Removing a clause from the Constitution about a woman's place in the home does not change 'one damn thing' about reality.
That is according to Sunday Times columnist Brenda Power, who said any such change would only be cosmetic.
It comes after Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he is committed to holding a referendum to remove the clause from the Constitution.
Brenda told Newstalk Breakfast the clause is factually correct.
"The truth was, and remains, the fact that the person who does the majority of what is now called emotional labour - what was then called just running a home and being a housewife - is still a woman," she said.
"If you take out the word 'woman', because obviously there's now this trend to remove the word 'woman' from wherever it appears, that you are not changing one damn thing about the reality.
"You're simply tweaking, cosmetically, the Constitution to make it more acceptable - but you're not changing the fact the bulk of work, according to the most recent CSO survey, is still done by women.
"So why not acknowledge that and change that, rather than changing the wording of the Constitution?"
'Women have tried to test it'
She said the mention of mothers not being obliged 'by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home' is meaningless.
"The reality is that that clause means absolutely nothing, because women have tried to test it believe it or not in the past in the courts.
"There was a case in 1989, for instance, at the time if a woman couldn't show that she had contributed to the purchase of the family home she got nothing on separation.
"That provision means absolutely nothing, and what they're proposing to change it to means even less."
She also believes this would absolve men from having to do their fair share.
"The Constitution's not telling me - what it's saying is that this is the reality, that it is women who do the majority of work inside the house.
"So what you're saying is to make men feel better about the fact that women are still the ones who carry out the bulk of the emotional labour we should take that out.
"If we change it we're absolving the State, and we're absolving men in the house from having to do their share," she added.
