if women ruled the world & the importance of representation
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Welcome back to Growing Up with Ciarán Moncrief. In this episode, I dive deep into the issues of shaping our world today. But I have such a powerful conversation with Katie Deegan, a passionate advocate for women in politics and a representative from Women for Election, an incredible organization dedicated to supporting and training women who want to run for government.

As we explore the importance of equal representation in government, Katie shares insights into the barriers women face when entering politics, from the gender biases still prevalent in many political spaces to the societal pressures that discourage women from pursuing leadership roles. But it's not all challenges. Katie also offers inspiring advice on how women can overcome these obstacles and why the future of our democracies depends on a more inclusive and diverse political landscape.

If you've ever wondered why we need more women in decision-making roles or what can be done to break down the barriers to political participation, this episode is a must listen. So let's jump right in. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Katie, do you want to just talk about what your role is and how you got into this type of work? Yeah, so my name's Katie, obviously, and I work with an organisation called Women for Election. The organisation's been around for about 11 years now. It actually started because two women were out campaigning around the Lisbon referendum, which was like a European referendum thing.

They were knocking on doors and so many women were basically like, oh, I'd love to get involved in politics, but I have no idea how. So they were like, oh, there's clearly a problem here. So they started Women for Election. And yeah, we've just grown strength to strength now. We work across all the elections. So Europe, local, Dáil, Siannid. And we work with all parties and independents. We do have like a red line around, like we're underpinned by the UN Declaration of Human Rights. So we don't work with anyone who's like,

like racist and homophobic basically kind of easy oh brilliant yeah so how do you do you have a system then to prevent that happening well we have a code of conduct so when women are coming to our trainings they have to sign up to that and they have to agree to it so obviously if we're saying like oh you can't be racist and they're like oh well I want to be a bigot when I'm in the room they're obviously not going to sign the thing so it's that kind of protects us you know that kind of way yeah work with

with most of the parties, the main parties, to be fair. But obviously in this election, we've had to be careful around certain like independents or far right candidates that we just wouldn't work with because we're also trans inclusive. So we include trans women as well. So like, obviously we don't want, like not that there was a trans candidate in the general election, but like in the locals there were and we didn't want trans women to obviously not feel safe enough to be able to come to our

yeah you know our trainings or whatever because like we obviously want to increase the amount of women but we also want to increase the amount of diversity so we do an awful lot of work around like specific groups like like traveler women is one of our main key objectives so we work with the national traveler women's forum to increase the amount of traveler women supported in politics as well because it's not just about increasing the amount of women in the doll but the diversity of the type of women that are getting in there are there any traveler women in no well

Well, Senator Arlene Flynn is a senator. She was appointed by the Taoiseach. She was the first ever traveller elected or well appointed to the Oireachtas. But we've never elected a traveller woman. Like traveller women have ran, but have been unsuccessful. Were there any in this general election running? There was one woman, yeah, in Offaly. She ran in A2, yeah. She was a traveller woman in A2, yeah. And how did you get into it yourself?

I was kind of that weird kid in school that like really liked politics and all the other kids were like what is she harping on about like there's like this article in the Sun I think it was of me like aged 11 and it's like a little a little cut out of me being like I'm gonna be the first woman Taoiseach and I'm like

So embarrassing. It's like on my kitchen, like fridge, you know what I mean? Like all the colours fading of it. It's gone so old now. But yeah, so I was kind of always into politics. I think probably because I was just an argumentative kid and always had opinions on things. And then I went to university and I was in the debate in society and university. I ran for the Students' Union. I was first woman president in 11 years in the Students' Union. Wow. And then I went to work for a political party. I did their social media for a couple of years. And now I'm with Women for Election.

That's amazing. Yeah.

so it's kind of just an interest of mine I think were your parents really into politics no no like my dad is a barman so obviously as opinionated as they come like do you know what I mean but no not politically involved like I don't come from a political family or anything like that but so I don't know where I got it from to be honest I think I just liked arguing to be fair like to be honest you know that's what it's all about yeah yeah and I obviously I want to help people like do you know what I mean there's that sense of like you know wanting to see a better Ireland for like us and our kids and all that kind of stuff you know yeah and

I know there's a bit of pushback just because I was looking at this. I was looking at Iceland basically for a case study because they have a female prime minister, half the cabinet are women. And I saw that the way they make a more inclusive environment and try to make gender equality the best that it can be. They bring in the system with young, really young kids where they separate them and then they encourage the...

the innate characteristics with the opposite gender. Yeah, so, but I'm just interested in, and I don't want to talk about that just yet, but I'm interested in the social commentary surrounding wanting to bring more women into politics and want to make women

the world more gender inclusive and equal because that's probably the hardest thing to tackle is like the social conditioning and the unconscious bias that people have or maybe internalized misogyny where women aren't up for the job. I also saw a lot surrounding Holly Cairns. I love Holly Cairns. She's like my queen. She's on maternity leave. Praise Holly. I know, queen. But anytime I saw a video of her, there was this one man and I'm really good at recognizing usernames. If I've seen it once, I'll notice. I'll remember it.

There was one man and he had commented, because obviously I follow Holly Kern, so all of her videos coming up. This one man was commenting on all of her videos saying incompetent.

