Poll:Minimum quotas for female election candidates?

arcadegame2004

I think only about 12% of Dail Eireann are women. Should a law/constitutional amendment be introduced requiring political parties to allocate a minimum of say 40% of their candidatures to women?

I feel that maybe they should.

bizmark

No its discrimination against men and you can’t say it isn’t

Amz

I don't agree.

What's the point?
If there has to be a minimum number of women TD's that means that people may not be accurately represented as there will no doubt be cases of women being voted in "because we had to".

I don't think it'd work.
Its not very democratic either. If there's not enough women interested in representing a party/standing for election in a particular area why should that party/area be penalised almost as a result?

Typedef

That would be political correctness taken to lunatic proportions.

It's already bad enough that men are demonised for human society throughout history, but, to actually legally ingrain the emasculation of men, in law as some sort of monstrous hate figures who must be fought with legislation to counterbalance their atrocities and artificially elivate women instead brings the castigation of males as a sex to an almost Israeli neo-apartheid like level of sophistication.

Why not simply define men as second class citizens, due to the "well known" supressive instincts men have vis-a-vis women.

At least if men were second class citizens, the counter-balance would produce equality?

Introducing a quota system like that would essentially disenfranchise men, and encroach on our civil rights.

Now while it maybe popular in the McMedia, to depict men as the cause of the world's troubles, and while it maybe a modern day heresy to question the word of our God, the McMedia, this State, is 'secular' from Catholicism and thus must be 'secular' from McMedia iconiclasm regarding the debasement of men in favour of women and indeed 'affirmative action' (read modern day state racism) to 'redress' the short comings of society.

tba

NO for all the reasons stated above, much better than I ever could hope to.

AngelofFire

The lack of women Fianna Fail candidates particularily in Dublin is worth noting.

Amz

AngelofFire wrote:

The lack of women Fianna Fail candidates particularily in Dublin is worth noting.

Eh?

The whole nature of democracy allows that a person can pick and choose what party/parties suit their way of thinking best.

A particular party may, for whatever reason, appeal to more male than female voters. This party should not be forced to change policy or somehow coerce more women into represting them just to fill a particular quota.

AngelofFire

Fianna Fail have no shortage of women members, quite a lot of Fianna Fail members on my college campus and a lot of members of other parties for that matter are Female.The proportion of females they are running does not reflect the amount of women members in the parliamentary party.

Amz

Clearly they feel that that's the best route for the party though?

The party must feel that the male candidates they put forward will appeal to a larger section of the voters. Perhaps fewer female party memebers are willing to stand for public office.

AngelofFire

so they should change their slogan from Fianna Fail- The Republican Party to Fianna Fail-It`s not for girls :rolleyes:

Amz

Well eh... it'd get them some publicity if nothing else.

TomF

It seems that after Mary Robinson, and probably for the forseeable future, the President must be a woman, but why should that apply to the TDs, too?

Amz

Where is it written that the President "must be a woman"?

PH01

AngelofFire wrote:

so they should change their slogan from Fianna Fail- The Republican Party to Fianna Fail-It`s not for girls :rolleyes:

Hold your horseies there Angel. Would you care to back up your points with some data? Have you analysed the figures from other parties?

PH01

Should there be quotas, and in this case for women? No. You should get there by merit. And that goes for the men as well.
But we have to ask ourselves why aren't there more women in politics in Ireland? I reckon there are a number of reasons and we all know them, but the main is the our culture and the make-up of our society.
Scandinavian countries the proportion of women in politics is mush higher than the European average. Contrast this the UK and Ireland, where it's well below the above average.
So to cut a long post short, to get more women in politics we have to change our culture and our society.

BTW, how many women post to the 'Politics' forum? I'd say it's less than 4%?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Zombrex

Ok people need to calm down a bit ... don't worry guys, no one is asking you to wear a apron (Typedef, if you were being serious then mate, you has "issues")

Firstly let me say I don't agree with quotas, as I will explain below. But something should be pointed out.

This isn't really discrimination. People view this type of arrangment as forcing men out to fit women in. That is not really how it works. What this is akin to is dividing up your party into two teams, a men's team and a women's team. The women then fight it out amoung themselves and the men fight it out amoung themselves. You can only have a certain amount of men or women on each team. Pretty much the same in any sports club in the world. Calling it discrimination against men is the same as saying not letting men play on the UCD Womens Soccer team is discrimination. Technically true, but missing the point.

