IWD23 – Embracing Equity in Female Political Participation

International Women’s Day 2023 – Embracing Equity in Female Political Participation ?

In marking International Women’s Day 2023, many of us might take some time to reflect on what it means to us, our colleagues, families and friends. 

The aim of the day this year is to get the world talking about ‘Why equal opportunities aren’t enough’ and to #EmbraceEquity. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging are said to require equitable action.

For women currently in or entering politics, this concept can ring true in many cases. While it is positive that there is increasing encouragement for young women to enter political roles and office, the criticism that some are faced with can have a negative impact on our desire to pursue ambitions in the area. In such a case, having an equal opportunity is not enough if there isn’t a feeling of inclusion and belonging. 

In recent months, we have witnessed female politicians across the world, such as Jacinda Ardern and Nicola Sturgeon, speak about the mental toll that their jobs have had on them personally. This sentiment was surmounted during the week as Ireland’s Junior Minister, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill noted publicly that politicians should remain contactable for voters but nobody should face vile abuse, as part of the Irish Sun’s Call This Out Campaign.

In recent days, Ceann Comhairle, Seán Ó Fearghaíl met female members of the Oireachtas and announced a taskforce to look at the physical, verbal and online threats that women politicians in particular receive. This builds on the Government’s Zero Tolerance strategy, which, led by Minister Helen McEntee, pinpoints 144 actions under four pillars — ­protection, prevention, persecution and policy coordination to tackle gender based violence.

Of course, criticism is not exclusive to female politicians – it can happen to anyone, but in a world where we encourage female representation, and as we reflect on #IWD23, it is important that we do our best to look out for each other and facilitate an environment that makes women feel empowered to pursue their ambitions. 

Chloé

Chloé Sullivan is part of the Public Affairs and PR team at Fuzion Communications who operate from offices in Dublin and Cork

Choose to Challenge – International Women’s Day

On international Women’s Day 2021, there is a particular theme that was calling women to action with a very proactive ask, “Choose to Challenge” which came with an explanation:

A challenged world is an alert world and from challenge comes change – So let’s all choose to challenge!

With this “call to action” there were some other specific asks of women as outlined further in the IWD website:

How will you help forge a gender equal world?

• Celebrate women’s achievement.
• Raise awareness against bias
• Take action for equality.

Within Fuzion we encourage a challenging environment for all of the team, which is part of our core values, Bravery.

In every job description that we write, you will see it written and to us it is an important attribute, every bit as important as the basic skill sets required for each role.

We challenge each other, our opinions, our views and our ideas and we will challenge our clients to think differently and not to be afraid to disagree when we believe something is going in a wrong direction – you get that with us!

So, with all of that in mind I asked the team to record an episode of the Win Happy podcast to mark this years International Women’s Day, to discuss the theme and the different elements and to see how they felt about them.

For the record, I did offer to pass the hosting duty to anyone else and in the spirit of Fuzion, everyone, male and female were invited to participate but due to workload issues (and maybe a little shyness!) this episode featured Dee (Deirdre Waldron), Suzanne Meade and Niamh Lawlor who are all part of our Communications team.

The conversation was really interesting and revealing.

The team loved the “bold” call to action and spoke about how women can often be more reluctant than men to challenge.

They spoke about emotional leadership, a huge strength that women can bring to any organisation, Dee’s work and initiatives as President of Network Ireland, the huge role of mothers and friends as influencers, that men should be part of the conversation and not excluded, and thankfully they have not experienced bias in their careers.

However, they did acknowledge that the industry that we operate in might lend itself to that.

It makes for good listening.

Click on the link here or search for Win Happy on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts – we will be there!

For the record, some of the very best people that I work with are women and if I thought for a second that they were not prepared to challenge there would be something very wrong.

Just this morning on our weekly “hello” Monday morning team Zoom call, we had a very robust conversation about an opinion that I shared and they came at me in force!!

….if I told you what it was, I could have a busy day getting nothing done except arguing!

So today, I salute the brilliant women that I work with and the many brilliant women that I deal with on an ongoing basis. In particular, I salute my mum who is just incredible, such a positive driving force – you have no idea!

