'This was a battle I wanted to fight': Inspiring speakers at IWD event in Cork
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The fight for contraception, vaginal health and direct provision were some of the topics touched upon at the Irish Examiner’s International Women's Day Breakfast 2024, in association with PepsiCo.
Irish Examiner Life/Style editor and host Esther N McCarthy spoke with special guests Dr Sinead Kane, Laura Dowling, Pamela Uba, and Clodagh Finn at the Kingsley Hotel in Cork City on this year's topic, Inspire Inclusion.
Dr Kane received a standing ovation from the audience of 120 people after speaking about her resilience and how she overcame many obstacles in both running and education to achieve her goals.
She spoke about several incidents where she advocated for herself and how she fought against discrimination.
Dr Kane told the event about winning a case against the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) to overturn a decision which would bar her from the World 24-Hour Championships.
“All throughout my life I’ve had to advocate for myself and you have to choose what battles you're going fight. This was a battle that I wanted to fight because it was purely based on disability discrimination in sport,” she said.
“I made my impact and I made my mark and I got international policy changed around disability and inclusion.”
Uba detailed her struggle to enter third-level education as someone who was living in direct provision and described her pride at becoming the first black Miss Ireland.
Growing up in direct provision, Uba struggled with feeling marginalised and when she finished secondary school she felt she could not attend college. However, her mother fundraised to send her to GMIT in Galway when there were no grants or supports available to her.
“I was no one, I was nothing. That's what I felt like living in direct provision at the time,” she said.
“I was really proud of it. I was still different in college. I still was an asylum seeker at the time, I had to pretend around a lot of my classmates.”
Uba went on to earn her Master’s degree in clinical chemistry from Trinity College as well and said she is grateful to her mother for her support.
“We talk about inclusion and empowering women. I think if I didn't have a strong woman like that empowering me I wouldn't be sitting in this chair today.”
Irish Examiner columnist Clodagh Finn spoke about her work to highlight women in Ireland’s history, focusing in particular on Mary McGee’s court battle for contraception in the 1970s.
McGee and her husband Séamus, who sadly passed away in recent weeks, won a landmark court battle to access contraception in the 1970s.
“She made legal history. A Supreme Court judge said it's the equivalent of landing on the moon. It was her and her husband, they took on the state when she was 27 years old. She had four children under the age of 23 months,” Finn told the audience, who were audibly shocked by parts of McGee’s story.
“They won the rights to contraception, which was, in fact, legal in Ireland — you just couldn't sell it. So there's a bit of a problem there.”
The ‘Fabulous Pharmacist’ Laura Dowling, a recent Feelgood columnist, had the audience giggling with her candid approach to female health, in particular her quest to make people more comfortable talking about vaginas and vulvas.
She spoke about removing the stigma surrounding women's bodies and the shame associated with discussing menopause and other female health issues.
“I want women to take ownership of their bodies and if there's any kinds of issues, that they get them seen to,” she said.
“That's what I would love to come from today is empowering yourself to advocate for yourself.
She added: “We need to have a different thinking in this country about women's health, women's bodies. We are the givers of life. We need to be looked upon like that. And I'm not saying that women don't necessarily have to have babies to be taken seriously either. That is just not the truth either.”
Dearbhla Gannon, of sponsors PepsiCo, also spoke at the event about the steps taken by the company to inspire inclusion, including 'lean in circles' for women to share their experiences, learn from each other and discuss different topics. Other inclusive programmes taking place are the 'Ally to Advocate' project and the recently launched '50 for 50' campaign to mark PepsiCo's 50th anniversary in Cork.