A new Irish organisation dedicated to promoting feminism among younger women was launched last night, The Irish Times reports.

The new group is called the Irish Feminist Network and it is aimed at tackling the decreasing levels of interest in feminism among young women.

The network was started last May by Masters students at the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies in Trinity College Dublin.

Madeline Hawke, a spokeswoman for the group, said they wanted to “destigmatise feminism” and to involve new women who did not self-identify as feminists.

The network wants to have a mainstream appeal to a broad range of young women as well as the established older feminists.

The committee includes former women’s studies students Ursula Hughes, Dolores Gibbon and Madeline Hawke as well as former Union of Students in Ireland equality officer Linda Kelly and Amanda King from Shannon.

“Hundreds of young women have been writing to us saying that they were happy to get involved,” Ms Hawke said. The group has some 800 Facebook supporters and 100 people, mainly women, attended last night’s meeting.

She claimed that this broke down the idea that young women do not want to be labelled feminists, Ms Hawke said. “Women have been realising that sexism still exists.”

Susan McKay of the National Women’s Council told the meeting it was “disturbing that the invisibility of women was no longer noticed”.

Labour senator Ivana Bacik said that the Dáil would not be any less males after the next election “unless we push for change”.

The group is planning to hold a wide range of cultural and activist events to make feminism accessible.

The five aims of the network are: reclaiming feminism as a voice for change, involving young women in the movement, raising awareness, building alliances and increasing women’s political and media representation.