Also like to point out that most true feminst groups do not support a quota system. Quota systems are often suggested by men (or women) who don't really understand the problems faced by women, as a quick fix solution (like affermative action in the States), that doesn't even attempt to tackle the reasons why women are not entering politics.

I am against quota systems because I don't think the "team" system works when applied to regional politics. For a start how would someone decide if an area would be best served by a man or woman TD.

Also it is insulting to both men and women that they need to be "help" into office by stopping them competting with each other.

Meh

Wicknight wrote:

This isn't really discrimination. People view this type of arrangment as forcing men out to fit women in. That is not really how it works. What this is akin to is dividing up your party into two teams, a men's team and a women's team. The women then fight it out amoung themselves and the men fight it out amoung themselves. You can only have a certain amount of men or women on each team. Pretty much the same in any sports club in the world. Calling it discrimination against men is the same as saying not letting men play on the UCD Womens Soccer team is discrimination. Technically true, but missing the point.

But there aren't two teams, there's only one Dail for both men and women. Or are you saying we should set up some kind of apartheid-style system, with separate chambers for men and women?

Also like to point out that most true feminst groups do not support a quota system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Zombrex

Meh wrote:

But there aren't two teams, there's only one Dail for both men and women. Or are you saying we should set up some kind of apartheid-style system, with separate chambers for men and women?[/b]

If you actually read on, I said I was opposed to the idea for exactly that reason.

Meh wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Did you actually read that Wikipedia article -

Some behaviours are actually contradictory to the label; "no true vegetarian would eat a beef steak" is not fallacious because it follows from the accepted definition of "vegetarian".

:rolleyes:

Amz

Wicknight wrote:

This isn't really discrimination. People view this type of arrangment as forcing men out to fit women in. That is not really how it works. What this is akin to is dividing up your party into two teams, a men's team and a women's team. The women then fight it out amoung themselves and the men fight it out amoung themselves. You can only have a certain amount of men or women on each team. Pretty much the same in any sports club in the world. Calling it discrimination against men is the same as saying not letting men play on the UCD Womens Soccer team is discrimination. Technically true, but missing the point.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the idea of being a public representative that you can represent all of your constituants be they male or female?

Therefore the idea of calling them "teams" is absurd, the Irish people deserve better representation than those basically left behind after the males and females in a party had fought it out amongst themselves.

Politics would become farcical almost if parties were required to fill a quota.

Where does this quota system work with regards to independent candidates?

Meh

Wicknight wrote:

Did you actually read that Wikipedia article -
:rolleyes:

Since when is "does not support gender quotas" part of the accepted definition of "feminist"?

Zombrex

Amz wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the idea of being a public representative that you can represent all of your constituants be they male or female?

... Sigh ...

Does anyone read my posts. I am opposed to quotas. I think they are unworkable.

The methophor about the teams was responding to the earlier posts that seemed to think quotas are an active discrimination against men, or some female plot to disenfrancise men, which in a typically male fashion, was completely missing the point. (yes i am male btw)

You are Meh are actually arguing good points, it just so happens that I agree with you :-)

Amz wrote:

Therefore the idea of calling them "teams" is absurd, the Irish people deserve better representation than those basically left behind after the males and females in a party had fought it out amongst themselves.

The idea is that they don't fight amoung themselves, because I guess they feel the men win out unfairly. The idea would be that the women fight for the 40% (or whatever) and the men fight for the 60% and at the end you can't say that a woman didn't get her place in the party because a man unfairly took it, because the woman wasn't going up against men, only women

Again, to quote Grandpa Simpson "I ain't for it, I aganst it!"

arcadegame2004

Well I think the Equality Authority should look into this. I mean, how can we claim to be a democracy when 51% of our population is under-represented by four-to-one?

Zombrex

Meh wrote:

Since when is "does not support gender quotas" part of the accepted definition of "feminist"?

Since the beginning of time :rolleyes:

Gender quotas pigien hole women candidates as just that "women." They assume that women candidates cannot represent men well, and assume that the candidates will/must only be interested in women issues. They of course do the same to men. It is division in a system that should not be based on division.

