Gender Quotas

As discussed on Primetime, the issue of gender quotas in the political and business spheres are being mooted.

http://www.independent.ie/business/w...-26828900.html

Obviously women are under represented, but surely to bring in quotas compromises democracy, and may often lead to women getting positions on the back of them being a woman?

There are better ways of trying to increase female participation, but the notion of gender quotas does not help those women that, for whatever reason, can't and won't put themselves forward for political positions. Remember, in the last general election, the group with the lowest proportion of female candidates was independents!

Equality of opportunity, not outcome!

Edit: Link to Primetime debate http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10116015/

At a social level, affirmative action is all well and good in chipping away at long-established inequalities and compensating for possible institutional prejudice. Equality of opportunity is also something that is extremely difficult to guarantee, but how do you justify what is still a form of discrimination (albeit with positive intentions) on a personal level?

I think it can also depreciate achievement and leave those recruited or employed on such a basis vulnerable to accusations like "you only got the job because you're a woman" or whatever, rather than as a result of merit/qualifications.

Load of rubbish tbh.

It's not going to make any difference regarding how many women get elected. Politics is a hostile dog-eat-dog world, the kind of profession that appeals to more men than women, and it will always be so.

Why will it always appeal more to men than to women exactly? I know plenty of females who are political.

I'm sure for certain women it appeals just as much, maybe more. However, he is making the point that overall, more men than women are willing and want to get involved.

I think I'd agree.

But why should or will that always be so?

Why would gender quotas compromise democracy?

I'm pretty opposed to the idea of enforced quotas on the basis of the sex of the candidate.

If a woman or a man wants to become a politician then so be it... If they get elected... so be it... if they don't... so be it.

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Originally Posted by DannyInvincible

But why should or will that always be so?

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I never said it should be. And for the reason Mypost stated, I'll leave it to him to explain himself if he wants to.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

Why would gender quotas compromise democracy?

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As per Wiki, "Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally", quotas compromise the "participate equally" part imho.

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Originally Posted by Keen2win

As per Wiki, "Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally", quotas compromise the "participate equally" part imho.

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Bingo

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Originally Posted by Keen2win

As per Wiki, "Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally", quotas compromise the "participate equally" part imho.

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How so? Gender quotas would only apply to political parties. Whose rights are affected by Fine Gael being required to choose at least 30% female candidates instead of the usual 15% or whatever?

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

How so? Gender quotas would only apply to political parties. Whose rights are affected by Fine Gael being required to choose at least 30% female candidates instead of the usual 15% or whatever?

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The rights of these lads, the independent link is down so I will link this post!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showp...43&postcount=1

(Ain't a user of The Gentleman's Club, just done a quick search on boards :) )

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Originally Posted by Keen2win

The rights of these lads, the independent link is down so I will link this post!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showp...43&postcount=1

(Ain't a user of The Gentleman's Club, just done a quick search on boards :) )

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The poor boys! Look, candidates are chosen by party strategists. There is nothing remotely democratic about the selection process, beyond leaving banker candidates in areas they traditionally have a lot of support. The situation isn't as dire as Fionnan Sheahan makes out - a few of those 73 will decide they don't want to run again, either because they plan on retiring or they see the writing on the wall as regards being booted out. Any forward-thinking party will have been making provisions for this legislation for the couple of years it's been mooted and will now be in a position to benefit by recruiting the most promising female candidates.

The idea that gender quotas in some way impinge upon men's rights is ridiculous - the only real-world effect it has is to force a bunch of lads in suits to be a little bit more fair in the way they decide what narrow range of conservative, uncontroversial names they put on our ballot paper.

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Originally Posted by Keen2win

I never said it should be. And for the reason Mypost stated, I'll leave it to him to explain himself if he wants to.

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Why do you think more men than women are willing and want to get involved at present?

In my opinion, the disparity comes down to two things: Parties put forward candidates based on who they think are most likely to get elected, and men are in general more prejudiced against women than vice versa. Therefore parties are going to favour male candidates, because the sexist electorate is more likely to vote for them.

I think society will gradually leave such prejudices largely behind them. Until then, I believe quotas only cause resentment, and ultimately harm progress.

There are all sorts of reasons why women don’t participate in electoral politics in Ireland –some cultural, some historic, some social.

One of the big historical factors is that instead of a having a suffragist movement at a time when other European countries were, we were engaged in a 30 year cultural nationalist revival ending in seven years of intermittent warfare. The only political outlets for women that then mattered were the two sides of that coin – nationalism its varied guises, or unionism. After independence, women moved (or were shunted) into the background. Organisations like Cumann na mBan, which had been particularly active and socially embedded, virtually disappeared from the mainstream. Women were encouraged to use their skills in soft areas: church sodalities, charities, ICA, etc. If you think that the first female minister after Countess Markiewicz was Maire Geoghegan Quinn, you can see the decades long effect of removing women from politics. Add to that social expectations of motherhood and homemaking, and the influence of religion and it’s clear that the odds have been stacked against them.

There’s a theory, though, that suggests that women operate parallel to politics, creating social linkages rather than political ones: it’s the theory that points to the number of women involved at a senior level in NGOs, charities and advocacy groups that actually have a substantial impact through lobbying on government policy. So: invisible in the combative front line of politics, but effective in behind the scenes policymaking.

I’m against gender quotas. They leave women vulnerable to being scorned as ‘only a quota TD’ and having no merits or qualifications in consequence, or having to be seen as ‘ball-breaking b1tches’ to fit in with the lads. (Two words used by female students in my class on this topic recently).

There are things that could be done to increase the number of female politicians at national level, but most require some kind of systemic intervention: changing the electoral system, reducing the constituency workload on national politicians etc. Some easier things might be to allow video-conferencing for Oireachtas committee meetings, to improve crèche facilities in the Oireachtas, or to legislate so that the alternates lists for the European Parliament and local council elections have women in the first three spots. Yes, it’s artificial and they wouldn’t be elected, but it doesn’t have the negative ring of a quota.

I'll have to double check as it may be gone from 2 years ago, but there was a stipulation in Croatian law where minorities HAD to have elected representatives in government. So there was a Gypsy member, some Serbs, Hungarian etc. It was based on the size of the population (of the group) but also in giving them a voice. So go the whole hog - go ott. Make it 49-49-2 (Men-Women-Transgender) and elect a Dail like this. Otherwise it's just giving free seats for no good reason. Next it'll be travellers claiming to be an ethnic group - oh wait.

Not sure that the parties would favour men because they're seen as having a better chance- I remember seeing somewhere that the success rate of female politicians was pretty much identical to that of men.

I think quotas should be an absolute last resort. There has to be a better way of evening things out.

We should start a campaign for sex changes amongst TD's.

Enda Kenny could become Edna Kenny for starters.
Micheal Martin could become Michelle Martin...
John Burton could become Joan Burton etc etc.....

Great idea, Richelle Madrid!;)