And it was the same with the... In what way? Like, you don't know her. Anyway, and then with this video about Iceland and it was a video about how they're encouraging gender inclusivity in this TikTok. And I thought it was brilliant. Obviously, my immediate reaction is this is fantastic. They're starting from early childhood development. All the comments, I mean, every single comment was, this is horrible. This is so dangerous. This is reverse sexism and all this. So how are you tackling like those sort of obstacles where it's like people, yeah,

you have to change people's minds because systemically that's one thing like you can put laws and policies in place but how do you tackle like changing people's minds in terms of women are capable and if not more capable for this job?

Yeah, like, and obviously that's the root of it all. Like, obviously we can do as much training and support for the actual women candidates as we can. But at the end of the day, it's the voters that go into the ballot box and it's their decision that decides the outcome of how many women are elected. And it's about, like, it's funny because we talk about gender bias, right? And we actually want people to be gender biased when they're going into the ballot station to

to cast their vote because like we want people to think to themselves okay

are the people that I'm voting for, is this a gender balanced, like, am I, let's take Sinn Féin, for example, like, am I a Sinn Féin voter? If so, and there's two candidates and one is a man and one is a woman, maybe I should be putting the woman at the top of my preferences before the man, because the likelihood is, is that the man is going to get elected anyway. So I should give my higher preference to the woman because I want to see more women in Irish politics.

And I suppose it is about that thing. Like, it's funny, we did some focus groups before the local elections, right, to see like how people feel about this thing. And one of the things that we learned is people, like especially Irish people, we are thrown off instantly the second somebody, you feel like somebody's trying to tell you how to vote. We are very protective of like, well, that's not, you can't tell me how to vote. I can, that's my choice. And what we found was a lot of the time men were going, no.

no you're not going to tell me to vote for a woman just because she's a woman and we're like no no no we're not asking you to vote for a woman because she's a woman what we're asking you to do is research the women that are running find women that are adjacent to your political views and give them your higher preferences to address the gender imbalance in Irish politics because we know that it has an impact on our democracy and how it works

So it's funny because, like you say that about the incompetent, and that's the first thing we always get when we say vote more women online or whatever. The comments are always, well, I'm not voting for a woman just because she's a woman. Or, you know, if women were good enough, they'd get elected on their own. There's not enough women running, first of all. Well, and do you know what? We used to have that problem, right? So obviously this general election was the first general election with 40% quotas. So 40% of all the political parties had to field 40% men and 40% women. Oh, okay.

And then obviously do whatever they want to the extra 20%. Okay. So you have to have a minimum 40% of women running. Now,

This general election and local election both saw a record number of women running in both of those elections. We've never had more women on the ticket. So actually voters have never had more choice than women. But it's about finding the women that you like and giving them your higher preference to try and address it. Because some of your listeners might not know, but Ireland is actually 102nd in the world at the moment for gender equality in national parliament. Which is a really crap statistic. That's really bad. Yeah, really bad. We have the worst gender balance in Western Europe, in anti-democracy in Western Europe.

Like, we are really, really behind. And we were the first European country to ever appoint a woman minister in cabinet, which was Countess Markievicz. And it took us 60 more years to do it again. Like, we're talking about a problem. We're talking about systemic problems. Like, that is systemic. Like, that is a problem. We have a democracy that was designed actively to keep women out of it. So, like, we're trying to undo a problem that's, like, more than 100 years old. And I think people don't realise just how chronic it is in our democracy with the lack of women being elected. So...

when we're talking about gender quotas and we're talking about voting for women it is actually to make sure that there is a balance of men and women of different lived experiences to help benefit our democracy because ultimately like one of the I think one of the best examples that people realize that's so close to their lived experience is COVID right Neffet were all men most of the people that were making the decision our minister for health and our Taoiseach was a man

Like we saw them make decisions that directly impacted how we lived in a day to day. And they were all being made by men. And then women were the ones pointing out going, well, like if I'm going to be two years in lockdown and I can't go to Dunstories to buy my kids shoes who like grows like weeds or like the maternity restrictions were so incredibly strict and

on um women giving birth in maternity hospital women laboring on their own all these things like you know all of these decisions were being made by men it was completely void of any lived experience of a woman which was directly impacted us and i think sometimes we forget that politics can you know the political decisions that they make directly impact our life because they feel very far away when actually covid showed us no they impact your day-to-day life so if

50% of our population are women and only now in this current incoming adult 25% of our TDs are women which is only 44 women and most of them are going to be on the opposition bench.

like you are missing a huge chunk of the population's perspectives when they're making very very serious decisions and I'm not just talking about women's issues like around reproductive health or child care or anything like I'm talking about like economics finance foreign affairs never had a woman minister for finance never had a woman foreign affairs minister never had a woman t-shock like those are very serious portfolios that are completely missing a woman's voice

And what other ways do you think that it would improve our everyday life or public services if there were more women? Yeah, I think like I definitely think, you know, when you look at instances like repeal, for example, like women from across the political spectrum came together and said, look, we're going to put our differences aside and we're going to progress this issue. We're going to work together to make this a thing.

And it worked, like we repealed the Eighth Amendment. And I think, you know, there's so many different examples in county councils, specifically where women across political spectrum will come together and be way more collaborative than men really ever are and say to themselves, well, you might be Fianna Fáil, I might be Sinn Féin and she might be Labour, but we're actually just going to put that party politics aside because we know that this is going to be better for our community if we just work together and get this over the line. Men don't tend to work as collaboratively as women.