That is not what feminism is about, though it may be what people with a sterotypical feminist view think feminism is about.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Meh

Wicknight wrote:

Since the beginning of time :rolleyes:

Gender quotas pigien hole women candidates as just that "women." They assume that women candidates cannot represent men well, and assume that the candidates will/must only be interested in women issues. They of course do the same to men. It is division in a system that should not be based on division.

That is not what feminism is about, though it may be what people with a sterotypical feminist view think feminism is about.

Nonsense, there are plenty of feminists who support gender quotas. http://www.cwluherstory.com/phpweb/article.php?sid=108

Carpo

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Well I think the Equality Authority should look into this. I mean, how can we claim to be a democracy when 51% of our population is under-represented by four-to-one?

Women cant be represtented by male politicians now?

Zombrex

Meh wrote:

Nonsense, there are plenty of feminists who support gender quotas. http://www.cwluherstory.com/phpweb/article.php?sid=108

Well there are plenty of "vegetarians" that eat meat :rolleyes:

Zombrex

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Well I think the Equality Authority should look into this. I mean, how can we claim to be a democracy when 51% of our population is under-represented by four-to-one?

Rather than requiring that a certain amount of politicions be women (quick fix) we should instead turn to removing barriers, opposition, and sterotypes that prevent women from entering politics or even thinking that it is their place to enter politics. Once it is truely equal, then we can see what naturally happens. Men can represent women, women can represent men, it doesn't have to be 50 50.

Meh

Wicknight wrote:

Well there are plenty of "vegetarians" that eat meat :rolleyes:

Are you being deliberately obtuse? "Not eating meat" is the defining characteristic of being a vegetarian. "Opposing gender quotas" is not one of the defining characteristics of being a feminist.

Zombrex

Meh wrote:

Are you being deliberately obtuse? "Not eating meat" is the defining characteristic of being a vegetarian. "Opposing gender quotas" is not one of the defining characteristics of being a feminist.

Not supporting systems that define and group women as distinct from men, which goes on to then impose a sterotypical and gender defined role, is a defining characteristic of feminism.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Typedef

Wicknight wrote:

The methophor about the teams was responding to the earlier posts that seemed to think quotas are an active discrimination against men, or some female plot to disenfrancise men, which in a typically male fashion, was completely missing the point.

You see. You are just spewing the same McMedia sanctioned drivel, that would seek to introduce forced unequality for the common good. You use a prejudice to back up your position as well.

(yes i am male btw)

So it's OK, for you to support legislative sexism then is it? Well, I'm blonde... so I guess it's OK for me to support declassifying blondes into second class citizens then.

The idea is that they don't fight amoung themselves, because I guess they feel the men win out unfairly. The idea would be that the women fight for the 40% (or whatever) and the men fight for the 60% and at the end you can't say that a woman didn't get her place in the party because a man unfairly took it, because the woman wasn't going up against men, only women

I'm sure that crackpot scheme makes sense in your head, but, the rest of us, won't be having elections for 'black' only representatives, 'woman' only representatives or any other segregated representatives, this side of a long a protracted civil war, where the discredited Imperialists of the early 1900s who supported things like the "white mans burdon" take control of Ireland.

Moriarty

No, no and thrice no. Infact, Down With This Sort of Thing.

ArthurDent

arcadegame2004 wrote:

Well I think the Equality Authority should look into this. I mean, how can we claim to be a democracy when 51% of our population is under-represented by four-to-one?

And there was me voting for candidates that best reflected my views - rather than those that had the same type of genitals as me. Slapping myself on the head! How could I have been such a stupid woman. :rolleyes:

Zombrex

Typedef wrote:

You see. You are just spewing the same McMedia sanctioned drivel, that would seek to introduce forced unequality for the common good. You use a prejudice to back up your position as well.

That was sarcasim ... hence the winking smiley face at the end
:rolleyes: <<<< You see, you see ... I put the rolling eyes smiley face there. God isn't modern technology cool, now even really dumb people can see when one is being sarcastic.

Typedef wrote:

So it's OK, for you to support legislative sexism then is it? Well, I'm blonde... so I guess it's OK for me to support declassifying blondes into second class citizens then.

All I said was that I was male ... quote me where I said I support legislative sexism.

