And it has nothing to do with € 145 billion (+/-), or job creation, or any of that other boring stuff.

Oh no.

Grafton street this morning:

In the midst of putting up the ‘Labortion’ posters, they seem to have remembered that there is indeed another important issue:

The ‘Labortion’ party wants marriage equality too!

That allowing gay people to marry is bad is seemingly self-explanatory, so they just slapped up a piece of an article.

Next week’s slogan: ‘A vote for Labour is a vote for Satan.’

Opening the feminist.ie email yesterday, I was delighted to find the below email from the UCC equality officer (whom I sent a link to the blog post):

“Please see below the reply from the Entertainments Manager and Officer.

“I am writing to reply to the issues raised with regards to the UCC Students Union Tramps Ball 2011. Having reviewed the text and tenure of the advertising for this event the Students Union has decided to cease all association with Tramps Ball in the Savoy 17-02-11.

We are in the process of having the Facebook page promoting the event closed down. We have asked the Deputy President of the SU to have all references to the Tramps Ball in the Savoy removed from the www.collegeroad.ie website.

We are removing the event from the Raise and Give Week entertainments  itinerary. We expect to have all of these measures completed by close of business today ( Feb 15th).

We deeply regret any offence or upset caused and will do all in our power that there will not be a recurrence of this.”

It’s brilliant to see that the issue has been raised and dealt with. A decision Trinity could definitely learn from.

Sexist ad of the year, brought to you by AA Patrol. From today’s MetroHerald.

And it looks like staff and boards members (and indeed the equality committee) of UCC, like Trinity, don’t seem particularly bothered by the fact that their own and their employer’s name is associated with events featuring playboy strippers, photo booths with playboy bunnies, strip shows, and strippers playboy parties.

And as if the above stripping galore wasn’t enough for one week, they’ve managed to squeeze in the inevitable naked calendar for charity as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

‘Turn Off The Red Light‘, a campaign to end sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in Ireland, was launched in Dublin today.

The main goal of the campaign is to reform Irish legislation on prostitution.

The more than 30 groups running the campaign, including Ruhama, Immigrant Council of Ireland, ICTU and Barnardos believe that the best way to end prostitution is to tackle the demand.

By criminialising the people who buy sex, rather than the ones who sell it, the high numbers of trafficked and prostituted people will decrease, according to the members of the alliance.

David Begg, General Secretary of ICTU said “Having legislation in place that says we, as a society, do not believe it is acceptable for someone to buy another’s body for sexual gratification, exploiting the poverty, past history of abuse or limited life choices of the person being bought, would send a very clear message that we are a society committed to equality”.

The approach of targeting buyers has proved successful in Sweden, Norway and Iceland. According to Ruhama, the number of people exploited in street prostitution in Sweden has halved since such legislation was introduced in 1999. The organisation also highlighted the powerful fact that Barcelona and Stockholm, two European cities with approximately 1.5 m citizens each, have respectively 20,000 and 200 women involved in street prostitution.

Last year, the UN identified Ireland as a destination country for victims of trafficking.

Mr Cunningham, (Chair, Immigrant Council of Ireland) said:  “Our current approach to tackling sex trafficking is not working. Women and children continue to be trafficked into prostitution in Ireland because it remains profitable.  Tackling the demand for commercial sex that makes prostitution profitable for pimps and traffickers is the key to preventing exploitation.”

A high number of people attended the launch, and the feedback was unanimously positive.

If this initiative is successful, Ireland could, together with some of the Nordic countries, be a fantastic role model for the fight against prostitution and sex trafficking.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Give yourselves a break, please. A permanent one.

The award ‘Spellemannsprisen’ is presented to remarkable Norwegian musicians every year.

Rock- and folk singer Susanne Sundfør was this year nominated for 3 of the 21 categories; best lyricist, best popular composer and best female artist.

But being acknowledged as a ‘female artist’ wasn’t quite Susanne’s cup of tea.

She told the committee that she doesn’t agree with the division of male and female artists, and that her personal viewpoint is that any society should have a genderless perspective on art.

Susanne Sundfør was nominated for, and won, the category last year. She made it clear in her speech that she was first and foremost an artist, not a female artist.

I’m off to buy her record!

You ca read more (with the help of google translator) here.

This year’s Trinity students can kick off the year with the Gumball Challenge.

If you’re a guy, this might include drinking from a water gun.

If you’re a girl however, you can be challenged to take of your pants, pin a Playboy bunny tail to your underpants and have some red-handed guy grab you while a photographer is taking a close-up of your ass.

Or you can have your picture taken while you’re having a tattoo done. Somehow the picture might turn out looking like you’re posing for a lads’ mag rather than actually having an impromptu tattoo made though.

Alternatively, you can drink from a tube, but have a picture taken making it look like you were actually making out with your friend.

And then all these pictures can be used to sex up a poster for next year’s event. Brilliant!

For a university still operating with rule books from the 16th century, they’re pretty liberal when it comes to allowing their students to spread sexism and contribute to the sexualisation of society.

It didn’t take many months living in Dublin before I lost count of how many sexist posters I’d seen in there.

For some reason, it seems to be okay with staff, students and board members of Trinity college that every person walking through campus, including students’ potential future employers and thousands of tourists, is greeted with breasts and half-naked asses promoting the next event organised by the agricultural society or something similarly irrelevant.

If anyone wondered how it came about that senior associates at PwC, a highly regarded financial company in Dublin, sent around sexist emails rating female staff members last year, the tolerance for such culture in top educational institutions possibly accounts for some of it.

If the gender equality society is still active, I suggest they gather all the sexist posters over the next term and make an official complaint.

If Trinity is half the brilliant educational institution breeding the country’s next elite they like to promote themselves as, they should demand that their students come up with something better than an ass the next time they want to promote an event.

From tomorrow the morning-after pill will be available over the counter for the first time in Ireland.

Based on legislation from 2005, Boots have decided to sell the emergency contraception.

This is a welcome, but long overdue, decision. Until now, Ireland and Greece have been the only two EU countries where the morning-after pill could not be obtained without a prescription.

Access to emergency contraception is essential for womens right to make their own decisions about reproduction. Ireland has a high number of crisis pregnancies every year, and abortion is not only illegal, but also extremely stigmatised.

Making the morning-after pill more freely available will hopefully contribute to a decrease in the number of emergency pregnancies and relieve many women of the added trauma (and economic burden) of travelling abroad for terminations.

This new initiative will also mean that women do not have to worry about whether their GP will provide them with a moral lecture rather than a prescription, as well as greater access to emergency contraception during weekends and holidays. It could also mean one less worry for women who have been raped but do not wish to attend their GP or a sexual assault clinic.

So, thank you Boots, and welcome to the 21st century, Ireland!