About this episode

Laura Dowling interviews MEP Maria Walsh about women's issues, politics, and the challenges faced in Europe today.

Laura sits down with MEP Maria Walsh for a wide-ranging conversation about women, power and what is shifting in Europe right now. Maria has just returned from the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York, where for the first time in seventy years member states could not agree a final text on access to justice for women. She talks honestly about online misogyny, the deepfakes already circulating in Irish secondary schools, conversion therapy, and the website created about her during the 2019 election that is still live today. Alongside that, she opens up about internalised homophobia, the loneliness of political life, and growing up as the gay Rose of Tralee at a time when Ireland was shifting on marriage equality. The conversation also moves through period poverty, FGM, the underfunding of women's healthcare, the pink tax, and what it would take to close the gap on cardiovascular care, menopause and reproductive health. It is a frank look at the work still ahead and the toll it takes on the women trying to do it. 🔑 Key Points The UN couldn't agree on access to justice for women — For the first time in seventy years the Commission on the Status of Women failed to find…

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