Jane Cowan: ‘Yes vote describes the Ireland of 2024'

As a young woman, the care amendment has particular weight. Removing phrases that describe my ‘duties in the home’ feels like something that should have been done a long time ago. But no time like the present. 

I resent the implication that ‘the common good’ cannot be achieved without women fulfilling their ‘duties’ in the home. It does not fall on women alone to carry the weight of ‘the common good’. We all know that. Of course, the lived experience of many women has been one where they provided immense value within their home. And Ireland has a long, harrowing history of erasing women — their experiences, their value — from view. So, I understand the fear held by some women, that their contribution to society will be occluded somewhat by the care amendment. 

But the feeling I get, as a woman in Ireland, is that we are moving away from those occlusions. In fact, removing women’s duties in the home from the Constitution feels like something that makes women, in their entirety, more visible. 

It feels painfully obvious to say, but women can provide value wherever they bloody well choose to: In, or outside of, the home. 

Recognising the diverse range of care that takes place in homes across the country is also important. I see the care that happens within my own family. It is not exclusively given by women; and it is all valuable. The Constitution should acknowledge that.

I’ll also be voting ‘yes’ to the family amendment. Broadening the idea of how a family can look feels a bit like old news, at this stage. So many children are born to unmarried parents every day, that I was surprised to learn that the Constitution currently describes families as being ‘founded on marriage’. 

I didn’t realise that I wasn’t part of a family, because my parents aren’t married. So it feels necessary that a durable relationship should legally qualify as a family. I understand the concerns people have about how difficult it will be to define a durable relationship. But such myopic ideas of what qualifies as a family are just outdated; smacks of a church invading the domestic space, making rigid rules, and enforcing them on a nation, to me. It’s time to unshackle ourselves from that.

The questions are simple. What does Ireland look like? How can we describe that in the Constitution? We’re never going to get a perfectly worded amendment. So, in the absence of that, I’ll be voting ‘yes’ to both referenda. Because these amendments are more inclusive, and describe more accurately what Ireland looks like in 2024. They bring the Constitution in the correct direction, by wholly describing a diverse population.

• Jane Cowan is a student in Trinity College Dublin, where she is in her second year, studying English. She is 19, from Dunshaughlin, Co Meath. Jane writes the Diary of a Gen Z Student column every Friday in the Irish Examiner Life/Style pages.