#ChooseToChallenge 

(you won’t find me wanting!)

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

International Women’s Day…Bigger and Better Than Ever

I am a huge fan of International Women’s Day.

I love that us females have our very own day on March 8^th every year to celebrate women just as they are, their achievements and contributions, and I’m delighted to witness this special day getting bigger and better every year across the world.

For what seemed to me to be a relatively new day in the calendar, it turns out that International Women’s Day is anything but, having originally believed to have started in 1909 in New York as part of the trade union movement, by a woman called Theresa Malkiel, a Russian born, American labour activist, suffragist and educator.

However, International Women’s Day as we know it today essentially took off in 1975 when the United Nations began celebrating the day on March 8^th as part of International Women’s Year.

Personally, I have only in the last few years come to recognise the importance of IWD as a day to champion women’s rights and female empowerment.

It is a wonderful thought that all over the globe there are events and celebrations taking place, and every country has their own special traditions to mark it. In several countries such as Russia, China and Italy IWD is now a national holiday, while in Japan International Women’s Day is gradually turning into a full month of celebrations.

In Ireland, we have our own things going on and plenty of them too.

In the week or so leading up to IWD events are taking place all over the country from inspirational panel talks with powerhouse female CEO’s and media personalities to the hosting of coffee mornings. It appears that this year many women across Ireland have taken it on themselves to organise their own IWD events in their offices or at home, while others might mark the day by meeting their friends for dinner and clinking their glasses in celebration.

I marked IWD this year by attending an event held by ‘Women on Air’, a wonderful organisation with the aim of getting more females on radio, television and panels as experts in their own field.

As I listened to former Political Correspondent for RTE, Martina Fitzgerald discuss her own career and thinking back on a talk I attended in Twitter headquarters last week with Dr. Ciara Kelly, the key theme I am taking away with me from IWD this year is resilience.

Listening to these two women talk openly about continuously falling over, then managing to pull themselves together and get back up even when they really didn’t feel like it was inspirational and is something many of us women can relate to.

The overall theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is #BalanceForBetter but I’m sticking with my own theme of resilience, and if I fall down that’s okay because I’ll try my best to pull myself back up!

Michelle

Michelle Lynch is a PR Account Manager in the Dublin office of Fuzion Communications, a full service agency offering Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

 

 

A salute to some very special women on International Women’s Day

Over the course of the last year, our curly haired one, Greg Canty has been really busy with the Fuzion Win Happy podcast and it has featured some incredible, powerful women from all walks of life.

The episodes with these inspirational women are very revealing and you can clearly see a pattern whereby early life experiences has clearly shaped them and driven them on in special ways.

If you get a chance you might take the time and listen and learn directly from this special group.

All of these podcasts can be accessed from the usual Apps and Spotify but they can also be listened to directly by clicking on the links provided below:

Gillian Keating

First up was Gillian Keating, who as well as being a successful commercial law solicitor (now with RDJ), was President of Cork Chamber and has been busy “Cracking the Diversity Code” with her work as part of the huge iWish movement, which is making huge strides in opening up STEM for young women.

Listen to Gillian

 

Deirdre Waldron

No series would be complete without our very own Deirdre who started off life working hard as part of the family business. She started Fuzion as a small business in Tralee and now it is an award winning agency with offices in Dublin and Cork and doing great work with large and small clients. She became the President of Network for Women in Business and launched their Fuelling Ambition roadshows, encouraging women to reach higher and higher.

We love her “Chicken Maryland” story about her dad!

Listen to Deirdre

 

Lilla Vargen

Sometimes circumstances can drive you on and this beautiful, superstar singer songwriter from Northern Ireland has the most fascinating tales from her youth and she will admit that her obvious talents had to be coaxed out of her by those around her who knew the talent that was lurking inside. Was this an “Accidental journey” or was it her destiny?

Listen to Lilla

 

Eleanor O’Kelly Lynch

How do you end up being the brightest, cheeriest and most positive person in the room when you have the colossal task of minding a very sick, totally dependant child 24/7. We learnt a lot from this episode “Staying bright in a dark world” with Eleanor O’Kelly Lynch from Golden Apple Training.

