A brief word on Labour’s gender quota

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Apologies to the sisters that it’s taken 120 years to finally get 50-50 political representation.

Even if it is ‘in the future’ in just one Party. How that faint attempt at equality can be magnified into a Man-Ban is almost farcical isn’t it? I suspect it’s attraction for Whaleoil is because the words ‘man’ and ‘ban’ rhyme.

A faint quota to respond to over a century of engrained sexism is the most patient revolution ever witnessed.

File under hashtag quota-is-not-a-dirty-word

9 COMMENTS

  1. If Labour has to enact a quote within its own party for women does it not believe that its females can rise on their own merit or that it has an internal misogynist culture that holds its female members back?

    • Well no, it doesn’t at all. This has been consistently promoted based on evidence* that it is very hard for women to take up a career in politics given the unequal demands and expectations which they encounter in western society. Flip the ‘logic’ of the critics around: when women are just under 52% of the population, what justification is there for giving them less than 50% of the candidacies in representative politics?

      *Turns out someone actually tried asking female politicians – past and present – about what it’s like for women trying to go into politics.

      • Far fewer than 50% of the women I know are even interested in politics. I am all for a level playing field, but tilting it the other way doesn’t seem clever. There are differences in the ways boys and girls are brought up. Dare I say, boys are brought up to be responsible and realistic whereas girls are allowed to do what they want and as far up the clouds as they like. That is just the way it is, I’m afraid. I reckon that ability is all that matters to me. I am realistic. I will vote realistically.

        • My dear chap, I don’t know what circles you move in, but that certainly hasn’t been my experience of how women view politics. It may well be that, because of your own attitudes – as conveyed in your comment here – the women you know wouldn’t tell you if they’re interested in politics.

          I suspect that you haven’t brought up any offspring, either, if that’s your view of how boys and girls are reared.

          • Thank you. My remark was an extreme position, hoping to provoke response that would give me insight into what kind of logic underlies this when taken in the broader context of the individual. There may also be genetic bases that alter the pool of potential good MPs. I doubt this would have a 50/50 sex ratio now. But social and cultural changes might bring that about soon without social tinkering.

      • If this is the case then surely the answer is to address the “unequal demands and expectations” and not go down the path of tokenism?

        I am never a fan of a system that promotes people who meet the requirements over the best person for the job and I fear that is all that this policy will do, I am convinced that if anything it will make the position of women in politics even more difficult.

  2. It’s not 50-50 representation, 50 is the absolute minimum that’s allowed which means it could well end up 60-40 or 70-30 or more.

    Which makes any attempt to claim this is about ‘equal representation laughable, and in one single stroke they have utterly destroyed whatever chance they had of ever challenging Key.

    • “It’s not 50-50 representation, 50 is the absolute minimum that’s allowed which means it could well end up 60-40 or 70-30 or more.”

      So this would be a problem for some reason? I doubt that you have any issue with the gender split being 60-40 or even 70-30 in favour of men, as is currently the case in, say, the National party.

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