Half the populace are women it is only fair that as close to that percentage of women are MPs, the argument given by some of the populace is that women have children and take maternity leave and thus are more likely to be lower down the career ladder and less to run for MP due to lack of "career development", I say boo hoo to the argument put out, if women don't have enough career development why are 30 year old people standing to be MPs? Surely this is an ageist policy older people are more likely to have a greater CV and career history, being an MP shouldn't just be about what job you had previously whether a Special Advisor or a bin man, both of which are perfectly valid career paths.
Most people enter Parliament in there late 30s-40s by this time the majority of the populace have finished having children and will not need to take the cursed maternity leave which so many opponents of an AWS will inevitably call will occur when a female MP had a child. All women shortlists are there to correct millennia of wrong against women, the inevitable sexism within all fields of life mean that action has to be taken to enable women to do well in life, an AWS leads to a greater amount of women in parliament and gives a different perspective on policy than that of men, as humans we are all different and divided by gender and other sorts.
An AWS can also lead to a really great candidate that may have not otherwise won due to other factors, a good example of this would be Victoria Groulef in Reading West and I'm sure there are many more up and down the country for the Labour Party, an AWS leads to a more representative CLP and party in general it does not bar women from standing in non AWS seats and there are selections that women have won without an AWS but this can be seen as the success of All women shortlists in the long term, they are not here for the long term, it is set out to right the wrongs of the past against women and should be encouraged further and be adopted by all political parties.
One issue on which I'd definitely get more purchase in Labour than my chosen Liberal Party. Many Liberals have an instinctive knee-jerk hatred of AWS that they can't seem to see around. I certainly don't think that AWS should be mandated centrally (by asking each party to have a certain % of their seats as AWS or something like that) - it should be up to each individual party - but I think it's a decision that the parties should make - particularly the big two - as they have the safe seats where they can do it more easily, and will change the culture of parliament faster due to their greater numerical strength.
ReplyDeleteJustanotherblairite? More like Justanothercondecsendingmisogynist. Ignoring the incoherence in the way the entire piece is written and structured, not to mention the redundancy in redundant wording (annoying, isn't it?). You speak of "the populace" as some kind of amorphous entity, seeming to forget that all this "populace" is, is a collection of individuals and families. You seem to care more for foolish proportions than for the kind of individual liberties that I always understood to be the linchpin of any liberal society. When you target focus groups in this way, you devalue the individual, and your attempt at empowerment becomes another tool of social alienation. When dealing with individuals, one must respect the ends of ALL people, not just focus groups, and not entrenched elites. The basic principles of justice and equality are not tools for your petty politics!
ReplyDeleteBeyond this basic misunderstanding of the nature of society, you then go on to new peaks of generalisation and misogyny. The idea that, to get into politics, women need some kind of extra help is, frankly, insulting. What an AWS means is that you believe the reason women are underrepresented in parliament is not to do with a culture that pushes them away from careers such as politics, or banking, or law, and instead that they are somehow not competent enough to compete with their male peers. This is outrageous. It is unfair to those women who through talent and drive gain selection and election to a seat, and it is unfair on those men who are deprived of the right to run for selection for a seat, purely for the vice of being born with a penis.
If you truly cared about equality, you should be looking beyond politics to look at the issues in our culture at large that push women away from these career paths. This focus on lists and quotas does nothing to inspire the drive for knowledge and skill in young girls, and thus, it does nothing to empower them. The idea that our culture can be changed by coercion and the shoehorning of potentially unqualified candidates is not just misguided, it is counter-intuitive. Oddly enough, you have the most effective solution to sexual discrimination in your blog title. Education is the key to breaking down these barriers and taboos. In fact this was highlighted as one of the main objectives of the government’s Gender Equality in Schools initiative, aiming to ensure that there are no preconceptions of what a girl or boy should study. In short, focussing on the success of the individual, regardless of their gender, background, or any other unimportant thing.
So the trebling of women MPs since the introduction of AWS by the Labour Party is misogynist? Your argument shows your lack of understanding, the article does state that AWSs are not permanent they are merely there to right the wrongs of the past, and I do mention that there are women in the Labour Party gaining seats through means other than an AWS.
DeleteIf you want to make and argument about the lack of women in jobs provide one? Your comment merely gives all huff and puff and no answer to what is essentially is a problem of patriarchy, positive discrimination is also being used in other fields for men! University courses are now allowed to admit men on the basis of their gender in Education courses due to the lack of male teachers at primary level and secondary level.
Finally if you want a proper argument don't post anon and show your face.