Listen to Eleanor

 

Mary McCarthy

The very passionate art lover, Mary McCarthy is a Cork treasure. She has had a fascinating career that thankfully saw her joining the Crawford Art Gallery last year as Director. Already we are seeing sweeping changes as the doors of this fantastic facility have been thrown wide open to fire up art passions in everyone. “Art and Culture and the huge role it plays in our society”

Listen to Mary

 

Catherine Moroney

Catherine, Head of Business Banking with AIB has a fascinating story including being told at one point that she had just six weeks to live! Her dad dragged her with him on his visits to building sites when she was young……maybe it triggered an interest in business? “Connecting heart and head – a self declared conehead”

Listen to Catherine

 

Margot Slattery

Margot who has the huge job of being Country Manager of Sodexo shared her idyllic stories of life on a farm in Bruff in Limerick and her inspirational grandmother who was widowed at a very early age and ran a farm by herself. Margot reminds us that we should all “remember where we came from” and she proudly waves a flag for the LGBT community in Ireland.

Listen to Margot

 

Deirdre Garvey

Deirdre Garvey, CEO of The Wheel does some inspirational work assisting non-profits each day as she leads this powerful organisation. This engineer suddenly found herself working in a charity in Ireland, which led her on a journey to leading The Wheel “18 Years behind The Wheel”.

Listen to Deirdre

 

Denise Fitzgerald

How can a career in banking suddenly change to working for a children’s charity – maybe experiencing the difference such a charity can make on a hospital visit! “Making a huge difference with the CEO of Temple Street Foundation”

Listen to Denise

 

Kay O’Connell

Unfortunately, Kay O’Connell the founder of the famous Cork fishmongers is not here to tell us her story, but her son, the famous Pat O’Connell talks lovingly about his best friend and his powerhouse mother “My Mother, the Mother-in-Law and the Queen”

Listen to Pat

 

Deirdre Mortell

Why make a difference in one organisation when you can make a difference in many? Deirdre Mortell, CEO of The Social Innovation Fund does huge work every day matching corporate donors with deserving causes and helps them to make the most of these funds and supports. Deirdre has a great outlook about being really busy “Headaches should be headaches for a great reason!”

Listen to Deirdre

 

Caroline O’Driscoll

Caroline is the Chairperson of IT@Cork, working hard to promote Cork as a region for IT and she is also one of the co-founders of iWish, the huge movement, which is making huge strides in opening up STEM for young women.

Listen to Caroline

 

Annemarie Collins

When Greg met Annemarie, to say he was blown away is a huge understatement. This powerhouse of a young woman came from the Traveller community in Navan and she was determined to have a life just like her school friends including college and beyond. She earned a scholarship in Trinity and she now works with the East Cork Traveller Project. “Plotting her own course with the help of the EIL Explore Programme”

Listen to Annmarie

 

Mary McKenna

When people stopped travelling to the United States after 9/11 Mary, CEO of Tour America diversified. When the wheels fell off the economy in Ireland putting half the travel agents out of business, Mary stayed brave and positive, invested in marketing and grew her business. When she nearly died after being rolled over by a jeep she stayed calm and made a miraculous recovery. “The Ultimate Survivor”.

Listen to Mary

 

Sister Bride Given

The fascinating story of Sister Bride who reigns from Listowel, who navigated a career at a time of huge change for everyone working in religious orders. “The changing life of a nun and the story of Nano Nagle”

Listen to Sister Bride

 

Ann Canty

Greg couldn’t resist but capture the story of his mum who was obsessed about America and moved to New York for six year in 1957, at an exciting time of change “A New York Adventure – A young Irish couple get married and emigrate”

Listen to Ann

 

Siobhan O’Donoghue

She left school after being bullied in West Clare, she stood up for chickens in the family farm and she stood up for patients while working as a nurse. She worked tirelessly for travellers in Limerick and for migrants rights in Dublin and then founded Uplift to help other people to fight for their worthy causes.

Listen to Siobhan

We hope you get a chance to listen to some of these episodes featuring many inspirational women and we would like to take this opportunity to salute all of the other inspirational women out there!

Harpy International Women’s Day!!

Fuzion Communications are a full service agency providing Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland