Create real equality for all

Sir — Today, March 8, is the United Nations’ designated International Women’s Day.

We should ask whether this is just pointless tokenism, given how relatively little progress has been made towards genuine equality for women internationally and even in Ireland.

Internationally, we have seen the US and Nato wage wars of aggression across the Middle East and north Africa using bogus humanitarian excuses, including liberation and equality for women.

The US has just signed a peace deal with the Taliban, who are now likely to regain power in Afghanistan after almost 20 years of war, in which women and children have suffered catastrophically.

Have the women of Libya been liberated by the Nato overthrow of Gaddafi? Have the women of Iraq or Syria been liberated by the UN, or by the UN’s most powerful members?

Or has the UN stood idly and powerlessly by as its most powerful member states wage wars in contravention of the UN Charter?

In Ireland, some equality has been achieved, but not nearly enough, especially in areas such as equality of earnings, the numbers of women in politics, and especially the almost total exclusion of women from the leadership of the Catholic Church. It’s time to stop this tokenism and create real equality for all.

It’s especially long past time to end unjustified wars where women and children are by far the most victimised.

Edward Horgan,

Castletroy, Limerick