How Life has Changed for Women
We asked our parents and grandparents how life has changed for women over their lifetimes.
This is what they told us:
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Granny said that at mass women had to wear a hat, a scarf or a mantilla in the church and if a women came into a church without one of these things people would call her a disgrace. The girls had to sit on the opposite side of the church to the boys and this was very strict.
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My granny told me when she was young a women came into mass with a trousers on her and the priest announced off the altar for her to go home and change because she was an absolute disgrace so the women went out very upset.
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In the past, most girls’ secondary schools would not have Honours Maths for the Leaving Certificate because girls were not expected to get a job that needed Honours Maths.
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My granny told me that she had to go to an all-girls school. She didn’t go to secondary school. Her only qualification was an exam that she did when she was 14, which was called the primary certificate.
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The nuns encouraged the girls to become nurses, teachers, shopkeepers and secretaries. The boys got encouraged to go for the good jobs like pilots, vets, doctors etc. The men thought women were not suited to work at these jobs.
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Mammy told me that when she was younger, in the middle of school hours, only boys were allowed to serve masses, funerals or weddings. If a girl were seen serving, it would have been seen as a disgrace and frowned on.
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My mammy told me that when she went to secondary school, the girls were not allowed to play any sports such as football, hurling and soccer, and if they did they would be laughed at. So girls had to knit or cook in Home Economics. The boys would be laughed at as well if they wanted to do cooking or knitting.
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On a Friday the Master used to bring the boys outside to play football and the girls stayed inside with the Mistress and did knitting.
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In the school yard at break time the boys and girls were split up .The boys were on one side of the yard and the girls were on a different side of the yard There would have been a line along the yard separating the boys and girls. If a girl crossed the line she would get ten slaps and would be kept in. If the boys crossed it they would only get eight slaps.
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When Boys and Girls went to secondary school some schools made the girls wear uniforms and the boys didn’t have to wear a uniform. If the girls were caught wearing ordinary clothes there was big trouble.
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My mother said that when she was in secondary school the lads had a choice of different sports like football, hurling, etc. but the girls were only allowed to play volleyball.
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A woman’s place was in the house minding the children, cooking and cleaning, feeding the chickens etc. A woman was not expected to leave the house and get a job. Because of this, the woman mainly relied on her husband for money, but maybe she made some money for selling turkeys or geese.
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It was only in the 1970s that more women got promoted to jobs such as doctors, vets and lawyers etc. Up to this, they would have had to give up their job when they got married. This was called the “Marriage Ban”. Women did not get the same rate of pay as men even though they would be doing the same job.
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Grandad said that women rarely went to bars or pubs. This was not considered a respectable thing for a woman to do. On fair days, an odd woman might go into a pub, but they went into the “Snug”, while the men drank in the public bar.
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Most women didn’t drive a car. It was the men who learned to drive and the women relied on the men to bring them everywhere. Sometimes the husband went to town and brought home the grocery shopping so the wife did not get to go very many places, and if she did, her husband accompanied her. This meant that women did not have as much freedom then as they do nowadays.