn Féin - Bairbre de Brun, Michelle Gildernew, Mary Nelis, Dara O'Hagan and Sue Ramsey.
They face an even bigger challenge than that to be faced by their party in the Assembly. For while political development will be the joint enterprise of progressives and republicans on this island in the years to come, it would be naive to think that the problems common to women in all political parties will miracuously disappear in the fledgling Assembly.
Instead, like the Rev Ian in his second coming in the form of a practicing democrat (never mind in the form of his son), the problems will all be there under a new guise and wearing a new tie.
Whether it be with the pseudo-liberalism of the Alliance Party, the split levels of the SDLP and Unionist Party or the struggling-with-it nature of Sinn Féin, their women Assembly members will be hard tasked pushing their equality agenda.
But if that agenda is to mean anything, the Assembly must not be about how many are on the Assembly seats - even if they are women's - it must be about just how many people include women and demands specific to women and ways of doing politics that women want.
If that is to be the case, men in Sinn Féin will have to give way to women, even if their voices are not loudest.