And Ivana Bacik, the leader of the Labour Party, actually said as well when she was first elected to the Dáil, she had spent years in the Seánid, which has way more women representatives. She said herself, actually...

it's a lot more difficult to work in the Dáil. It's a lot more aggressive. It's a lot more like argy-bargy shouting at one another. Like it's like, whereas the Sianad was way more collaborative. It was way more kind of like constructive and efficient. Yeah, exactly. And so she noticed that difference from going from one chamber to the next. So, you know, there's definitely an impact on, you know, how things work. Like if you look at the leaders debate in the last general election,

And I think Mary Lou, Mary, yeah, because obviously Holly was in Cork waiting for her baby. So Mary Lou was the only woman. No, sorry. Mary Lou and Ivana were the only two women on that stage of leaders during that debate. Like people were kind of saying like, oh, it was such a bad debate. People were shouting over each other and all of this kind of stuff. Ask yourself, do you think that debate would have been different had there been more women on there?

Probably, like, do you know what I mean? So it's just about what we want for the country and what we want for our democracy. And to be honest, what I want and what Women for Election want to see is a democracy that reflects the society it strives to represent. And that's inclusive of women of colour, like disabled women, traveller women, like, you know, women from all different types of backgrounds, you know, giving, and men, of course, representative of men as well, but we particularly concentrate on women and making sure that that democracy is

got everybody's perspective, even class. Do you know what I mean? Like working class women, middle class women, like, you know, you need that perspective of like where people's lived experiences come from because the policies is going to impact that. So I just think it would make our democracy probably work 10 times better if we thought of those things when we're filling out our ballot paper. And how do you tackle, sometimes I see comments as well, like, oh, well, you want more women in politics. Look what happened to

Italy or look what happened with Margaret Thatcher. I know. You know, stuff like that. I know, but it's so funny because when somebody says like, oh, you should vote for this man, nobody goes, yeah, what about Boris Johnson? Or what about this man? Why are you conflating all these women together? Like, we're not a homogenous group, like, do you know what I mean? Like, every woman is totally different. And that's why when we're saying, like, you should go vote for women, we're not saying you should just vote for this particular woman. Like, we're saying, like, go and find the women who

like appeal to you who speak to you and say you know that's the woman that I want to represent instead of always automatically which is our conditioning to go for the man in that leadership position because like we do see men as the ones that are politicians we see men as the ones that you know will make the decisions who will be

big strong leaders to lead our country and out of the worst economic crisis or whatever is going on in the world you know and when actually like look at the success stories like look at how well New Zealand did during the pandemic with Jacinda Ardern at the helm like you know there's loads of examples of women across the world who are actually doing really deadly jobs at leading their countries but people don't like to use those examples they like to go well what about Margaret Thatcher like I don't

I don't care about her. Like, do you know what I mean? I'm not talking about her. It's just about like being conscious of those elements when you're going in to cast your ballot. And I know obviously we have to wait another four, five years now. There's things that can happen now to help change that, you know. It probably takes four or five years to change people's minds that much. If everyone has to immigrate it by then. Well, I know, you know.

us in our 20s like you know it's a hard road at the moment but I know every single day I'm like will I just move country or will I stay here and try help help I know I know and like look like I think at the end of the day like there are things that can happen now that will help like it can be you can feel quite hopeless like you can say like oh the next election is not till another five years until I can actually make an impact when actually for example right

There are 52 council seats now across the country that are vacant because 52 councillors have been elected to the Dáil. Imagine the, like, so, sorry, I'm going to go back. So in the last local election, we had the same number of outgoing women that we had incoming. So there was not even an increase of one woman in the last local elections, right?

there are now 52 vacant seats that will be co-opted and political parties will choose those people. Imagine if every political party said, do you know what? We'll put women forward. We'll give women the opportunity to build a profile within their communities. We'll give the women the opportunity to like, you know, get the political knowledge that men have had for generations and we'll give them the chance because we all know the vast majority of RTDs, they all started off in local government. Very, very, very, I think actually 12, I think,

I could be wrong on that statistic but a very small amount never touched local government. Like politics is very local in Ireland so like if like it's all very well and good to fill the quota when you have to because you'll be penalised financially if you don't. Like let's put our money where our mouth is now and let's like get women into those seats because you can choose to do so now. Like the Taoiseach whoever that person will be in the next couple of weeks will

has the opportunity to appoint 11 people to the shanid there is not one like we said like obviously arlene was appointed by the the t-shirt in the last shanid and that was the first ever traveler woman there is not one person of color in that doll at the moment like there is not one trans person there is not one um you know other ethnic minority like so like we could make a real impact with those 11 people in the shanid

if they took that opportunity to appoint women and women from all different types of backgrounds. So like it is like it is a choice at this point in time. Like there are choices. And one other thing as well that women for election want to see is whoever does make up the next government has the opportunity then to choose their cabinet. And we think 40% of that should be women. Yeah. You know. No policies in place to make it 40% women. No. None. No. It's completely down to the discretion of...

that he shucked at the time to appoint his cabinet or her cabinet and like that's going to happen in like a few weeks like people are saying like maybe a week or two but it might be after the new year but like that's not far away and is there any advocating that yous do yeah yeah or is there like protests or anything like how do you encourage that yeah so like obviously we've written to all the parties so before they made their general election manifestos we wrote them a letter saying like here's our Christmas list like please do these things in your manifestos um and

