Self-indulgent, I know.

As much as on one level the idea rankles with me as a combination of arrogant and self-indulgent, I have decided to write a book. It's something I've always, always wanted to do; as a 13-year-old I completed several chapters of a Tolkienesque fantasy epic before my lack of self-confidence put a cap on the proceedings. Writing is somewhat of a love of mine, and I've decided to return to it, albeit this time not in the genre of fantasy. The work I'm looking to complete this time will be non-fiction.

I'm looking to tackle the issue of women in Ireland, or more specifically feminism in Ireland. You see, I'm in a bit of a quandry as to which I'm actually dealing with, since the two are pretty intrinsically linked. But perhaps an explanation of my reasoning in pursuing this topic will help to clarify.

I cannot tell you how many people I have spoken to in recent years, who have *informed* me that feminism is no longer relevant, or important, in contemporary society - as though we had reached some kind of plateau of equality and could progress no further. I also cannot tell you the precise extent to which I disagree with this. Not only do I disagree with it, but I take grave offence to the attached implication that women's treatment and emancipation is of limited importance, and we should not inconvenience society by pointing out how much further there is to go.

The truth is - according to me, which you are obviously free to reject - that feminism, or the struggle for perfect equality, will never cease to be necessary. It is not a finite project with a clear, preset goal which, once achieved, renders further endeavours pointless. It's incredibly complacent in my book to ever even suggest that society has reached some kind of pinnacle of equity - society can regress just as easily as it can progress, so that even if things are relatively just and equitable now, ideologies like feminism will always need to be vocal to prevent our society from backpedalling.

As it stands, in its' strictest interpretation, the most central goal of the feminist movement can never be *perfectly* achieved - that is, the absolutely equal treatment of men and women in all areas of society. For the most part, we cannot even agree on what that means as applicable to several areas. Personally, I see it as the availability of maximum choice - of lifestyle, career, etc - and the assessment of each individual on their own merits, rather than a broad assumption of their merits due to their belonging to a specific subset of the population. Namely, women. In my view, this is only attainable to a certain extent because it is part of the human condition to sort others into categories in our own mind for the sake of simplicity, if nothing else. Humankind, and the complexity that makes us so incredibly special and wonderful, is ironically something that we cannot seem to handle. Instead we break ourselves up into neat compartments - blacks, whites, men, women, children, elderly, Muslim, Christian, atheist - and assign each group a set of attributes. "Black women are bossy", "Irish people are all alcholics", "Germans are really uptight", "People under 30 have nothing to contribute", etc. etc., ad nauseum. I'm not commenting on how accurate or otherwise these assumptions are, just that we all have them to one extent or another.

Not only do we assign people categories, but very often we attach values to them as well. The extent to which we do this is largely dependent on our own levels of maturity and self-esteem - the more insecure we are individually, the more likely we are to project our inadequacy onto others in a classic "diminish the value of others to make yourself feel better" manouvre. Like the quintessential playground bully, we find a series of criteria according to which we can deem ourselves superior to our counterparts. Now, I'm no psychologist, so all of this is purely based on my own observation thus far, but I think it's fair to say that if we think about it, we kinda see this all the time.

Why Ireland, specifically? Well, obviously, it is the country of which I have the most first-hand experience and knowledge. I would want to do some pretty extensive research in order to feel comfortable tackling women's issues within an alternative cultural context. I also think that feminism is highly relevant to Ireland, perhaps even more so than to other European countries. Progress in the area of equality in general has been slow and hard-bought, and mostly at the behest of the EU since our membership began in 1973. Think back, in 1973 - contraception was still illegal, as was homosexuality, and women were still forced to quit their jobs int he private sector upon marriage. Because naturally, women cannot expect to be both a wife AND an employee, that would just be patently ridiculous!

As much as progress *has* been made, there are still major speedbumps along the road to perfect gender parity in Ireland - a road which has no definitive end. I want to look particularly at the way in which issues like domestic violence, sexual assault and discrimination are handled here, as well as Irish legislation that impacts on the independence and wellbeing of women in general. In my experience, there are major flaws in the way violence against women is handled in this country, and the experience of the victim seems to hang dangerously on the level of sympathy they receive from individual Gardai/lawyers etc they encounter. This is more than likely the case in many countries, but there seems to be very little recourse for those whose cases are mishandled.

For those of you who follow my blog, what do you think? Do you have any ideas? Do you think there's a place for such research? Let me know what you think, I'm always open to feedback :-)