"It is no longer the body of a god or anything with power over my life."

Look around you. Do today's men and women appear to live as equal citizens from where you are standing? On the surface it appears so. Today women are entitled to vote, own their own property, attend university, work in their chosen profession, and seek a divorce. The law no longer addresses women as second class citizens. Thanks to women like Mary McGee, Josie Airey and Nuala Fennell huge strides have been made in the last four decades in improving the status of women. While many advances have been made, we are still in the very early stages of ridding ourselves of the age old stereotype placed upon women. The culture and attitude of our society in the past have acceded to the secondary status of women. Everyone will benefit from a world where men and women live equally but if we think we've reached that yet, we're only fooling ourselves.

Having attended an all-girls secondary school, we were always encouraged to grow up to be independent women. International Women's Day was celebrated annually and perhaps influenced my attitude towards the role of women in society. My view is that we are just as important, independent and influential as any man. Women can now do things that they never would have dreamt of doing before, nor their mothers or grandmothers. Fifty years ago, my grandmother was forced to abandon her teaching post in order to get married. Nowadays that idea seems ludicrous. Although men no longer have the same level of power over Irish women, we are still not entirely equal. Despite discrimination against women in the workplace being "supposedly" outlawed almost forty years ago, 30,000 women lose their jobs every year simply for being pregnant. As well as that, jobs traditionally done by women such as teaching, are still paid considerably less than those traditionally carried out by men. Where is the fairness in that?

Adrienne Rich, in her poem, "From a Survivor" reveals that her husband no longer has "power over" her "life". The harsh reality is men do still have the upper hand in today's world. Women in Ireland are paid 17% less than men and only 16% of Dáil members are women. No wonder our country is in the depths of despair! The epigram "the hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world" springs to mind. No expression could be more appropriate to use in the present economic climate. Unfortunately we still live in a world dominated by male politicians. The illusion of power drives men to do many things; destroy, distrust and deny. Recent statistics have confirmed what we all know already; men are excellent liars. This can be seen in Irish politics where honesty clearly gets you nowhere. It just means you cannot be trusted to be sneaky. Our male-dominated political government seem motivated by a desire to take what they can and save themselves.

A programme aired recently on RTE about Haiti highlighted the large numbers of women and young girls who are subjected to sexual abuse and rape there. Unfortunately rape happens everywhere and it sickens me to think how men can commit such a crime and then get away with it. This atrocious act undermines women and their status in society. If men are allowed to get away with this behaviour, which they were in the past, there will never be equality between males and females. In 1970 the Council for the Status of Women urged the creation of a crime of marital rape. I was absolutely astounded to discover that it was not defined as a crime until 1990. How could it possibly take twenty years to see that a woman should not be forced to have sex with her husband if she doesn't want to?

In her poetry Adrienne Rich deals with the oppression of women by men, and documents the struggles and difficulties that women endure in the modern world. Her desire to be respected as a woman and her need to express this, hurt her husband and in response he held her back. When she finally ended the marriage her husband committed suicide. The quote "...it is no longer the body of a god or anything with power over my life..." refers to her husband and is taken from her poem "From a Survivor". In my opinion that poem is one of Rich's best. Her ability to survive both the divorce and her husband's suicide, shows her to be a woman of courage and strength, something which every woman needs in today's world.

Unfortunately us women face a long road ahead of us if we are to gain equality with men across all boards. The fact that rape happens and world leaders are usually male is met with a shrug of the shoulders and the line, "That's just the way it is." But it needn't be just the way it stays. It is high time that all of this changed. Sadly it could take a further forty years before we are on a total level footing with men and equality has been achieved.