And then obviously after the election, then it's all about getting things into the program for government. So like we want to see there's no gender quotas for local government elections. So we want to see like, you know, that 40% being applied to local government as well. Like we want to see things like, you know, a family friendly doll. So like, you know, it's not a case that like if you're a TD out in Cork, like you should be able to vote remotely. Do you know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. If you got small, like if Holly now, she's going to have a baby, like she has a baby now and obviously she's,

going to take her maternity leave I think so like do they have a maternity leave in the doll no just for local counsellors there's no maternity leave it's just like an informal no breastfeeding room I'd say either in the doll no or a baby changing there is childcare I think in the doll there's a creche in the doll okay that's good so they have that but I think it's very hard to get into as far as I know I don't know I don't have any kids but all of those types of like it's very it's not very family friendly like you could be

remember when I worked in the Oireachtas and I was there like late one evening I can't even remember what we were doing I was looking at like obviously the doll TV is like streaming into your office or whatever like that for most of the day and there was like a TD up talking about the leap card and it was like close to 11pm I'm like

oh come on like I love the leap card and all but like 11pm like go home like do you know what I mean like that's not conducive with a healthy family life either no and like we saw a massive amount of TDs kind of go do you know what thanks but no thanks I'm not running again both men and women because I actually think a lot of the men as well are starting to kind of go do you know what the women who've been fighting and talking about like a work-life balance and a family balance like they're actually they're onto something here like I also want to be able to give a dig out to my kids lives and not like miss them

Like, you know, they're up in the doll Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and they spend Monday and Friday down in their constituency. Like, two days a week with your kids. Like, that's a bit crazy. That is crazy. Do you know what I mean? And you're probably not as productive in any order fulfilled if you're not spending your leisure time well. Yeah. You know, if you're just focused on work and work to the bone, you're not going to be...

thinking properly. No, it's not conducive with a family friendly and all those types of things would definitely encourage more women I think to be more active in politics. Is there any other obstacles that would probably inhibit women from even running? We think that childcare for example should be an election cost that you can reimburse yourself for. If you want to run a campaign and you have to get additional childcare you should be able to get

to declare that as an election expense if you're elected. Like we think that, you know, things around obviously the family friendly parliament is like one report that's sitting there. Then there's obviously the, there's the obvious thing around the abuse that women experience, you know, like we don't always like to dwell on that too much. Like we work very closely with Angarishia Connacht to like help women who are experiencing abuse or to like bring them advice and like, you know, give them contacts to be able to deal with those types of things. But like, you know,

The type of abuse that people get on social media, like, is...

completely mad and they said there was a piece of research done and it was like you know women politicians are likely to experience eight times the abusive tweets that male politicians get it's wild like it's like and like don't get me wrong I'm not saying that you need to agree with every single politician and be like kissing their feet or anything like that but like debate respectively like do you know what I mean like the second you bring in personality or looks or you know you're telling them that you're going to show up at

their gaffe and like wreck the place. Like you've lost the argument. Do you know that kind of way? Like you're gone beyond politics now at that point. Like that's just personal. Yeah. And I think a lot, I think that does put a lot of women off. And do you know what? It's funny because we talk about the five C's, right? The five C's are cash, childcare, candidate selection, culture and confidence, right? I don't necessarily think confidence is always a thing because I actually think most, sorry, I'm like eating the microphone here.

I think most women want to run for politics and they have all the confidence in the world to run for politics. But a lot of the time it's their families that go, oh, Cailin, are you mad? Like, you know, you really want to put yourself through that. Oh, my family would literally, if I said I'm running, all my family members would be like, don't do that. Yeah, do you know what I mean? And obviously, like, they're looking out for you because they're thinking, oh, God, I love Cailin. Like, I don't want her to be subjected to that, you know. Yeah.

And like that can be very off-putting for women. I'm like, I totally get it. Like, do you know what I mean? So I think, you know, it's one of those things. Oh, sorry. And they're talking about adding a 6C around cyber. But I like, you know, I think women, we saw a record breaking number of women running this

this time around. And I actually think women are just saying to themselves, you know what, I'm going to do this regardless. Like, sod it. Like, I'm just going to go for it. I'm just going to have a go, see how it goes. Because like, kind of like, don't let the haters hate kind of thing. Like, if I let them win, like, you know, we'll have just more of the same. And unfortunately, the real solution to those systemic problems is actually a critical mass of women. So a lot of the time, the answer to the thing that's holding women back is more women.

which is a very hard sell to women to kind of go, sorry, but like you are the... You need to sacrifice yourself for the greater good. Like that's a difficult thing, you know? And like obviously there's stuff that the system can do. There's, you know, the Oireachtas is talking about safety measures for TDs and senators at their homes and...

you know, like social media companies, obviously there's loads of things that they could be doing better around like taking down abusive content and stuff like that. But yeah, unfortunately, in order to get more civility in politics, we're probably going to need more women, you know. Two questions. Has the abuse increased with, I think there's because there's not any protections in terms of verbal abuse or like vulgar abuse that's put online. Do you think that that's now being perpetuated and has it increased since maybe the last general election?

