Single steps on the road to progress and a glance back at how far we've come

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, former US secretary of state in the Clinton administration, famously said: “There’s a place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

Sadly, there are plenty of the hell-bound type around but as International Women’s Day celebrated its 100th anniversary, the women prepared to hold out a hand to a sister, were also confident enough to invite a few good men along to even up the score.

Siptu president Jack O’Connor helped to launch the Women’s Charter for Equality at European Union House on Dawson Street, Dublin. Out in the salubrious surroundings of the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin 4, at An Cosán’s annual lunch, a guessing game was in progress over the identity of the person described on the invitation as “a minister of the new government”. The first surprise was that it wasn’t a female. The second was that it was a cherubically smiling – radiant, even – man who would only own up to being a humble deputy for Dublin South West (for another 24 hours anyway).   The third was that it was the same man who was recently accused of sexism for suggesting that Fianna Fáil had picked “good-looking women” off Grafton Street to fake frontbench diversity.

Step forward Pat Rabbitte. “I was making a very serious point, however inelegantly expressed, that the Fianna Fáil front bench was so devoid of women that they had to go outside the Dáil to get women to pose for the photograph. I think that’s a very serious point . . .”

But sexism was a long way from the minds of the 300-plus lunch guests as he described An Cosán as “the jewel in the crown” of Tallaght’s community sector.

Both he and Brian Hayes, his constituency colleague, were welcomed as men who had demonstrated a deep, long-standing commitment to the project.

“The best tribute I can pay to the work is the fact that during a general election when you’re canvassing in Tallaght, you can tell the women who have come through the academy of An Cosán,” said Rabbitte.

“You can tell by their assertiveness, by the questions they ask, by the thought they have put into it and by the role they are playing as citizens in our community . . . This is a jewel worth protecting.”

The project, founded in Tallaght during the last recession by Dr Ann Louise Gilligan and Dr Katherine Zappone, to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty through educating mothers, now employs 105 and contributes nearly €1 million to the local economy.

If yesterday threw up a doughty product of Albright’s injunction for women to help women, it was Jobstown resident Anne Genockey, who left school at 15. Gently persuaded back to adult education by a facilitator from An Cosán, she now holds a master’s degree. “It meant a lot to get the master’s,” she said, “but more importantly, it was the fact that my children grew up with the sense that third-level education is the norm.”

Her daughter, Martina, has a master’s while her son Darragh is a business student in Trinity, as well as its entertainments officer. Back in Trinity, Genockey’s point was being echoed by the multitasking Mary Davis, managing director of Special Olympics Europe/Eurasia, chairwoman of the National Taskforce on Active Citizenship and a member of the President’s Council of State. She quoted Indira Gandhi, another woman who knew a thing or two about challenge: “Women’s education is almost more important than the education of boys and men.”

Davis too, made the point that women can be more supportive of each other. “Every time a young woman graduates from university, or a talented woman gets a promotion or when a woman is elected to public office, these are all single steps on the road to progress”. A “critical next step” for women, she said, “is to support and to enable men to be home-makers and parents as well as chief executives”.

Davis also pointed to the fact that only 25 out of the 166 TDs convening at the Dáil today are women, noting that “new opportunities for women have largely come on top of and not instead of old obligations”. That specific deficit between the genders was the subject of another of yesterday’s events, hosted by Women for Europe, whose focus has shifted to women’s representation in national politics.

The lively discussion forum featuring “survivors” of the election, included a brave Áine Brady, who lost her seat in Kildare North.

A reminder, however, of how far we’ve come was on show at the National Library in That Far Off Thing, an exhibition of the words of Alice Milligan and photographs from the National Library. For the day that was in it, the National Women’s Council invited speakers to pick an image of particular interest to them. The recently appointed French ambassador to Ireland, Emmanuelle d’Achon, chose one of a worn-out mother with a baby strapped to her back, travelling “perhaps somewhere in Connemara”, walking miles in her bare feet. She drew a parallel with the African women she had come to know in southern Africa, who still carry their young children that way – the same women who do the heavy-duty work, carry the water, plough the soil and walk miles to ensure the survival of their families.

And one might wonder, she said, where the father of the child is? Demonstrating that these issues are universal, she noted that in France, 80 per cent of domestic work is still carried out by women and domestic violence costs the country about €2 billion. “We all want to change that situation so that our daughters will have better opportunities as our son eventually take their full share of parenting.”