Typedef wrote:

I'm sure that crackpot scheme makes sense in your head, but, the rest of us, won't be having elections for 'black' only representatives, 'woman' only representatives or any other segregated representatives, this side of a long a protracted civil war, where the discredited Imperialists of the early 1900s who supported things like the "white mans burdon" take control of Ireland.

You don't live up in the mountains in a shack reading about the "New World Order" with a shot gun under your pillow, by any chance?

Who exactly is trying to "take control of Ireland?" Imperialist time travellers from the 1900s?

Victor

I wouldn't go for quotas, but I'd really like to 'pressure' parties that have obvious skews in their profiles.

AngelofFire

I think that if political parties judged potential candidates purely on their political skills and abilities to get elected rather than their ability to radiate a macho image,they would be at least a 45% female representation.

bonkey

arcadegame2004 wrote:

I think only about 12% of Dail Eireann are women.

So what?

This is not - in and of itself - necessarily a problem.

I'd say you'd find similar gender inequality in a huge number of different working environments. Before tripping on about what we need to do to "fix" this, shouldn't we first ask the obvious question :why there is this gender-inequality.

For example, if I pointed out that the oil-drilling industry is male dominated, would that be enough to expect you to support a female-quota within the driller's ranks?

Or maybe our armed forces should be told to refuse male recruits up until such time as they too can maintain a more equal balance in their makeup?

Now, before anyone gets all hoighty-toighty and starts pointing out that there are reasons why there are gender inequalities in some job areas, consider that ultimately there are reasons why there are gender inequalities in many/most job areas.

Regarding our elected representatives, the first question I would ask is what the male/female ratio is in "active" party membership. If its approximately the same as the male/female ratio in the Dail, then clearly reason for the inequality (the problem, if it turns out to be one) lies elsewhere and trying to fix it in the wrong place is about the dumbest thing one could do.

If there is a significant difference, then one should check where this occurs. Is it when a party chooses its candidates? If so, is there a logic for it, or is it an internal bias within the party? Is it when the public votes for candidates?

Asking the first question and then proposing a solution always strikes me as a great way to get things wrong. I'm not saying that ultimately quota's would have to be a bad idea, but from what I've seen here, no-one is producing any sort of a good reason why they aren't...just some sketchy outlines of a perceived problem.

jc

ReefBreak

I think we can safely say that this Poll is a resounding "No".

If individual political parties want to introduce quotas for the amount of women (or men) that they want to put forward for an election, then that's fine, that's their business. But to legislate for a minimum amount of women (or men) on a ballot paper or in the Dáil is not very democratic, in my opinion.

Big Ears

ReefBreak wrote:

I think we can safely say that this Poll is a resounding "No".

If individual political parties want to introduce quotas for the amount of women (or men) that they want to put forward for an election, then that's fine, that's their business. But to legislate for a minimum amount of women (or men) on a ballot paper or in the Dáil is not very democratic, in my opinion.

agreed and I think that is the general consensus(Sp?) of most people here .

flogen

I havent gotten the chance to read through the whole thread, but this is my view anyway:

Its a terrible idea to put in a minimum amount of females that have to stand.
Firstly, its discrimination against men.
Secondly, if there isnt enough women who are willing to stand, or who are good enough to be voted in/put forward, how would forcing them make it any better?

If it was proven that political parties are actively avoiding female candidates from running for sexist reasons, then naturally I'd like something to be done about it, but legislation already exists on discrimination on the basis of gender, and there is no need to bring in any more.

I can imagine the canvasing:
"Hi I'm Mary Bloggs, vote for me, please"
"well, what are you basing your campaign on, what are your issues?"
"I dont have any, but the law says 50% of the candidates in each area have to be female, and my name was picked out of the hat. I'm really just a secretary at Fine Gael HQ."
"Well, at least your honest about your lack of policies... you can count on my vote."

flogen

The_Conductor

Not going altogether off-topic, there is at present a government policy that a minimum of 40% of all new recruits to State Boards be from each sex, and preference be given to anyone with a disability. Its also the policy recruitment into the public sector. If you're a woman with a disability- bingo! You're sorted..... In all seriousness- quotas of any nature, by definition, are undemocratic. If people of one gender, one sexual persuasion, one career path, one education level- are arbitrarily more liable to apply for a particular position than another random member of the population- then that is a valid sample of the population. If a sizeable portion of the population feel that they are not being represented, for one reason or another, then instead of bleating about affirmative action etc- surely they should put their best feet forwards and appeal to be elected for a particular post on their own merits.

