DEMONSTRATE TODAY
DUBLIN: Assemble 5.30 Garden of Remembrance, Dublin
CORK: Assemble Cork City Library, Grand Parade 12.30
GALWAY: Assemble 6pm Eyre Square
DERRY: Assemble 1pm Guildhall Hall Square
It is often forgotten but the origins of International Women’s Day go back to a decision of the International Socialist Women’s Conference in 1910. Delegates from 17 countries agreed to nominate March 8th as a day of international protest to win equal rights for women. The following year, over a million women marched in hundreds of demonstrations across the world.
In 1917, the protests on International Women’s Day sparked off a revolution that overthrew the Tsar.
Today corporations and employers organisations try to appropriate the day. They present their Human Resources department as the key agency that shows ‘concern’ for their employees. In reality, it is pure tokenism.
Women are still paid, on average, 14 percent less than men.
Irish childcare costs are horrific. A family with two children will pay out 40% of their income on childcare compared to 12 percent for OCED countries.
Irish employers are not obliged to pay maternity leave that is equivalent to the actual income that a woman earned. Instead many women in the private sector must rely on a state payment.
The global MeToo movement has highlighted that enormous impact of sexual harassment on women’s lives. Powerful men have been able to get away with a pattern of terrifying women into silence because they controlled their careers.
Bullying and sexual harassment is rife throughout Irish workplaces.
One reason has been the weakening of the trade union movement, caused by three decades of social partnership. If there were strong unions in the workplace that were fully conscious of the problems of sexism, more women would speak out.
One of the most shameful incidences this year has been the revelation that the Gardai failed to record deaths from domestic violence as homicide. It indicates a deeper pattern whereby domestic violence is overlooked and brushed under the carpet.
The biggest step towards equality will come with winning Repeal. Under Irish law, a woman can be imprisoned for up to 14 years for taking an abortion pill. No one has yet been charged but this is precisely the point – It is a legal measure held in the background to protect Irish hypocrisy and satisfy the fundamentalists.
People Before Profit urges you to join the protests and to help win the Repeal campaign. We will be printing thousands of leaflets and posters but we need your support to do this. That is why we ask you to Sponsor a Poster making a donation on our website (www. Pbp.ie).
