International Women's Day Forum

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Thursday March 09, 2006 16:30

by Labour Youth

There was an excellent attendance at the public forum hosted by Labour Youth on the topic of "Is Feminism Dead?" in Wynns Hotel on Wednesday night. The speakers Niav Keating of BODY, Liz Mc Manus T.D., Rossana Flynn of Residents Against Racism and Ailbhe Smyth of WERRC argued why they thought Feminism was still relevant.

Niav Keating addressed the ongoing restrictions on the right of women to access abortion services in Ireland. Liz Mc Manus spoke of how the Dáil is still dominated by men with 87% of T.D.s been male. Rossana described the horros of Female Genital Mutilation which many asylum seekers in Ireland have fled from. Ailbhe Smyth gave an excellent and strong defence of feminism and encouraged everyone present to get involved in challenging patriarcy pointing out that if individuals in the room don't do it, you can't expect some one else to. (she put it a lot more eloquently than that).

There was a large number of contributions from the predominantly female floor and lots of peole signed up to the BODY contact list.

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Comments (6 of 6)

Nice One

by Tank Girl

Thu Mar 09, 2006 18:03

Great to see Labour Youth inviting three speakers from outside of their Party. I'll bet some things were said that Rabbitte or the rest of the Labour right would not have appreciated. Looking forward to seeing some of the LY gang on the 18th.

Don't Understand Any of This

by Gay Geori

Thu Mar 09, 2006 21:36

* Who is who? No captions on pictures...
* BODY - don't know the arconym - or the WERCC thingy
* looks like it wasw mostly BLOKES in the audience (2 of the 3 people that attended judging by the photographs)

what?

by me - none

Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:45

The place was packed (mainly women but plenty of men), the talks were really interesting (good job organisers).
What's the problem?
There seems to be a lot of apathy and even hostility around when it comes to international women's day. ONE DAY for when we can focus on some issues women's find inportant an try to express that fact that these are political issues too, that women can feel alienated from mainstream politics because it's so male dominated, in numbers and ideas. We make up 51% of the population, get used to it.

initials

by Niav - BODY/AFC

Fri Mar 10, 2006 12:29

WERRC stands for the Women’s Education Research and Resource Centre. It’s based in UCD. BODY (Bold Open Decisive Youth) is a diverse group of young, pro-choice activists dedicated to fighting for abortion rights, access to safe and comprehensive reproductive health care and free access to contraception for everyone.

is that all?

by aki

Sun Mar 12, 2006 16:49

Is that all there is going to be on the indy IE newswire about 8 march?

come on, i know you're out there.
dissapointing, but thanks anyway for the short piece on the meeting. shame about the presence of party politicians.

I hope this article helps to highlight the fact that you need to explain sometimes!
Don't just assume everybody knows your world.

Hope to see a lot more on womens struggle in Ireland on the newswire. Especially how the single parents (majority women, I presume) are organising against social isolation.

aki

by pat c

Sun Mar 12, 2006 16:53

there was another meeting on friday. link below.

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Comments (6 of 6)