International Women's Day 2010  -  08/03/2010 ________________________________________________________________________________ Nearly 200 rural women gathered in the Dunsilly Hotel, Antrim, on Monday 8th March to celebrate International Women's Day 2010. The event was organised by Northern Ireland Rural Women's Network, The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Women's Resource and Development Agency with the support of Antrim Borough Council. The theme of this year's event was equality for women and we asked rural women to consider whether they are "there yet" in their everyday lives. The event was designed to give women an opportunity to hear a range of speakers talk about equality and how the situation has changed over the last 100 years and to explore how much has changed for us as women leading our every day lives. Delegates came from across Northern Ireland and had the opportunity to give their first hand experiences of where they still suffer inequalities in their lives. Siobhan Doherty, Director of NIRWN told us that "Some of the examples of inequality women continue to face came as no shock to us. Issues around the gender pay gap, the gap in pensions for women who took time off work to have children, the fact that they have much of the caring responsibilities at home. Others took a different look at inequality. One woman said that she will feel equal when her daughter was allowed to play for the school football team. Another woman said she would feel equal when the caring responsibilities for children were equal when parents divorce, rather than the main caring role falling to the mother." Siobhan went on to say, "This event and others we organise every year help us hear first hand from rural women about the issues they continue to face. This helps us provide a voice to rural women on the real grass roots issues and we learn so much from women who attend our events." Minister of Agriculture & Rural Development, Michelle Gildernew MP MLA who attended the event by video link, outlined the work her Department are doing to support rural women: "The vital contribution that rural women make to society can often go unnoticed and I am continually inspired by the extraordinary women I meet in my role as Agriculture and Rural Development Minister. International Women's Day gives us the opportunity to stop and think about the crucial role that women play in rural life. It allows us to recognise and to show our support for the multiple roles played by rural women, as family members and as farmers and entrepreneurs." Speaking at the conference Jane Morrice, Deputy Chief Commissioner Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, outlined the many ways women have progressed in terms of equality in the last one hundred years. "We got the vote, we got equality legislation to protect our rights, we have maternity rights, and we have much more equality than we had years ago." However she did point out that there are still many inequalities women face. "There is still a 13% pay gap between women and men. There are fewer women than there should be in political life - we have only 17 female Assembly Members from the 2007 Assembly Elections, just 22% of Councillors are female and only three women are Chief Executives in local government." "Progress has been made on equal rights", Jane Morrice said, "but there is still quite a way to go before there is equality between women and men." Women also had the opportunity to hear from Helen Crickard from WOMEN'STEC, an organisation that provides training, support and advice to enable women, who are socially and economically disadvantaged, to get into employment in areas of construction and IT. Some of the women at the event commented that they had never thought of construction as an option. At the event they heard about how WOMEN'STEC offer training in non-traditional skills, like bricklaying, plumbing and mechanics to women and then help them gain employment in these areas. This challenges the stereotypes some of us hold about the types of jobs women can do. Closing the event Joan McCool, Chair of NIRWN, thanked participants for coming to the event and highlighted that women are not equal in Northern Irish society. Joan said, "If women were equal then we would not have events like this designed to give women a voice, a platform where they can tell us where inequality still exists for them. Some people think the women's equality 'thing' is done - we are here to tell them that it is not".