Action needed on gender equality says UCC historian

Despite laws aimed at improving gender equality being introduced 100 years ago, the pace of progress has been slow, and action is needed now, not words, a historian has said.

The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed by the British parliament in 1919 and carried into the statute book of the Free State three years later. It was designed to remove barriers to equality in professions like law and others, and the top flight of academia.

However, while the top legal posts in the State are today held by women, University College Cork (UCC) historian Clare O’Halloran has highlighted the fact that it took three decades for women to be admitted into the country’s top academic organisation.