Sir, - I was interested to read that Dr William Reville (April 21st) considers that "barriers to women's role in science no longer exist".
In a 1990 Eurobarometer survey, 84 per cent of Irish men said that they carried out no housework (including cleaning, cooking and buying food) at all. This means that Irish women have a very heavy burden of domestic work to carry out, in addition to the childcare that is still seen as mainly their responsibility. Although legally women cannot be discriminated against in terms of recruitment and promotion, unfortunately the division of labour in the home in Irish society means it is very difficult for women to find the time to work the long hours that are required to teach and publish and therefore get promoted in academia.
Is it any wonder that the 1987 report on women academics in Ireland showed that only just over half the women surveyed were married - but over three quarters of the men were? And that only half of these married women had children, while three quarters of the married men did? The amount of childcare and housework that is left to women only to carry out in Irish society is a factor that helps explain why, in 1994, only four per cent of Irish professors were women, and three universities had no women professors at all. - Yours etc
Trinity College
Dublin 2