And how can you prevent that? I think, I definitely think, like it probably has gotten worse, like, you know, with social media and stuff like that. Like, definitely. I think this general election, I actually think people were surprised at how well it all went off. Like, I don't think, like, I think it was worse than the locals for whatever reason. I think...

Like maybe because the person who's running for your local council feels more immediate to you rather than like this person who's running for a much bigger constituency. There seem to be a lot worse cases out there during the locals. I also think, you know, like it's funny, like talking to like I was at the Green Party convention before the locals. And I remember loads of the women that we were talking to at the time that were running for county and city elections.

they were like, oh, I'm actually having a really good time. I'm kind of waiting for the abuse to start. Everybody's talking about it, but I haven't experienced any of it. And I'm like, great, good. They're like, you know, people will say to me at the door, oh, sorry, don't vote green, and they'll close the door on my face. And that's grand. But they're not like, you know,

terrible either so like you know I think vast majority of experiences that people have in person fine they're respectful and people will debate and that will be grand it is really online and a lot of the time it's like anonymous profiles that you know nobody bots yeah exactly my observation now apparently there wasn't an increased number of independents that were elected it was the same as the last general election

Oh, I saw on the... Maybe. I don't know, actually. I'd have to have a look. But I don't know if there were more... It seemed like, to me, there were more independents running, though. Yeah. So it's just more difficult because it dilutes... Is there any sort of... Like, what's the process to be able to run for election? Like, is there any... No. Vetting. You just have to be... Well, for Dáil elections, you just have to be a citizen.

really yeah I suppose that's democracy like you know you want like you know and like once you start kind of vetting people who are saying that you have to meet some sort of criteria you're going to eventually exclude someone which is probably not what you want to do either but like don't get me wrong there was obviously some colourful characters running in the last election we won't name names but you know like yeah I suppose that's just the beauty of democracy is that you just leave it up to people to make their decision and do the research and figure out like you know like my fella is from Tala and em

Like they have a low voter turnout. And like one of the things that I would always say to people as well, like when we're talking about voting especially, is like if you feel like your area... Like I'm from Blanchies, from Tala. We cross that north-south divide, you know, very well or whatever, you know. But like, you know, when you...

when you're talking about like areas like Blanche or Talla that like feel neglected and they don't feel like they're getting the adequate amount of resources or investment from the state like that's not going to change because I promise you this political parties look at where voter turnouts and who and and who supported their party to the road like to like do you know what I mean like they're able to tell like from early tallies like you know that um you know

one main street, the main street in Swords, like have 50 houses and that ballot box, we got 25 of those votes. So we know that that's a, you know, we're getting 50% that we know that that's an area that our local TD really needs to pay attention to so that we keep those votes. Like that is the granular level that they're looking at things. So if you feel neglected, you really, really, really need to use that vote. Like,

and show them actually I am somebody that you need to pay attention to same with young people same with other minorities where people kind of go oh they don't vote like I I'm 29 and I still I live at home with my mum and dad housing crisis and all that but um

I still like when I open the door I still get asked are you voting I'm like yeah like one particular canvasser was like and they were for like I live out in Dublin West so you know it was like I've got a lot like I've got Roderick and Jack Chambers and I had Leo Varadkar so I've like really high profile name my constituents and like one like a canvasser for like one of these bigger names like came to my door and was like are you voting and I'm like yeah actually I used to work for a political party and I worked for a political organisation and

organization now then all of a sudden she was like oh that's great like who do you work for and I'm like

like I'm not telling you but like instantly she saw that I was a young person and her immediate reaction was to ask did I vote and I'm like would you have asked my mom or my dad had they opened the door you would have assumed they vote do you know that kind of way yeah so there is this assumption that young people just don't care they just don't vote and I think you know I think in order to be able to change that narrative like people need to come out in droves and the thing is you know with so few women elected in the local in the last general election with only 44 people say oh but I

oh but are people not voting for women though? Do women not vote for women? That's always what people ask. And what I would say is well actually women made up about a third of the candidates in the general election and they got around a third of the first preferences. So actually women are really performing very very well. The problem is is that transfers to more

well-known men politician often trump them for the last seat and that's why we know things like larger seat constituencies is something that we should probably do in order to be able to make sure that you know women have a greater opportunity to be elected it's widely known that if you have a larger seat constituency women perform better in those types of areas because a lot of the time women are missing out by just a couple of hundred votes at the very last seat people are actually voting for women and i do think people want to see a more gender-based

or gender balanced democracy and it's funny because obviously we've been talking about this now to nauseating like extents since the beginning of the year and obviously now that we're like there was a big headline in the Guardian saying like oh Ireland has the worst gender balance in Western Europe and every like it kind of went viral that picture of Fianna Fáil you know with only seven women and all the men and I was kind of like

if we just had this attention before the election, maybe we would have had more women elected. But it's funny because, you know, we want that energy now that like to bring us through the next five years and like...

you know really seeing more women now in the next stall do you know what I mean like I know it's slow but it's like it's so worth this and how would we make politics more accessible because I know there was a low turnout of young voters as well now half of them probably were emigrated but it's true and I mean it should be easier to get a postal vote it's incredibly difficult to get a postal vote in this country it should be easier I'd much rather see better education and skills around politics okay more accessible information like

nobody needs to be talking in tongues when they're talking about politics like it's not that complicated and

