Gender flip in Cavan County Council Chamber
Women of Cavan are set to take the Cavan Council Chamber by storm today (Wednesday) with the ratio of men to women set to be flipped as part of an event to highlight gender balance in politics on International Women’s Day.
The meeting will take place at 11.30AM this morning (Wednesday) with 14 women and only four men, the opposite of how council meetings usually look. Although, following the co-option of Cllr Áine Smith to her late father, Sean Smith’s council seat on Monday, five out of 18 county councillors in Cavan will be female.
“We’re celebrating international women’s day on March 8, we’re doing a gender flip in the council,” says Fine Gael Councillor, Carmel Brady.
“We’re going to have a mock meeting, so we’re going to have four men and 14 ladies in the position, just to see what it looks like. We are also having Maria Walsh [MEP] as our guest speaker on the day.
“Then we will have a sandwich and a cup of tea afterwards and people can chat and some of the ICA groups and women’s groups are coming in as well.”
Cllr Brady is inviting all females interested in attending the meeting to come along.
The event, facilitated by the Irish Women’s Parliamentary Caucus, will involve discussion with women from diverse disability and minority groups to engage on the theme of “gender equality in politics”.
The Irish Women’s Parliamentary Caucus was established in 2017 to increase the interest of women to enter into political positions.
The cross-party forum for Irish women parliamentarians discusses and campaigns on issues predominantly affecting women.
“We had some issues that we wanted to work on like homelessness, violence against women, just general issues that women face in politics and in life in general. That’s what we formed the Caucus for, so that we’d have a better voice as a group,” says Cllr Brady, the chairperson of the committee.
“A lot of women who enter politics, they do it for their community and because better decisions need to be made, and they’ll incorporate things that affect them.
“So a lot of women are the primary carers in the house. A lot of the meetings are daytime meetings and they’re finding it hard. During Covid, we realise that there are hybrid meetings, which allow you to join online from wherever you are.
“We were looking at things like that and even recording meetings that were held, and then they can play them back later on,” continues Cllr Brady.
See Her Elected
The group created a ‘See Her Elected’ campaign, which provides free online political education, a free comprehensive practical guidebook, and a continuous series of free interactive workshops covering all the different areas any woman running for election or part of her campaign team needs to think about and have a plan for.