On Friday 30th January, the 5th years received a talk on gender inequality from Suzanne Healy from Plan Ireland. The talk was scheduled to coincide with Mary Ward week, as gender inequality was the focus of the week. Suzanne invited us to question our gender and what we had been taught about gender roles, which was a very intriguing discussion in which everybody was very vocal about their views. We talked about our own experiences and then went on to discuss inequality in the Global South, an issue that affects millions of women – for example, 66 million girls that should be in school today are not, simply because of their gender. We also learned about FGC, (female genital cutting) a horrifying practice which is carried out on 2 million girls every year. There are numerous risks associated with this practice, including being twice as likely to die during childbirth. While extremely disturbing, it’s very important to learn about these things – JPIC’s motto is, after all, ‘the first step to eradicating any problem is to raise awareness about it.’
The 5th years all really enjoyed the talk and found it very interesting. Thanks again to Suzanne for the interesting discussion and for giving us much to think about!
