Quotas for Female Politicians in Ireland

I have to get some work done today, but I have two questions for the anti-quota people:

1. Do you think the severe under-representation of women in the Dail - both as a percentage of the population, and as compared to other democracies - is problematic?

(it is well documented in this thread if you read it and the linked articles)

2. If you do think it is a problem, then if you don't like the idea of a quota system, what should be done?

Morlar wrote: »

I would like to ask those suchas southsiderosie who are apparently in favour of this notion/proposal whatever.

If you support introducing quotas which would discriminate against male candidates in favour of female ones - do you think that the people who disagree with you on this issue are sexist ? Bearing in mind that we are all (presumably) voters here.

I made it quite clear in the original post that I wasn't crazy about the idea and I spelled out why. However, I find it troubling that female representation is so low in the Dail and that there were a number of constituencies in the last election cycle where parties did not even have female candidates. Given the STV system in Ireland, that is even more surprising. The current state of affairs suggests that there are significant informal barriers to women running for office in Ireland.

I also find it troubling that many people who are anti-quota in this thread are quick to label it sexist and demeaning, but a) seem unwilling or unable to acknowledge what appears to be a systematic bias against women in the Irish political system (whether through political culture, nomination process, etc), and b) seem unwilling or unable to offer any constructive ideas or mechanisms to address the issue. I think it is unrealistic and, frankly, naive to continually claim that the most "worthy" candidates will somehow magically make it onto the ballot, especially considering the current state of affairs.

I believe strongly in representative democracy, but it is wrong to assume that regulating party behavior is in some way attacking democracy when the existence of parties is not an inherently necessary component of a democratic society. In addition, the fact that candidates are nominated by party leaders isn't particularly "democratic" - why not have an open primary and let party voters decide who they want to see on the ballot in a general election? Thirdly, "representative democracies" mean very different things in different contexts: is a "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) electoral system inherently more or less democratic than a system of proportional representation (PR)? Many would argue that it is less democratic, since PR better reflects the will of the voting population, but would we say that FPTP systems weren't democracies?

Finally, I would also note that in a past life I worked on legal issues surrounding hiring practices, and one of the main issues with my clients wasn't that they were blatantly discriminating against women, it's that they weren't even looking. Managers hired from the same sources as their old managers had since the beginning of time (alma mater, fraternities, friends they knew from golfing, etc), not quite realizing how much the landscape had changed. Many were unhappy when they were told they needed to change their hiring and recruitment practices, but many others found that, long-term, they actually made better hires because they had a wider, deeper pool to pick from - but they never would have made this switch without the kick in the ass from the government regulations. Perhaps quotas could do the same for the Irish political system, but given the knee-jerk and often uninformed responses to it, I doubt it will actually happen, and would guess that it might make things worse.