Women for Election are gathering information from women in Ireland about their attitudes towards running for political office and experiences of politics.
On April 2nd, join us as we celebrate #MoreWomenDay, a day where we encourage the people of Ireland to nominate a woman they know to be an incredible leader. #CountHerIn
Women in all their diversity need to be represented to ensure a strong and vibrant democracy.
There is a very limited diversity of women in Irish politics. Ireland has never elected a Traveller woman or a Black woman to the Oireachtas. In 2019 Yemi Adenuga was the first black woman to be elected as a local Councillor. Katherine Zappone was the first female cabinet Minister who was a migrant and who also publicly identified as LBGTQI. There is no data available on the number of women with disabilities who have been elected and while there is an increasing number of younger women being elected to their local councils or the Dail, young women are still underrepresented in Irish politics. Of the 131 women who have ever been elected to Dail Eireann, the majority of them have been white, settled, heterosexual, middle-aged women without disabilities.
Discrimination and the lack of role-modelling, knowledge gaps and limited access to resources and political networks are some of the multiple barriers that prevent many women successfully running for election.
Nan Joyce was the first Traveller woman to run for election to Dail Eireann in 1982 in the Dublin South West Constituency. In 2020 five Traveller women ran for a seat in the Dail, like Nan Joyce they too were not elected.
Institutional racism continues to be a major barrier to Traveller women both entering and succeeding in Irish politics. The nomination of Senator Eileen Flynn to the Seanad in 2020 means that for the first time in the history of the Irish state a Traveller Woman is a member of Seanad Éireann. There is no shortage of Traveller women in Ireland who are interested in entering and succeeding in Irish politics. However, a racist culture needs to be tackled and positive action measures need to be implemented to give equal access and opportunity for Traveller women to enter and succeed in Irish politics.
Women for Election is working with the National Traveller Women’s Forum to both tackle racism while also designing mentoring and training programmes to help empower Traveller women to run for local and national election.
In Autumn 2021 we will commence the ‘More Traveller Women’ project which is being part funded by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.
We have also commenced work with the Immigrant Council of Ireland to jointly deliver anti racist and intercultural awareness training to women aspiring to run in the next elections.
We are actively seeking further collaborations with any organisation who are interested in working with us to help increase access to political life for women in all their diversity.
The Master Class: Intercultural competency and anti-racism workshop takes place on 20th October 2021.
Implementing solutions to create a safer and more equal culture in Irish politics is a core strategy that we are driving to help make political life more accessible for women in all their diversity. There is increasing evidence of the prevalence of the online and offline abuse of women politicians and aspiring candidates. This is a very concerning barrier to the ongoing political participation of women both in Ireland and around the world.
Women for Election is developing a Safer Politics initiative to increase access to politics for women in all their diversity, which includes developing and implementing solutions to reduce sexism, racism, harassment, and all forms of discrimination and abuse towards female politicians and aspiring candidates.
Working on a cross-party and multi-stakeholder basis we are raising awareness and identifying potential initiatives to reduce abuse and discrimination, activate more bystander interventions and to hold offenders accountable.
We will be launching our new capacity building ‘Safer Politics Safer Campaigning’ programme in the coming months which will aim to equip women with information, tools and support networks to help navigate online platforms and other challenging environments.
In early 2021 our CEO Caitríona Gleeson was appointed to an independent group of global experts who are advising Facebook’s Women’s Safety Initiative including their Women’s Safety Hub. We have also opened up conversations with other tech companies to advocate for more effective solutions to reduce abuse on social media platforms.
In September 2021 our CEO Caitríona Gleeson presented at the National Women’s Council webinar on tackling social media abuse.
Women for Election has a long held ambition to inspire women and girls to be active leaders from the earliest age. The gendered and other barriers for women entering leadership roles are socialised from a very young age.
We have lots of plans that we are seeking to resource to build dynamic collaborations and help establish a strong culture of visible leadership of girls and women.
Our initial starting point has been to reignite our University women’s leadership programme to help inspire, inform and equip women in all their diversity to enter and succeed in student politics, leadership and representation.
In early 2021 we commenced a pilot with DCU through support from their President Daire Keogh and with a very successful partnership with the team in the Office for Student Life.