I know. Do you know what I mean? And like people go, oh, but Katie, I'm so confused. I don't know how that works. And I'm like, because they're making it confusing. Like it doesn't have to be this way. Do you know what I mean? It's actually very simple. Like, you know, you run for election, you get elected, you don't. You have to make up a majority amount of seats to be the government. Otherwise you're in the opposition. That simple. You know, like it really doesn't have to be that complicated. And I think the political system as it stands has an awful lot of work to do to try and like undo all of that kind of complication because...

just doesn't have to be this way and then there's also as well like you're saying about making politics more accessible and like increasing the amount of women like there are things that like people like you and me can do now today and to be honest one of them is like really get involved like if you're a member of a political party at the moment what I would say and you're especially if you're a young woman or a woman of any age but particularly young women I would say don't just be a member like be an active member like run for your branch chair like run for your branch secretary like be involved like get

get those positions because those positions within a political party might not seem like much but they do have influence and like you know if you can be an active member within your political party between now and the next election like you are going to learn loads so that when the time comes around that you might be a candidate you've got all the political knowledge that men have held for years and

So, like, there's so many things that we can do. And if you're not a member of a political party, maybe consider joining one. It's really good fun. Yeah. My mam's always been really politically involved. She's near retirement age now and we're all grown up. So in the evenings she had a bit of extra time and she's always real, like, she worked in transport for years so she wanted to write policy for transport. Okay. But she's always been encouraging us to be active and

Having the power to disagree with something. Because I think that's a huge thing with young people. And especially when I was younger, I would always let my parents influence my decision. Yeah. And I'd be listening to what they're saying. Both of them are very politically active. My dad obviously works in the media. My mom is just like an activist. An activist. Yeah. And very well educated. So I'd always be listening to them. And I would just allow them to decide...

kind of for you and that's what happens when you're young though because you haven't learned the skills to decide for yourself or to be able to disagree with someone or you had to make up your own mind and it's only when and it's probably more difficult for people living at home who had influence by their parents decision but it was only when I started making friends with people from different contexts to me different areas you know my boyfriend's from Tala you know and you get all this information and you hear about other people's lived experience outside of your own because when you're younger you don't really you can't

you don't have that compassion there unless you're like really close with someone. Yeah, you can see it online or wherever but there's also an element of detachment because you can show cognitive dissonance or whatever. Yeah, because my boyfriend always says he runs like an anti-racist organisation and he always says like you can't hate up close. Like once you get to know something like it's very hard to hate and like

I'd happily disagree and have a political debate with somebody like no problem at all. And that's the beauty of democracy. Like you want to be able to disagree and come to some sort of like conclusion. But the problem is, is that the voices that are in those conversations at the moment are all very samey.

And they don't have that world view or that same experience. Do you know what I mean? Like, they don't know what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck or be in rental accommodation or, you know, be a single mom or any of that stuff. Like, do you know what I mean? And, like, that's so important. Like, I grew up in a household where, like, me and my dad have polar opposite political views. Like, we would always disagree or whatever like that. But I remember, like, people saying, like, oh, yeah, like, I'll just talk to my mom and dad and see whoever they're voting for. And I'm like, you wouldn't let your mom and dad choose what you had for dinner. Like...

Do you know what I mean? Like why are you letting them or like your hair colour or like you wouldn't let them choose like what you're wearing today. No but it's more important than that. It's not like even dinner or like the way you wear your hair. It's like deciding what course you do in college. Deciding what country you move to. That's the kind of decisions they're making for you. Yeah exactly and you wouldn't let them make even the small decisions so why would you let them make the big ones for you? Like it doesn't make sense. Like you and like again like I said like I always say to people especially during election time

your TDs really want to hear from you and they want to get you on side so if you're in an area let's say like that needs a cycle lane or something and you cycle to work every single day and you're like my life would be so much better with a cycle lane I can promise you this if you got on to your local councillor and you said look I'm a 25 year old in Bray and we need a cycle lane can you give me help can I help you get this over the line they'd be like

Absolutely. Like, no problem at all. They're like, let's do this. Like, I can promise you, like, they would actively encourage that kind of involvement with them. Because the likelihood is then is if they're able to get you a cycle lane, you might become a voter for them. You might get involved in their campaign when election time comes around. Everybody needs bodies to drop leaflets or put up posters. So like that type of active local involvement is really key as well to like changing the way...

You know, people kind of underestimate the power they have around over politicians. But like politicians really want to know from like what we think and hear from us. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think you can't, you cannot underestimate the power of your voice or your vote. Like you really, really can't, especially not at this age when so many people are emigrating. So many people are still living at home. Like the average house, person that buys a house is like 39 now or something.

Like, yeah, my mom's friends and work just bought a house and like they're in their 50s. Like wild. They've been renting for years with their kids. Do you know what I mean? And I'm just like, ah! I know. So those types of decisions are really important. So like you should consider that the next time an election comes around, you know, or if you're sitting there going, maybe I'll get involved, like definitely should. And do you do work in secondary schools?

