European democracy

Event report

Europe Direct Event: People Like Me, Voices Like Mine: Women’s Voices in Democracy Hosted jointly by Europe Direct Clones and Europe Direct Ballinasloe 23 September 2021. 19:00 – 20:30 IST Online event: ticketed – 41 participants Promotion: This event was hosted on Zoom, and promoted on our social media channels. NB: This event was unique in that it comprised an all-female panel, an all-female backroom team, and an all-female team of ED Centre staff. Speakers & moderator Maeve McCormack, Deputy Head of News at Midlands103 radio station was the moderator for the event. Speaker 1: Maria Walsh, MEP spoke about her own growth in rural Ireland, and her move into politics. She spoke about being in a rural area and needing to see women like her in local politics. Speaker 2: Uremeu Adejinmi, Mayor of Longford Town, spoke about her mostly positive experience of campaigning as a political representative. She is a Fianna Fail backed candidate and spoke of the value of having experienced political campaigners to engage with. Speaker 3: Dr. Michelle Maher is the programme director at See Her Elected. She spoke about encouraging women to get involved with Public Participation Networks. She also highlighted how important it is for women to speak up so that we don’t just have men guessing what women want, but instead have women speaking about the reality of their lived experience. Speaker 4: Lorraine Cunningham from the National Collective of Community-based Women’s Networks, Blayney Blades. The NWCCN represent 17 national women’s groups. This is important for diversity of representation and ideas because what works in rural areas won’t work in urban areas etc. Leona Keenan, manager of Monaghan Public Participation Network (PPN) then spoke about the fact that there is a PPN in every county across the country – becoming part of this gives the opportunity for consultation, representation, information. PPNs give input into local policy and sometimes into national policy. Every County Council committee must have community representation (i.e. PPN engagement). Participation isn’t just about voting, it’s about local people coming together and having their voices heard by their county councils. Topics discussed by panel (speakers 1-4): • Presenting women whenever possible is essential. Looking at the diversity of our population, this is not reflected when we look at what we see on the news. It tends to be a particular sex, colour, and age we see. • Importance of women validating each other and supporting each other. • Challenges of women balancing a home life and a work life. Maria Walsh MEP spoke about her parents supporting her while she was on the road doing long drives which was a very interesting perspective. • Money and fundraising - when running for election, those with a smaller budget are invisible. Capping spend at a reasonable amount so that ordinary people can run for election will create a more level playing field. • Many women have great experience working in a background capacity on campaigns, frequently for male candidates, which would be immensely valuable in supporting female candidates. • A Universal Basic Wage which would recognise all the vital unpaid work that women do in the voluntary sector, in the home, as carers etc. would also help enable more women to get involved in politics directly. Similarly, there should be a universal pension. • As many politicians gain their experience in local elections, male-female quotas for local elections should be brought in to give more women the opportunity to gain experience in politics and then to process to regional and national level. • Work/Life Balance - the long hours and late hours of politics are seriously detrimental to women’s opportunities. Women frequently have to leave meetings early as they have home responsibilities. • Importance of mentoring women and having a buddy system so that women are always with someone who is championing them, preferably another female who is as positive about them as they are about themselves. • Support networks for women. The more voices we get into the political arena, whether as candidates or support teams, the more we can change the system. • The criticism female politicians receive in media and press and the fact that male politicians are not subjected to the same abuse. • Women don’t, and shouldn’t, just focus on women’s issues, we need to get involved across the board in political life. • Need to pull women up the ladder after ourselves. Don’t get competitive with other women, instead get more representation of women in our system.