Trinity Launches International Women’s Week 2013

Posted on: 05 March 2013

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Trinity College launched a week long programme of events marking women’s contributions in different artistic and scientific fields and the College’s participation in a global campaign for rights and equality.

Trinity’s International Women’s Week 2013, running from March 4 – 8th, was launched by Senator Katherine Zappone in Front Square with entertainment from the Boydell Singers. The launch was themed ‘Women Around the World’ to celebrate Trinity’s global links, and its Global Relations Strategy, which is developing a new educational diaspora by embedding internationalisation in the College’s culture and creating a Trinity community that is inclusive, integrated and global.

Highlights of the week include a screening of Miss Representation and a panel discussion with Una Mulally and Jennifer O’ Connell of the Irish Times, film director Anna Rodgers, Ailbhe Smyth, women’s campaigner and Emma Regan of the Irish Feminist Network organised by the DU Gender Equality Society on Tuesday, March 5th.

Professor Nancy Hopkins of MIT will discuss her work as an advocate for women in science over almost two decades since her appointment in 1995 to chair the First Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science at MIT on Wednesday, March 6th.

The panel discussion Shadows and Lights will explore the role of women in Irish visual culture with practitioners from different fields of art and art history. This event aims to create new levels of awareness of women’s contributions to Irish visual culture and will ideally provide dynamic platforms for further exploration and debate. Panellists will include Geraldine O’Neill, ARHA, Rowan Sexton, Independent Curator, Catherine Marshall, Joint Editor, 20th Century Ireland, Dictionary of Irish Art & Architecture (RIA) and former Head of Collections Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). It will be chaired by Dr Angela Griffith, History of Art Department, Trinity.

On Thursday, March 7th the GSU and Laurentian Society will host a presentation by Gita Jena, Trocaire’s Governance and Human Rights Officer on Gender and Women’s Rights in India. Gita works on gender and women’s rights programmes which she manages and helps to deliver in Odisha, India, addressing the wider challenges faced by women in India with regards to participation in decision-making and gender-based-violence.

On International Women’s Day, Friday March 8th, the Revd Cannon Dr V. Kennerley, Editor of SEARCH, a Church of Ireland journal and Lecturer in Applied (Pastoral and Practical) Theology at Church of Ireland Theological College will offer a lunchtime presentation addressing how Christianity is used as a tool to reject others, with a special focus on the place of women and LGBT persons in religion.

Throughout the week you can visit the DU Gender Equality Stand in the Arts Building, or the “Monsters of Creation”: Snapshots of Women in Higher Education Exhibit in the Long Room Hub. Other events during the week include the filming of “I am a Feminist Because….” throughout the College, an art exhibition by DU Amnesty, coffee mornings, and events for student parents. The week will conclude with a celebratory concert featuring musicians Liza Flume, Naoise Roo, WonderBra and Dani and poets Jessica Bernard and Elaine Gluckian as well as a dramatic sketch on women in history.