Yeah, so when it's not an election year, like because we're a very small team of four people. It's only four of you. Only four. Oh my God. I know, we're teeny tiny. We used to only be two. We increased during the elections because obviously we had two elections, a referendum. Oh wait, three elections to lead to Europe as well. And this year, so we knew we were going to have like all hands on deck. Yeah. So yeah, so it's four of us now at the moment. Yeah, so when things are a little bit quieter, yeah, we do. We go into secondary schools, which I...

kind of love to be honest because like yeah and a lot of time it's like girl skills and stuff like it's kind of cool because they're gas like do you know what I mean they're so funny and like politics is obviously a leaving search subject now so a lot of the time we get these lovely little emails being like hi guys like I just did my politics project on women in Irish politics and I'd love to run it past you like can we have a zoom call I'm like yeah and then I usually end the zoom call with like when would you run and they go

like obviously being like 16 you're like no way Scarlett having my face on a poster are you mad and I'm like yeah fair you'll grow out of that but then er

and then they're like oh but they're like oh but I might like to like study in university and I'm like yeah you should I'm like you know that kind of thing so it's nice like because like you know that whole like you know usual saying of like you cannot be what you cannot see like it's so true and you know you want young girls to feel inspired and feel like there's hope for them do you know what I mean and that the Taoiseach's not always going to be a man do you know that there is possible for like you know 16 year olds Mary from Roscommon do you know to become the next Taoiseach or whatever whoever it is

So, yeah, we do. We do that kind of work. We do a lot of work in universities as well with students unions and, you know, because like they could be next political leaders and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. And how do you get funding? So we are funded by, we're always looking for money. So if there's anyone out there that like fancies giving us, throwing us a few bob, we get money from the Department of Equality. So like Roger Gorman's old department. Yeah, gives us some money. We get some money from the Department of Housing, BLM.

believe it or not because they also are the Department of Local Government okay so we get some money from them and then we kind of do some philanthropy work like we apply for things like the Ireland Funds they sponsor some of our projects like they're more project based so like we might get a few grand to like do one particular type of thing or and then we look for we also have this thing called the Kentis Markievicz Circle so if any rich people out there want to donate it's like basically like a subscription where they say they sign up

A lot of these women would have like either been involved in politics or they might have made like money through business or their doctors or whatever and they want to help but they can't. They don't necessarily have the time to do the work but they can help financially. They might donate a small amount of money in a year and they provide that on a regular basis or whatever and we're obviously very grateful for them.

that they give us some of the money as well so that's kind of how we work it but to be fair for a small team we've got gotten great support from like the women's caucus within the Oireachtas like so the TDs and Senators women's TDs and Senators we've gotten great support from councils across the country we've great support from our boards like they're a bunch of like really intelligent women like you know they're

help us with strategy and stuff like that and like I am the comms person and I'm not going to toot my own horn but like we got some great coverage over the locals in the general election like we made it from Page of the Irish Times we're on News Talk RT News like you know we for a small group like we made a big splash so like you know we definitely get the message out there but it's just yeah

Yeah, it's more so just about getting people to be conscious when they're going into the ballot box, you know, to make a difference then in the long run. Is there any model exemplar countries that you look to for inspiration as to how they run the country? Well, I mean, Iceland is definitely one of them, you know, having a gender balanced cabinet and things like that. And like some of the Scandinavian countries do really, really well. You know, it's funny, like when I ask people, like, OK, what do you think is the number one country? I said we're 100 second. What's number one? What do you reckon? Iceland. Iceland.

No. Oh. I know. Is it? Rwanda. The majority of the top 10 countries are actually African countries. Yeah, because Ellen Sirleaf Johnson, she does great work trying to get women elected. Yeah, she was...

Liberia yeah post-civil war yeah I love her talk she's so good she's really good so actually there a lot of them are like so we always think that like western democracy is where it's at when actually yeah you know there's a lot of work that happens in like you know Africa and South America around like women in politics and stuff like that so yeah no there's like there's loads of countries that are doing it well look we've had a really tough year as like women in our Irish politics or an

in Ireland in general like we've had some really tragic cases over the last couple of years around violence against women and obviously more women in politics would help alleviate some of that but there obviously is a deep rooted misogyny within our culture and our society that like has to be rooted out and dealt with and like it probably does start like with you know kids at

early childhood age and, you know, their perception of women and how leadership positions are taken up and all of those types of things, which is a much bigger battle. But there is things that we can do now. And one of them is voting for women and, you know, getting more women involved in politics and getting them elected is going to be key to like addressing some of those more societal dangerous issues.

that are affecting women on an everyday, you know. Do you have any advice for women that want to run? Like it's very early now in the cycle because we're just done. But if you are thinking about it, contact us. So like we're womenforelection.ie, womenforelection on most socials. You can find us, follow us, give us a DM and we'll do absolutely everything we can to help you in your journey to get elected. If you're a woman out there that's involved in a political party and you want help around politics,

running for your branch chair or getting involved in your national executive of your party or whatever the case may be, we'll also help you with that kind of stuff. Yeah, always. We're just where we will do everything we can. We'll have a look at where your votes are coming from. We'll help you with media. We'll help you with whatever we can. So just get in touch, really.

