Few things are more dispiriting to the Irish university worker - male or female - than realising that third level education in Ireland is presided over by Mary Mitchell O'Connor, one of the dimmest, least articulate, yet most pompously self-regarding non-entities to grace the Fine Gael benches. We find the true depths of the contempt in which our colleges and universities are held by the current government in its placing of Irish higher education in the stewardship of this gormless mannequin.
Her most recent statement in public - there don't seem to be that many, probably because her colleagues do have some sense of how muddled and incompetent she is - was the firecracker a few days ago that International Women's Day had become an opportunity for people - mostly women, presumably - to 'skive off'. To be frank, anyone would want to call in sick after listening for more than 30 seconds to Minister Mitchell O'Connor, and while she claims to have an interest in gender equality, she's also content to utter lazy slurs on those women lower on the ladder than herself.
Maybe, of course, it's the origins of International Women's Day in the Russian Revolution that Minister Mitchell O'Connor can't stand - if she's even aware of the fact. But that seems all the more reason to celebrate the day, and to celebrate the women of real talent out there who are shaping and re-shaping our world.
The brilliant and appropriate image above comes from my comrade Paola Rivetti. I provide some good reading for the day that's in it, here below:
From Verso:
International Women's Day reading list!
Feminism for the 99%
Beyond March 8th: Toward a “Feminist International”
A Women's Strike is impossible; that is why it is necessary
From Jacobin
It’s International Women’s Day. Women Around the World Are Striking.
When Socialists Won Women’s Suffrage
From the London Review of Books,
Jacqueline Rose
and Lorna Finlayson
Conor
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