This came particularly to my attention during a debate on Newstalk on the Saturday before the local elections where a candidate was asked why people should elect them to be their representative..... the person in question stated that she was appealing to a particular ethnic group to vote for her- as she was one of them and would be their voice. When pressed by the presenter to answer how she would support the general public- after all she was running in a local election in a particular locality and regardless of whether people voted for her or not, she would be expected to represent them should she be elected- she responded that she had no interest in having anything to do with the general public- that her own special interest group was her only concern- and if she were elected she would not be available to constituents who were not a member of her particular ethnic minority.

This is the type of person who would be helped by this so called affirmative action- a person who quite cheerfully would disenfranchise large chunks of the electorate.

Regardless of who is elected in elections- what is paramount is that anyone can run in the elections- that no-one is excluded from the process. The electoral process has to be perceived to be both fair and transparent. Finally- those who are elected, must represent the interests of all their constituents at a local interests, and the national interests of the country at a national level. Whether my local TD is a man or a woman is utterly and totally irrelevant. Whether my local TD is willing to make representations on my behalf if I ask them to- is very relevant however. We do live in a democracy......

The Corinthian

So, if we imposed such electoral quotas and not enough women got elected to reach said quotas, would we be left with a hung parliament?

Lactating Shark

Women may not make up 50% of candidates, but they do make up about 50% of the electorate. The real problem is that women dont vont for other women in sufficient quantities to achive a gender balance in the Dail. Particuarly women over 65 (more likely to vote then younger women) are much more likely to vote for a man. Quotas would not change this fact.

The_Conductor

Add to that- the Sunday Business Post was recently hypothesising that some of the female TDs were being elected by young males because of the "glamour factor" (as they put it). The examples given were Liz O'Donnel, Fiona O'Malley etc.

In all honesty- it is utterly and totally irrelevant whether our representatives are male or female- what is relevant is that they represent us, our interests and our concerns.

Once the elected representatives are so far removed from those who elected them as to consider them an annoyance, and indeeds elections themselves an irritation- well- thats hardly a democracy is it?

S.

simu

I'm not keen on quotas, makes female candidates look tokenistic.

Political parties should try to attract as many female as male members though - maybe they don't target women enough.

Also, I've seen studies that show that women get fewer promotions at work than men because they don't put themselves forward enough or because they underestimate their abilities - perhaps the same applies to political parties. If this is so, the parties really ought to look at how candidates are chosen and encourage the women to become more agressive about promotion.

The Corinthian

simu wrote:

Also, I've seen studies that show that women get fewer promotions at work than men because they don't put themselves forward enough or because they underestimate their abilities - perhaps the same applies to political parties.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3044514.stm

simu

The Corinthian wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3044514.stm

Well, I don't think it's necessary to do that although drugged politicians would make Oireachtas Report a bit more interesting.

All you'd have to do would be to give the women a bit of a pep talk, get a bit of competition going. Men aren't really all that hard to beat!

Sleepy

Massively opposed to this form of sexism.

A few points:

1. Any true feminist is for equality between the sexes, in all walks of life. Imposing quotas is discrimination as, given that some electoral areas count faster than others, it's quite possible that these areas will have elected a predominantly male representation, leading to the last counties where men could then automatically lose a seat by virtue of possessing a penis.

2. As The Corinthian pointed out: what happens if the numbers of women running for seats is less than half the seats in the Dail?

3. Changes are already on the way: most law students in this country are female. This is one profession where we draw a large section of our politicians from.

4. Discrimination is Discrimination is Discrimination. Whether you call it "Positive Discrimination" or "Affirmative Action" it still boils down to stripping one person of their rights in favour of another.

5. Were this system in place, Ivana Bacik would have more than likely won her seat in the last election and could you really stomach that careerist feminazi representing you?

The Corinthian

Sleepy wrote:

1. Any true feminist is for equality between the sexes, in all walks of life.

Actually, that’s a misnomer. Feminism seeks to redress perceived imbalances between the genders by representing women’s rights. As such and by definition, feminism seeks to promote the interests of women rather than of equality, per say.

2. As The Corinthian pointed out: what happens if the numbers of women running for seats is less than half the seats in the Dail?

Read what I posted again and let us know when the penny drops.