Discrimination is wrong, but don’t assume work is everyone’s priority

Does belonging to the female sex in 21st century Ireland constitute disadvantage, asks Margaret Hickey.

Minister of state at the Department of Education, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, thinks that progress towards gender equality at the higher levels of academia is too slow.

Accordingly, she is to set up a task force to consider, among other strategies, the imposition of a gender quota. A gender quota would be a quick fix. But the right answer, politically speaking, must be based on the right reasoning.