'Gender equality in Maltese social policy?'

Author: Dr Frances Camilleri-Cassar

Publisher: Agenda / 2005

Pages: 359

To be really useful as a tool to understand what is happening in Maltese society this book must be upgraded with figures from today.

As it is, it is now useful to understand what Maltese society was feeling and doing in 2005 and before that.

Since then, Maltese society has changed almost beyond recognition with the arrival of so many new citizens, with changes in our lifestyle, systems of belief, and so on.

And we have seen so many legislative changes to reflect the changed circumstances of Maltese society.

Essentially, this book says and proves that for all declarations that men and women are equal, as we find stated in the Independence Constitution and in so many official documents since then, the reality is that in Maltese society, at least in 2005, men are still expected to be the bread-winners in the family and the women are expected to be the carers, the ones that bring up children, the ones to keep the house clean, etc.

So actually when society begins to force women to go out to work on top of all their other commitments, women are being put under more difficult stress.

On the one hand, there was always an insistence on equality between men and women but in reality women's responsibility as carers of children and the family took precedence over the exigences of the economy and paid employment.

At that time divorce was still illegal in Malta - it was perceived as a threat to the traditional Maltese family pattern.

The male breadwinner/female housewife-carer model family was seen as the most efficient and stable family form in which the obligation to maintain was clear for men and the obligation to care was clear for women.

The central part of the book consists of an expanded survey of 39 university women graduates and their outlook on life, some years after they graduated, most of them had married and had children.

Time and again the women described how difficult it has been, and still is to cope with having children and running a family and holding down a job.

Obviously, there are jobs and jobs - the best seem to be the self-managing types where they can set their own times of work but these are few and far between.

In quite a number, there was a crisis point and many times it ended with the woman retreating to staying at home and all that study and training going to waste. Many of the interviewees say they are happy but one wonders...

We have to keep in mind this is a very privileged minority, hardly representative of Maltese society.

There is evidence of strong reliance on grandmothers but this at best is patchy and short-term.

For all the mention of child-care facilities it does not seem that this was put on a very sustainable basis, at least at the time of the study. One would like to get an update on this.

Where did we begin? When Malta was about to join the EU, there was a lot of concern, I remember, because of the very low participation by women in the country's workforce. Women used to work for a few years between leaving school and marrying and having children. The accent for many years was to improve the participation rate of women but essentially, the book says, the underlying dichotomy of men working and women nurturing remained the same leading to increased stress all around on women.

If that is the case and if upgrades of this study confirm the findings, then we, as a country, must think again the fundamentals of our lives.

Otherwise we will be left with increased stress and maybe also a disincentive to form a couple and have children.

This being Malta, what has been done in other countries may not be so available for us.