Catherine O’Callaghan | Staff Writer
Female members of the College Historical Society have threatened to strike unless a number of demands targeting sexism within the society are met. A document outlining these demands was posted for public viewing on Facebook today. These members state that they have already compiled personal experiences of gender-based discrimination in the Hist and brought these, along with the proposed changes laid out in this public document, to the Committee.
The five signatories to this document state that several women on the Hist’s Committee have been experiencing sexism of varying degrees of severity. The signatories demand that female members, “will enjoy the same freedom and discretion in matters of dress as their male counterparts do; they will not be criticised for wearing the ‘wrong’ thing.” A GMB Source has told The University Times that on one occasion, a male Hist officer told a girl of lower standing on the committee that she was dressed inappropriately at the IV and would have to go home and change. The female in question was wearing a playsuit, and although the Hist dress-code is “formal”, the source explained that this usually tends to be quite relaxed and the girl in question’s outfit would not have been commented on by other members.
The signatories demand that female members … “will not be criticised for wearing the ‘wrong’ thing”
It is also claimed that at Committee meetings, “many valuable insights are lost because female Committee members are laughed at, talked over or ignored altogether.” One change demanded in the document is that the Chair position for meetings will rotate between members of Committee and, where feasible, a woman will chair at least every other week. Additionally, many measures to ensure more female participation in the society are laid out, including, for example, a female student speaker gender quota for all chamber debates.
A female member of the Hist committee told UT that “we just came together and realised that a lot of sexist stuff has been happening and we wanted to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The signatories, who are Alex Trant (Pro-Censor), Alexa Donnelly (Librarian), Dee Courtney (Pro-Librarian), Molly Kenny (Pro-RecSec) and Naoise Dolan (Censor), say that they “hope to reform the Hist so that women are welcome, valued, and included in all aspects of the society. Some of us have silently resented the Hist for being misogynistic; in fact, the society is ours as much as anyone else’s, we’ve worked as hard for it as anyone else has, and we have decided to claim it back as our own.”
“Some of us have silently resented the Hist for being misogynistic”
These members have made clear that if their conditions are not met, they will strike; meaning schools’ debating, publicity and many vital MC tasks will cease to function. Also articulated is that that they feel their demands are not things they should have ever had to ask for in the first place, that they anticipate that they will be met, and a recognition of steps already taken to implement some of these measures. However, they finish by stating, “we are not willing to work for an institution that doesn’t respect us; if these terms are breached, we will walk out.”
Photo: The Hist
