I've lived in NI all my life, and while there has been some improvement, attitudes towards women and girls can be frankly antediluvian here. Attitudes towards violence are the same.
The Troubles didn't help, hard men with guns imposing their will on people living around them. Women were relegated to the position of second class citizens and faced incredible levels of violence both in the home and in the local community. Women fighting for peace and to improve social conditions for themselves and their families were scorned as being foolish because how the violence affected women's lives wasn't considered important in any way - we were expected to shut up for the cause (on both sides of the community divide).
When the NI Women's Coalition first entered Stormont as MLAs they were derided, scorned, sneered at, talked down to, and generally treated with contempt by male MLAs all on the basis of their female sex. We had to see it every day on parliament TV and it made my blood boil.
Our political sphere was a boys' club for too long - it has improved somewhat in that we have more female MLAs. Although, as political parties in NI very much expect all public representatives to adhere to the party line at all times, that makes it difficult to get women's issues discussed when the politics here is still obsessed with the very existence of NI as a political entity and sectarian issues.