That's great. Over the next four or five years, you have a chance to make a difference. You definitely do. By getting involved in a political party, if you're a man and you're actively involved in a political party, maybe you should look around at the women that are in your political party and maybe you should step aside to let a woman be elected into a party branch or party...

whatever the case may be. Or maybe there's things that you can also do to support a woman's campaign. Maybe you should be helping your local woman counsellor or TD or whatever the case may be. If you're not actively involved in politics...

maybe you should have a research and have a look at the political parties consider one of them join one of them and get involved and try and build your knowledge around politics or have the conversation with your friends and family about why it's important that we have more women in politics because ultimately it is a balance of men and women that makes our decision making better and that's what we need thank you so much thanks for having

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope it gave you some insight into why we need more women in leadership roles and how we can get there or how we can achieve that. But before I finish this off, I want everyone as a little case study exercise homework to look up Iceland because when I was trying to research this episode and trying to research questions to ask Iceland's

consistently came up. It was persistently coming up in my algorithms then and showing up on my suggested videos on YouTube and everything. So Iceland consistently ranks as the world leader in gender equality. Now, I wasn't sure why, specifically what made them so equal. Was it in terms of pay? Was it in terms of like their social conversations about women, the lack of misogyny? Was it like equal employment? Was it the...

parental leave? What was it? So there are a few things that make it the world leader in gender equality. So number one is obviously political representation. And I know Katie was talking about Rwanda as one of these examples or one of the exemplar models of

equal representation in government, but I do have to look into that myself. But Iceland has one of the highest percentages of women in parliament globally and women's political involvement is supported through gender quotas and active initiatives encouraging women to run for office. So that could be implemented indefinitely

in Ireland and in Iceland they also have equal pay so I know they brought in legislation and it was the first country to make it illegal for companies to pay men more than women for the same work and a video I watched about this they give like kind of a survey that you have to fill out so I can have

look up an example of it but anyway they have to fill out the survey and say it could be comparing well it's comparing every single employee in the whole business so that's like cooks cleaners gardeners laborers the electrician the plumbers in the business like every single person and then it would be the finance officer the chief

impact officer the cco the cfo the i already said cfo but you know what i mean it compares every single person but the the way that it's rated it's not specific to that role it's like just in a general sense so it's much easier to compare them and to try quantify how much they should be paid and it highlighted how much disparity there was between the pays that are like

stereotypically women's roles compared to stereotypically men's roles for the same level of responsibility or the same level of labour that they were doing. And then another thing is they have workplace equality. So they have policies promoting parental leave, subsidised childcare and flexible working hours that ensure that both men and women can balance family and career responsibilities equally. Also, another, I think it was an article I looked up,

They have three months paid paternity leave up to 80% of your, no, 80% of your salary. And that's paid by the government or it might be enforced by the companies. I can't remember. But you can get paid up to, I think it's 4,600 of your salary. So it encourages then more men to take time off work. It's also the roles at home are more gender fluid because you're understanding about the

like your baby's cues and how to care for them if you're at home more if you're at home obviously if you're going to work every day you have like an imbalance there between what mommy's doing at home to what daddy's doing at work like you're obviously not going to learn all those cues about your baby while you're at work the same the way the man would at home but it encourages like equal equal partnership equal between the man and the woman the opportunities to either stay at home or go back to work because they're

there is opportunities for men to be paid to stay at home to look after the babies. Gender equality is deeply embedded in Icelandic society with strong public support for women's rights and a focus on dismantling gender stereotypes from an early age. I think I touched on this earlier in the episode, but they introduced this from the earliest ages of preschool or play school, whatever you call it, probably creche as well, where they separate the girls and the boys and then they encourage the stereotypical

The stereotypical attributes that would be associated with the specific gender and they apply that to the opposite gender. So say that like boys are messier and take risks and adventurous and girls would be more caring and want to have conversations with each other and work together. So they encourage the boys then to be caring and work together and have conversation. And then they encourage the girls to like be adventurous, take risks and, you know, work on building projects and stuff like that. Both genders then feel capable to do anything. And there's no, they,

They see each other as more equals because they know that their abilities to do what, say, it's like what a boy does or what a girl does, they know that they can do all of it and they're fully capable of that because of neuroplasticity. In 1975, there was a nationwide movement among women where all of them collectively came together and took a day off work in protest to show and highlight the importance of women in the economy, in public services, etc.

and just in general, like even at home, they weren't doing the cooking, they weren't doing the cleaning, they weren't doing the caretaking. So it was like any work whatsoever, they all took the day off together, which I think is iconic.

But also, if you can imagine, you know, the majority of nurses and midwives would be women. The majority of teachers would be women. And all the schools had to shut down. Like, imagine you were giving birth that day. You would kind of be fucked. So it encouraged that. That's what encouraged, I think, the legal framework to protect women and the legislation to protect equal pay rights. And I think there is still a lot of work that has to be done in Iceland and obviously all over the world. We're very aware. But violence against women is one of the

One of the main things that they are currently trying to combat, because it's more like social conditioning and that's deep rooted in people, probably particularly older people that have misogyny, very, very internalized or even just overt misogyny as well. It's probably more difficult to tackle.

than with kids at a younger age. So this big protest that they did in 1975, they also did it in 2023. But what was interesting in the 2023 protests is that half the cabinet were women. So the prime minister took the day off. I think it was like the minister for foreign affairs took the day. You know, like all these women that were in government also went out in protest in solidarity with the working people. So I think it creates more of like a sense of community, a sense of unity. If there's no like,

you versus them. It was literally the people in government out protesting with the working people as well. Not that people in government aren't working, but you know what I mean? But I thought that was fantastic and it obviously makes such a big difference because Iceland is leading the way for gender equality in the world at the moment. So I thought that would be a little bit of an inspiring story if anyone wants to organise a nationwide protest and we all get to take the day off.

Thank you so much for listening.

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