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

Generali

I'm not sure that Rwanda is the best model to use for the future of British democracy.

carolt

Really2 wrote: »

err, you have problems carol, where the F did that come from:mad:?

I don't know you but I know about 40 women and non have any real interest in politics so why the hell should that be patronising, it is a fact on personal experience.

I'm not imply anything should be gender dominated, I am saying that it is more than likely based on interest in the area not lack of oppertunity and a mans club like you believe. (unless you think women dominated jobs are women clubs but accept that as an OK form of sexisum, personally I do not have a problem with women dominated jobs)

You are on the dangerous ground as you want jobs to be gender proportional and compleatly ignore the fact that some people may not want to do the jobs and that their may be a gender split because men and women have different interests etc.


Where you got all the above from I do not know but it is fairly obvious who has the problem with gender and does not accept people for who they are and it aint me.

Less women apply to go in the army than men also? I suppose that is a strange insight in to my psyche also.:eek:

If you want a 50% front line in iraq and force women to serve to make up the numbers I am sure they will thank you for it, and their parents.

You are looking for this to be sexist, the reprisentation of UK politics looks more racist than sexist but that does not seem to rile you as much?
I won't try to make out you are a racist, using the same kind of warped logic you use.

I think you took offence where none was intended - I was just pointing out the logical end of your reasoning.

I certainly know far more than 40 women and I'd say there is no discernible difference in interest in politics between the men and women I know. Maybe the women you know are rather atypical, or possibly you misrepresent their views? (have you actually asked them or are you just assuming this?). Certainly, in discussions on politics such as this very thread, I think the gender of contributants is about 50/50 - if this board is a rather larger sample base than your (or my) own acquaintances, nothing on here suggests your rather gross over-generalisation that 'women are just not interested in politics'.

Were it to be true, it would be a wonderfully convenient explanation for why women are so under-represented in Parliament. Sadly, though (although certainly there are some women with no interest in politics and who are obsessed by make-up say, just as there are men with no interest in politics who are obsesssed by football, say), there is absolutely no proof that this is indeed the real explanation.

Re the numbers of men in the army etc, or women in female-dominated professions, I have no problem with that per se - you appear to have extrapolated from my support for Harriet Harman's call for positive discrimination in Parliament some kind of belief in positive discrimination being desirable in all areas - which I don't have and nor, for that matter, does Harriet Harman.

As I stated above, I strongly believe that men and women are different but equal - men aren't going to want to staff your beauty counters any time soon and I see no advantage to be gained by making them, for example.

Parliament is a special case - women at the make-up counter at Debenhams do not as far as I know represent me in any way or wield any power over my life, or over our country. MPs do. That's the difference, and why the former situation does not need action to alter it, whereas the latter does.

We live in what is supposedly a representative democracy. So I want to be represented. I don't think that's terribly unreasonable. I take others' points that men should be able to represent women, that we are all unique etc. And that works fine - up to a point. Beyond that, though the fact is that there are areas where I am pretty sure that a more gender-balanced parliament would take action where our current parliament is blind, or unmotivated.

For example - and it is a tiny, much-quoted example and not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but I think indicative - VAT is still charged (at a lower rate) on sanitary towels and tampons. Any woman will tell you they are NOT luxury products, they are essentials.

As I said, hardly urgent, but a little window into the fact that as it stands, our parliament does not fully represent the interests of 50% of the population.

Re your last point, I think that parliament ought to be more racially representative too - it's not as urgent, because we're talking about 1 or 2% of the population here or there being under-represented, rather than 50%. So less urgent, but yes, still important.

nickmason

Voter turnout might be a pretty good indication of political engagement...and women are more likely to vote than men. I've just tried to post a table showing this - from the ONS- but it got all scrambled....

carolt

Interesting.

I'd be interested to see Really's response to that.

sss555s

To say someone who votes in the general election is interested in politics is like saying someone who sticks a £10er on the Grand National is a gambler.

kabayiri

carolt wrote: »

As I stated above, I strongly believe that men and women are different but equal - men aren't going to want to staff your beauty counters any time soon and I see no advantage to be gained by making them, for example.

Err, why not?

It's a job, a job in a warm clean environment. I know a lad who works at a major store for one of the posh brands. He quite enjoys meeting the customers, telling them what they want to hear! It beats his previous crappy job as a contact centre bod.

He doesn't seem to be short of potential dates either....

Generali

carolt wrote: »

As I said, hardly urgent, but a little window into the fact that as it stands, our parliament does fully represent the interests of 50% of the population.

What about stupid people? By definition, half the population has an IQ of below 100 yet the vast majority of politicians are intelligent, university educated people. Unlike the popular opinion of politicians, those of below average intelligence are vastly under represented, in fact I'd be surprised if there is more than 1 or 2 people with an IQ of below 100 in Parliament. If you want Parliament to represent the people (and I see no reason why it should personally) then you need to empower idiots, even if it means the PM being asked whether a badger or a baboon would win in a fight at PMQs.

nickmason

Shakethedisease wrote: »

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 :-

And this article sounds very postive about it too

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

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

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought this up. It was a rather stupid throwaway comment about quotas. I didn't mean that they were useless, nor puppets per se. It's just that MPs in Rwanda are not as powerful as one might imagine.

As Generali succinctly put it, Rwanda shouldn't be used as a model of best practice for the UK.

The country is extremely proud to external audiences - international press, aid agencies, etc - of the fact it has a higher proportion of female MPs than any other. It is an excellent "signpost" of the progress the country has made since the genocide. It is also a simple product of their constitution; it is forced to be that way by the electoral system.

As Rwanda remains effectively a one-party-state, the power is still very definitely held by an elite within that party; the MPs don't wield as much power as one might imagine or indeed hope.

There are a lot of reasons for why Rwanda hasn't opened power out to its MPs - and they are mainly based around the legacy of genocide of 800,000 people of a Tutsi minority (that minority is now where the power lies) by the Hutu majority. Majority rule has some very, very nasty associations.

nickmason

carolt wrote: »

For example - and it is a tiny, much-quoted example and not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, but I think indicative - VAT is still charged (at a lower rate) on sanitary towels and tampons. Any woman will tell you they are NOT luxury products, they are essentials.

It's true. For a while there was an extraordinary distinction betweene towels (essential) and tampons (luxury and Vatted). Now they both incur 5%.
Although there are bizarre renewable alternatives that don't - I sometimes wonder whether they are in fact produced by a company backed by the Treasury:eek:

nickmason

As I said, hardly urgent, but a little window into the fact that as it stands, our parliament does fully represent the interests of 50% of the population.

Re your last point, I think that parliament ought to be more racially representative too - it's not as urgent, because we're talking about 1 or 2% of the population here or there being under-represented, rather than 50%. So less urgent, but yes, still important.

This is bonkers. Parliament is representative of the interests of 0% of the population. (Not even the MPs themselves). What it needs to do is represent, not be representative of. That means being aware of, and learning to engage with, all groups. It doesn't mean pouring a quart of views and attitudes and skin-colours and sexual orientations and genders and geographical origins and religions and employment and education history and education standards and wealths and incomes into a pint-pot - and then complaining that that hasn't worked.