Olivia O’Leary: Women are still treated differently at work
Speaking at the third annual Woman in Media conference in Ballybunion, the award-winning print and broadcast journalist said having children is a public good and warned of the consequences if women decided to “sit down on the job and stop having children”.
“The ensuring of the survival of the race should be central to all economic models but the people who actually do that job are rarely put at the centre of that consideration,” she said.
“I was never lonelier as a journalist than the day that I had a child, because we still live in a world where women are left to bear that weight alone.”
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Speaking about her earlier career in journalism, she said there was a “jealously between commitment to the job and family”.
“There was no suggestion that both could co-exist in any same world. Families and work have to co-exist in any same world,” she said.
O’Leary believes women are still treated differently in journalism and other professions and said the battle for paternity leave must be won so men can also have the opportunity to be at home with young children.
“It victimises a woman if she is the only person carrying all the weight. It makes her weaker, it makes her vulnerable and she will be treated differently,” she warned.
One of the first women journalists to cover the Troubles in the North, O’Leary worked for RTÉ in the 70s. She moved to The Irish Times in 1978 before returning to television.
She has also presented programmes for BBC and ITV as well as RTÉ’s Today Tonight, Questions and Answers, and Prime Time.
On Saturday she was awarded the Mary Cummins Award for women of outstanding achievement in the media.
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