We were delighted that three of the pilot participants were successfully elected to sabbatical roles in both DCU and USI.
Bobbie and Kate were two of our female pilot programme participants who are pictured here following their successful election as Sabbatical Officers to DCU Students Union. Courtesy of DCU Students Union
We are currently working with DCU and other third level providers to scale up this programme.
We are of course dreaming of girls and young women running for election at all life stages and of our local and national governments being fully representative of young women in all their diversity.
We welcome Minister Burkes commitment to reducing barriers to women’s participation including the recent establishment of a working group to develop recommendations to address non pay conditions recommended by the Moorhead report including maternity and paternity leave.
Further to our analysis we have concluded a series of practical steps which we believe could lead to a family friendly environment for local Councillors.
Download our submission: WFE- Making Local Politics Family Friendly
Childcare, lack of maternity and parental leave, unsociable meeting times are some of the barriers which have prevented female representatives from fully participating in political life. Most recently South Dublin County Councillor, Clare O’Byrne, resigned her seat citing lack of maternity leave as a key barrier. While parenting and care responsibilities are not gender neutral, in Ireland women still disproportionally hold the majority of unpaid care responsibilities.
Women for Election strongly advocate for family friendly working practices in order to create a working environment which provides equality of opportunity for aspiring and elected female politicians. In addition to standardised maternity, paternity and parental leave these practices also include the promotion of work/family life balance so that all members of Local Government can fulfil their work and family roles and duties.
Women for Election was honoured to be asked by the Ceann Comhairle to participate in the Oireachtas Forum on a Family Friendly and Inclusive Parliament. Our Chairperson Alison Cowzer represents us on this Forum.
The aim of the Forum is “to facilitate the Houses of the Oireachtas’ ongoing development as a family friendly parliamentary community that responds to the needs and interests of both men and women in its composition, structures, operations, methods and work and as an inclusive parliamentary community that better reflects society in Ireland.
The Forum will offer advice and recommendations to the Ceann Comhairle, who will bring the Forum’s report to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission for its consideration.
The Forum shall consider and make practical recommendations on:
(i) making the Houses of the Oireachtas a more inclusive, family friendly, and gender- sensitive workplace for the parliamentary community;
(ii) ensuring that the Houses of the Oireachtas are supported and resourced to take account of gender and equality issues when legislating;
(iii) improving the diversity of the parliamentary community to better reflect society in Ireland.
We were delighted to present to the Forum in July 2021 and we look forward to further assisting the Forum to help ensure that the voices and insights of the many women we work with are reflected in the Forum’s recommendations.
For Terms of Reference for the Forum click here
Download our recent submission to the Forum
Women for Election were asked to present to the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality and made our presentation in November 2020.
We were delighted to see our 3 proposals included in the final recommendations of the Assembly.
The report of the Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality was published in April 2021.
The issue of quotas in politics is one which causes much discussion – some people do not like quotas, but we like what they do, that is, introduce a short, sharp, shock to the political system that makes change happen quickly. An increasing number of countries globally are introducing gender quotas to improve gender balance with impressive results. Relying on organic change to the Irish political system has resulted in a glacial pace of change, with the current Dail comprising only 23 % women TD’s.
In 2012, the Oireachtas adopted a law obliging political parties to select at least 30% women candidates and 30% men candidates to contest general elections. The threshold rises to 40% from 2023 onwards. If the quota is not met, political parties will lose 50% of the State funding they receive on an annual basis to run their operations. The quota system challenges political parties to develop a culture and selection process that will encourage women to come forward for election. It is also incumbent on the political parties to select women in winnable seats if the true objectives of the quota is to be achieved – that is, improved gender balance in Irish politics.
There are currently no quotas in place for Local Elections (where many politicians begin their political journey), or for the Seanad.
In our recent submission and presentation to the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality Women for Election proposed the introduction of quotas for the Local Elections and for the Seanad.
We were delighted that our proposals for quotas were accepted by a large majority of the Citizen Assembly members with 88% in favour of introducing quotas to local and Seanad elections and 75% in favour of financial sanctions for parties who don’t meet the minimum threshold. We will continue to advocate for the full implementation of the recommendations without delay.
For further information on political gender quotas click here:
https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/country-view/143/35
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