Not much hope for gender equality

I AM afraid Joanna Tuffy TD and Amy Catherine Brennan (Letters, Nov 11) are both missing the point when they think that boycotting the “female-only” TD and senators’ meeting that took place on November 9 is an appropriate thing to do.

The reason given by Ms Brennan for the boycott was that if a “male-only” meeting was to be held it would have implications for “recently achieved gender equality”. The whole point of the meeting of women politicians is that there is no gender equality in the Dáil. It is nearly 90% male. In fact, for most of the Dáil’s history, women’s representation always has been very low. I am afraid if the level of thinking that went into that boycott and the attitudes that saw two women candidates come last in the recent presidential election predominate there is not much hope for gender equality.

A Leavy