#IWD2022: 'We can have a world where it's okay to be different'

Award-winning social entrepreneur and visionary activist Caroline Casey describes herself as a "troublemaker, the big-heart rebel-blazer in the middle of fecking menopause".

Speaking as the keynote speaking at the Irish Examiner's breakfast event for International Women's Day at the River Lee Hotel today, Ms Casey joked that she understands this year's theme of Breaking the Bias more than most — after all, she's married to a Cork man. She urged attendees to look inwards to truly break bias.

"There is nobody who is not sexist, racist, ablest. We need to own that in ourselves as human beings. The biggest quest to break bias, I think, is to turn up truly authentically as ourselves and breaking bias and doing this work around inclusion, it takes everything from you," she said.

Ms Casey, who is visually impaired due to occular albinism, said the biggest obstacle to change is our own self-confidence.

"I've been spending 22 years trying to break the bias of disability because I feel if we broke that we can have a world where it's okay to be different in all the different ways you're going to be different. I truly believe we are good enough the way we are. 

"I don't even know what normal is, what is normal in different contexts? But I do know today I don't feel so good in my own skin. And the bravest thing that I can do in this conversation of breaking down the bias is to be in this skin, to be authentically here. And because this work that I do around disability inclusion, every single moment somebody offers me a mic, I'll gladly take it."

The panel at the event was made up of environmental scientist, policy advisor and science communicator Dr Tara Shine, teacher, author, TV presenter and Black Lives Matter advocate Emer O'Neill, and author and broadcaster Edel Coffey.

Ms O'Neill spoke about her work highlighting racism in her own life and the struggles she has faced.

"I've spent two years trying to prove to people that there's racism in Ireland, and I did think that that was necessary," she said.

"It was necessary for me to tell my story. It was necessary for so many people of colour here in Ireland to tell their story because the response that I got was always just an absolute shock that was going on in our own country."

She said there needs to be more diversity in many areas to accurately represent how diverse Ireland is.

"We are very diverse as a country. But we're not seeing that represented in places that are really, really important in terms of politics, government and education."

Ms Coffey described the struggles of motherhood and how overwhelming it can be for women, saying one of the biggest shocks for her as a new mum was "this realisation that nobody was coming to help me. It was this dawning realisation that actually, this is really hard and there's no support coming in. You have to do everything yourself."

She pointed to the culture in Scandinavian countries around support for parents and children and called for improved childcare facilities in Ireland.

Dr Shine described how equality in all areas can lead to an improved environment.

"Sustainability is not about climate change and carbon emissions alone. It is about giving people the right to grow within the organization. It's about gender equality. It's around social justice. It's about paying your staff properly. It's about having a no-racism policy. All of that is about sustainability. It's about making a better society for all of us to live in."