Trinity made headlines last week with many students and staff members protesting the incoming €450 fees to sit supplemental examinations. However, amongst all of the uproar, the college community still found the time to celebrate International Women’s Day. The Students’ Union, in conjunction with a variety of student-run societies, organised a programme of events which ran throughout the week.

Repeal
The week placed a huge amount of focus, on repealing the eighth amendment, an issue which the Student’s Union has been mandated to endorse. Tuesday was ‘Repeal Day’, which encouraged open discussion and education about repealing the eighth amendment. The highlight of the day was ‘Canvassing Training’ hosted by Trinity’s own Repeal Committee, with a view to preparing for the referendum which will take place in May of this year. On Thursday, International Women’s Day, many Trinity students also marched in Dublin as part of the March for Repeal.

Sexism
One of most successful events of the week was a workshop on ‘Confronting Sexism’ with Trinity Women in STEM. the purpose of the workshop was to discuss and challenge the predominance of casual sexism in today’s world: whether that’s in the workplace, in college, or even in informal settings. We were each split into groups and discussed this widespread form of sexism and the actions we can take to stop it happening. This was a somewhat more low-key event than some of the others which took place during the week but it was one of the most effective as it encouraged participants to reflect on ingrained societal sexist behaviours and attitudes that many of us don’t even notice in our everyday lives.

DJs
On a more light-hearted note, Thursday night saw an all-female DJ session hosted in the student bar, The Pav, called ‘All Gals on Deck’. This provided a perfect setting for many to relax after a long week or warm up after the March for Repeal, while promoting incredibly talented female artists. These artist are often overlooked in favour of their male counterparts, in the hugely male dominated world of dj-ing.

Overall the week was a great success despite a lack of events focusing on women in other parts of the world. It is important to celebrate the beautiful diversity and uniqueness of all women, no matter what part of the world they were born into. However, celebrating and acknowledging the equality of the women in our own college community is a great place to start.

 

Photo courtesy of Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment.

Share This