Have you talked to activist groups?
KC: That’s not really our focus.
JS: I have tried approaching some women’s groups, and they haven’t really… they’re quite busy with other stuff and I don’t think we’re a… I tried organising a meeting with the National Women’s Council and they just haven’t been able to find the time. I’m quite political myself, but I don’t want the museum to have an agenda.
KC: The history of politics is different to having a political agenda.
But there is something necessarily political about doing a women’s museum in the first place.
KC: Yeah. But I think the museum has to include quite a broad perception of what is feminist, if you want to look at it that way. If you start ruling people out and become a very agenda-driven organisation, you really do exclude a lot of people. We can’t not represent religious groups and so on.
JS: Yeah, considering how the Irish church is such a huge part of history.
KC: And as a museum it’s not its place either to take a subjective stance on those things.
JS: The Jewish Museum in Berlin does a fantastic job of addressing the persecution of the Jews as well as broader Jewish history and the culture. It’s a highly politically charged institution, but they do a good job of looking at the cultural history as well as that part of history.
Have you encountered any negative comments yet?
KC: Well the Facebook’s only been up for a few days at this point, so not yet. I assume we will get a commentary on why we do or don’t need a women’s museum. I went to a job interview a while ago, and I didn’t get, but I was explaining about the project because it was on my CV, and the person interviewing me suggested that maybe there were no women in museums because women had never done anything before now. He said he knew we were trying to break the glass ceiling but that maybe there were no women in history because women never did anything.
JS: We’ve just been sitting at home for a couple of thousand years.
What did you say?
KC: I said it probably wasn’t true in my most polite, ‘I’d still like to have a job here’ voice.
That’s a little unpleasant.
JS: “We’re ideologically opposed but I’d still like to work for you?”
KC: Yeah. I just wanna do your admin.
JS: People always ask “why is there an International Women’s Day?” and the reply is always “well it’s International Men’s Day every other day of the year”. But actually there is an International Men’s Day. It’s in November. People should really check up on these things. It was overshadowed this year by other things, like Ireland being quite fucked or whatever. There are a lot of issues there that need to be talked about.
Sure.
KC: I think with women’s history, a lot of it is about context. It might not seem like a big deal to go to college or whatever, but if you put that in the context that she was single and it was the 1920s and she left home, it is. In the context of women’s lives, those kinds of things are important and they don’t get appreciated when put alongside men’s history.
You’re not just going in and making a museum about Grainuaile and Countess Markiewicz then. Why not?
JS: I’m actually a big fan of Grainuaile. I think if we just had Countess Markiewicz it’d be fairly… it’d be a great museum, but there are other Irish women. She was awesome. My great granny knew her, she was in the Volunteers. She said she was a lady. And she said WB Yeats was a creep.
KC: We actually have a really good exhibit on Maud Gonne in the online museum, which will be going live today.
So today is zero hour?
JS: Yeah. And it’s also Women’s History Month, which we like. March is the month for women. There’s no other month to do stuff.
Explain about the event this evening.
JS: At seven o’clock in the Trinity Arts Block, I’m part of a panel discussion about higher education and I’m just going to talk about my gas time in college. And [Mrs Justice] Catherine McGuinness will be talking about her time. And Professor Susan Parkers who has written books about women in Trinity will be there too. Then we’re going over at eight o’clock for a reception and the launch of the exhibition. The photos will be there till next Monday. And then we’re going to talk to other universities about using that exhibition again.
And are you interested in people contacting you if they want to contribute or donate?
JS: Yes, we’re open to any outreach. One woman contacted us after the Frank McNally piece with the names of empty building in the Docklands that she knew of. I think we launched at the right time, we’ve had a lot of positivity.
KC: It’s a very collaborative project. Jean and I know very little. We are only twenty-three years old and out of college.
JS: We’d like older people involved actually. We’re all interns or unemployed graduates, and that’s why some institutions might be a bit wary of us. The youth is great and all, but…
KC: It’s also to expand not just the knowledge of it but also the vision of it. We have a very specific outlook on life.
JS: We’re all very middle class. We’re all very white. I don’t know how much we’re helping our exclusive image with an exhibition on women in higher education.
KC: But we have included outreach stuff like art education and technical education. It’s pretty comprehensive.
See the panel talk in Trinity Arts Block at 7 tonight and then the exhibition launch in the Long Room Hub nearby at 8.
