On March 8, 2024, International Women’s Day, Ireland will vote in a referendum to replace the so-called “woman in the home” clause in the Irish constitution. The sentence specifies that: “The State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”

Back in 1937, when the constitution was passed, the clause may have had good intentions: to assume that those working in the home – who at that time tended to be women – should receive support from the state to compensate them. But the support was not forthcoming so Ireland’s constitution was encoded with an effectively useless clause inferring that women should be at home, rather than working, without even helping them to do so.

However, while the willingness to modify the phrase in a referendum is to be welcomed, the proposed change to a gender-neutral clause still does not formally commit the state to helping those who provide care at home – regardless of their gender.

As one fight to ensure women aren’t confined to private spaces is well on the way to being won, another to get them better represented in public spaces is still ongoing after decades of effort. For centuries, women only entered museums as spectators or as the naked bodies depicted in the paintings hanging on the walls, but not as artists. Progress has been made to increase the female artistic presence, but still far too slowly.

The resolution of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh put the focus once again on the fate of the Armenian people and their cultural heritage – in danger one more time.