Parties have a long way to go on increasing number of women TDs

I WAS having a chat with my aunt — 80 years old yesterday — about how women’s place in society has changed. As I’d been arguing that women still had so far to travel, she told me a short story illustrating just how far we’ve come.

As a young woman she worked in an office in Cork. One day the male sales staff thought it would be just the gassest thing to turn the newest and youngest member of the clerical staff upside down. Having done that, they date-stamped her bottom. How they laughed, my aunt remembers.

Our period of reflection on the status of women was brought about by tomorrow being International Women’s Day. The attention the matter has been getting this week, not least the report launched by the National Women’s Council on how to get more women elected to the Dáil, has been welcome.