Success of Irish women in politics celebrated at Washington event

Ireland’s progress in increasing female participation in politics was highlighted in Washington on Tuesday night as hundreds of women from across the US political divide gathered to celebrate the representation of women in politics

Michelle O'Donnell Keating, co-founder and chair of Irish association Women for Election, delivered a keynote address to an event at the Canadian embassy.

It was attended by former Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, current Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland and several US congresswomen, including many elected for the first time in November.

Ms O’Donnell Keating traced the journey Irish women have made from the early 1970s, when women were forced to surrender their public-sector jobs on marriage, to the election of two female presidents. She said a huge cultural shift had taken place, even as that progress had “plateaued”.

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She noted Women for Election had engaged with 1,400 women through its programmes. There had been a 100 per cent increase in the number of women who ran in the general election and a 40 per cent jump in the number elected, she said. “The message is: where women run, women get elected,” she said.

She also highlighted the role the introduction of gender quotas had played in increasing female participation. “Nobody likes them, but the reality is they work,” she said.

‘Powerful statement’

Susannah Wellford, founder of Running Start, an organisation that encourages women to run for office, said Women for Election's insights on quotas were hugely instructive. Quotas were "off the table" in the US and something people thought could never happen. But it was a "powerful statement" to hear people in Ireland thought they could never happen but did, she said.

Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, an African-American Democrat from Michigan, spoke of her grandmother who had not completed high school. She told her: "There is no seat that you do not deserve to sit in at any table, no door that you're not worthy to walk through."

"With that, I stand here today as a member of Congress and I want every woman in here to know that you have a gift and a skill that no one else can give to this country that is uniquely yours," Ms Lawrence said.

Referring to the participants in the recent women’s march, she said: “They had one thing in common: a passion and a desire, and a built- up energy to say: ‘I will not be silent, I will be heard. This is my America, I’m a woman and I deserve to have a seat at the table.’”