'It's marvelling how much power a host of women can conjure. It's part of why they burned us at the stakes' - meet the Irish women advocating for other women

"We wanted to have a baby and we really wanted to use my wife's eggs with the donor sperm and I would carry the baby. We hadn't known anyone who had done this. We just thought it would be a really great way for both of us to be physically involved in the process. But in Ireland at the time, you couldn't do that in any fertility clinic. We could only have used my eggs if I was going to carry the baby."

"I have always been a person who has a deep sense of justice, and it just seemed so unfair and wrong"

International Women's Day highlights ongoing gender inequality across multiple sectors. Five women from sport, arts, academia, entrepreneurship, and activism discuss critical barriers to equality. Gender parity remains centuries away, with projections extending to 2148. Young girls face a confidence gap limiting their advancement. Lesbian women struggle for legal recognition as genetic parents to their biological children. Academic institutions remain male-dominated at senior levels, with full professorships predominantly held by men. These interconnected challenges demonstrate that despite progress, systemic inequalities persist across legal, social, and professional domains.

Read at Irish Independent