Harriet Harman calls for 50% quota for female shadow cabinet members

Kohoutek

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Of course not. But I do think there may be a little less emphasis on war mongering

Remind me how our only female Prime Minister managed to get re-elected?

carolt

Kohoutek wrote: »

I think there's been quite a lot of progress over the last 100 hundred years – i.e. from women being 0% of MPs to women being 22% of MPs today. As far as I know the percentage is increasing between every Parliament.

I'm baffled by the approach that the best way to break down these perceived barriers is to create new ones that discriminate against a different group of people.

Not true.

See

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsg-01250.pdf

for full figures.

Also makes the point that there were no more than 5% of women MPs until 20 years ago. And that the big breakthrough - over the 20% mark - was achieved only when Labour introduced positive discrimination with its all-women shortlists.

Really2

PS

Anyone can stand to be an MP you don't have to join a big party.

I look forward to you standing as an independent carol to even out the numbers.

Kohoutek

carolt wrote: »

Not true.

According to that document, in 1918 it was 0.1% and in 1992 it was 9.2%. It goes up and down a bit but the clear trend is up.

Labour didn't start using all-women shortlists until 1997.

Degenerate

carolt wrote: »

Also makes the point that there were no more than 5% of women MPs until 20 years ago. And that the big breakthrough - over the 20% mark - was achieved only when Labour introduced positive discrimination with its all-women shortlists.

And that gave us fekless wasters like Wacky Jacqui, proof of the quality you get when you throw merit out of the window and recruit people based on unjust discrimination.

Shakethedisease

And that gave us fekless wasters like Wacky Jacqui, proof of the quality you get when you throw merit out of the window and recruit people based on unjust discrimination.

You're not seriously suggesting that Wacki Jacqui was the only Fekless waster in the Labour cabinet ? I can think of a few male ones too... Steven Byres, Geoff Hoon, Mandy, Peter Hain etc..

If the above are an example of merit ? Fekless wasters in government certainly aren't confined to those having a pair of boobs !

michaels

As a white male it is so difficult to comment on this one. Where I work I am sure there is no discrimination, conscious or otherwise and I know people who claim race discrimination when it is actually just their own lack of effort.

However I also see people in positions to make selection decisions who are sexist and racist so may be there is scope for positive discrimination but then it ends up in the silly situation where the best candidate for the job is passed over to meet some quota - as others have said, how does that make sense?

nickmason

misskool wrote: »

There's talking about this on newsnight and everyone on the panel agrees that something should be done to allow for accurate representation of the populace in the cabinet.

I'd be very pleased with getting that change but that should be done from training them up. The women could and should start a network of support and form groups. It cannot be done via quotas as you'd get a group of women who think they would be able to get the position without actually being competent enough for the job.

This is pretty much bang on the money.

Let's start from the assumption that everyone is unique. Which you kind of have to, otherwise you are committing all sorts of errors of generalisation, and subsuming minorities into the majority.

If everyone is unique, then you can't get perfect representation without having everyone (all the people) in the sample (parliament/government).

So perfect representation cannot be achieved. It's pretty similar to fairness - you can get close to it, but never achieve it perfectly.

What does that mean in pragmatic terms? That it's not helpful to say that the representation of people is not perfect, because it will never be. So quotas - a "pull" towards perfection - are a flawed concept. On the other hand, positive discrimination in terms of support for those under-represented groups can be seen to be addressing an imperfection.

One last observation - those advantages need to be removed once their effect has been felt, otherwise you end up with the same problem of privilege, just a new beneficiary group.

nickmason

Incidentally, I've done a lot of work in Rwanda where the proportion of female MPs is the highest in the world (and over 50%). Yup, it's a quota. And no, it's not much more than window dressing.

Shakethedisease

Yup, it's a quota. And no, it's not much more than window dressing.

Just out of interest. Why are they perceived as window dressing ? Are they all puppets for males in some way, or all, without exception just crap at it ?

Got to say that unfortunately Rwanda doesn't exactly strike me as somewhere that females get the best of it in terms of equal education and opportunies. I would be very, very happy to be corrected on this as I am no expert.

Though I've got to say a quick google, and it seems quite positive with quotes like these :-

Since the genocide, the goverment has put in place initiatives to encourage women to enter politics. Some Rwandans say their numbers in parliament reflect disenchantment with the country's male, genocide-era politicians.

"The problems of women are understood much better, much better by women themselves," voter Anne Kayitesi told the BBC's Focus on Africa.
"You see men, especially in our culture, men used to think that women are there to be in the house, cook food, look after the children... but the real problems of a family are known by a woman and when they do it, they help a country to get much better."

And this article sounds very postive about it too

http://www.rnanews.com/politics/1660-rwanda-sierra-leone-mps-commit-to-long-term-cooperation-

Kigali: Women parliamentarians from Sierra Leone and Rwanda on Thursday signed agreements committing the two sides to each other to benefit from their successes, RNA reports.
The union finalized at Parliament Hill marks the end of a week-long trip of Sierra Leonean lawmakers to Rwanda. The Speaker of the Sierra Leonean Parliament Justice Abel Strong led the delegation of female MPs.

“A visit occurred because Rwanda is ranked first in the world as the country which has the most women in decision making positions,” said Marie-Rose Mukantabama, Rwanda’s Lower Chamber Speaker.
The Sierra Leone Female Parliamentary Caucus wants to learn from the Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum on the processes used to set up the forum.

The Sierra Leoneans will also tap from the strategies, achievements, challenges and future goals of the Rwandan women forum, said Marie Yansaneh, President of the Sierra Leone caucus.

The visiting lawmakers also want to establish a sustainable collaboration with Rwanda to drive gender equality and empower women in their respective countries.

What's gone wrong there then in your opinion ? From the news reports I read it all seems quite, well, sensible ?