Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On 19 March 1911, the first International Women's Day event took place. One of the key themes of the early years of International Women's Day was the campaign for women's suffrage. In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave some women in Ireland the right to vote and we celebrate that centenary this year. Equally significantly, in 1918, women were for the first time allowed to stand for election on an equal footing with men. Women had to wait a few more years, however, for the enactment of the Constitution of the Irish Free State 1922 to get full and equal voting rights. It is fair to say that despite considerable progress over the past century, the voting booth is one of the few places where women have equality. A friend of mine often jokes that women who aspire to be equal to men lack ambition but that is easy for him to say because he is a middle-class, middle-aged, white settled man so he has never been at the sharp end of inequality.

The World Economic Forum global gender gap report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity across a number of dimensions. There is no country in the world where women have achieved parity with men. When we look at Ireland, our results are mixed. In the area of educational attainment, there is parity between the genders and Ireland rates number one of the 144 countries in the comparison. Indeed in the area of participation in third level education, women fare considerably better than men. The health and survival index shows only a small gap is yet to be made up by women. However, it is when we look at the economic participation and opportunity index that we see a very significant gap opening up and we rank 65th in the world. For example, the average Irish woman worked from the 11 November last year until the end of the year for free by comparison to her male colleagues. On an overall basis, the World Economic Forum calculates that at the current rate of progress, pay parity is only 217 years away.

It is when we look at the political empowerment index that we see the biggest gap of all, both worldwide and here at home. While the number of women elected to the Oireachtas has improved, there is still a very long way to go before we achieve parity. In the 2016 general election, 123 men were elected to the Dáil. In the entire 100 years since women gained the right to stand for election, there have been only 114 women Deputies so there were more men elected to the Dail in the last election than there have been women Deputies. In the history of the Seanad, only 99 out of 900 women were elected. If we go back to 2009 when I was first elected to Westmeath County Council, I was one of two women out of 23. I am the first ever female Government Chief Whip in the Seanad. So while those pioneering suffragists in 1918 may have won the right to vote and the right to stand for election, 100 years on, the political field is still far from level and it would have been worse had not been for gender quotas. On the subject of quotas, I firmly believe that the people should get jobs on the basis of ability. However, if Members of the Oireachtas got jobs based on merit alone, we would have 79 women Deputies and 30 women Senators today so there are obviously other factors at play.

Real equality can only be achieved by women and men sharing power with each as decision makers and gradually having more men supporting the give and take of gender equality. I do not see this as battle of the sexes where women gain and men must lose.

In fact, the statistics would suggest the opposite. They clearly show that gender equality is good for men. For example, those countries that are most gender equal are also the ones which score highest on happiness scales. The more gender equal that companies are, the better it is for their workers, the happier their labour force is and the more profitable they are likely to be. The more egalitarian our personal relationships are, the happier and healthier both partners are and, therefore, the happier and healthier their children are so gender equality is not a zero-sum game but a win-win scenario. Gender equality is in the interests of countries, in the interests of companies, in the interests of women and in the interests of men.