Select Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Womens' Rights

Nevyn

So we have a "Select Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Womens' Rights" attached to the Dáil and which has 13 members who are all T.Ds it is only me who think's it odd that all 13 members are men?

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees30thDail/S-JusticeEDWR/Membership/document1.htm

Should there be a female T.D.s on it?

jellie

thats very odd.. i wouldve expected at least 50% to be women. but ill admit i know absolutely nothing about politics whatsoever.

but maybe thats it? are there many women interested in and active in the area? apologies for my ignorance on the subject I know out of my group of friends that none of us would have a particular interest in the area. none of us are stupid by any means, all intelligent women, but its just not something that has ever drawn us (or me personally anyway).

cooperguy

There is much less woman active in politics therefore I imagine it would be hard to get gender balance in the committee. It is slightly odd there isnt one or two though!

Wibbs

You are having a laugh. That is mad Ted. Utterly mad. There are not enough :eek: or :rolleyes: smileys to describe that. Only in Ireland. I can imagine if there was a committee on mens health and rights etc and it was made up of 100% women it would be looked at askance. Then again. Watch this space. Jesus.

Then again even more. This is a committee and an irish government one to boot, so meh, they'll end up doing bugger all and costing a fortune, like irish gov commitaaaaaays do.

southsiderosie

Thaedydal wrote: »

So we have a "Select Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Womens' Rights" attached to the Dáil and which has 13 members who are all T.Ds it is only me who think's it odd that all 13 members are men?

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees30thDail/S-JusticeEDWR/Membership/document1.htm

Should there be a female T.D.s on it?

YES.

That is a damn shame. :mad:

Wibbs

You really couldnt effin make this stuff up.

Nevyn

There is a senate committee with the same remit which is made of 4 members and 2 of them are women. There is a sub committee of that one which is "Sub-Committee on Women's Participation in Politics" which has no members listed at all.

metrovelvet

Why should it be different then any other areas of politics? You dont expect them to practise positive discrimination

dr.bollocko

Do these chaps have particular special skills which make them particularly able to discuss women's rights?

shellyboo

metrovelvet wrote: »

Why should it be different then any other areas of politics? You dont expect them to practise positive discrimination

I dunno, I'd kind of expect that members of a committee on XYZ would have experience/expertise in XYZ, tbh. Hard for a group of men to forward Women's Rights - not impossible, but certainly more difficult.

As Wibbs said, the converse would be simply laughable.

Boston

Initial response is that I find it odd women's rights wouldn't come under the banner "equality", but shrug.

shellyboo wrote: »

I dunno, I'd kind of expect that members of a committee on XYZ would have experience/expertise in XYZ, tbh. Hard for a group of men to forward Women's Rights - not impossible, but certainly more difficult.

As Wibbs said, the converse would be simply laughable.

What makes you think its a committee to forward women's rights? I know its in the title like, but sure its clearly a sop. That's the most random collection of areas I've seen.

metrovelvet

Boston wrote: »

Initial response is that I find it odd women's rights wouldn't come under the banner "equality", but shrug.




What makes you think its a committee to forward women's rights? I know its in the title like, but sure its clearly a sop. That's the most random collection of areas I've seen.

This struck me also. Another excuse for another commitee, grants, bureacracy and expensive leaflets.

shellyboo

It is a bit weird. Dunno what it does, but to have anything to do with Women's Rights and not have a woman involved seems insane. Like an affirmative action committee composed entirely of white people.

metrovelvet

shellyboo wrote: »

It is a bit weird. Dunno what it does, but to have anything to do with Women's Rights and not have a woman involved seems insane. Like an affirmative action committee composed entirely of white people.

It worked for the Clintons. Oh no wait.. backfired some years later.

Boston

Depends on what the committee is doing tbh. I'd bet none of them have a military background, but Defence is a topic covered.

shellyboo

No way to tell is there, Boston? But we can clearly tell none of them is a woman, which is the topic under discussion...

IvyTheTerrible

I think it's indicative of a wider problem in politics. There are only I think 22 women in the Dail out of 166 deputies.

I imagine a lot of them are already on committees so to get 6 to be on this one, well that would be tough.

Well according to the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights:

5 November 2009

"Gender targets essential to encourage more woment to participate in politics"

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=13270&&CatID=36

Does the "Select Committee" still exist? Why do we have two?

lazygal

I think people are being a little naive about the political process here and how the committee system works. The membership of the select committees are always TDs, as per constitutional provisions regarding the passing of legislation, Senators do not form part of the select committee process. Select committees are totally different from joint, they are to deabte and pass Bills, unlike joint committees which only debate a specific topic rather than a Bill itself.
Also, who gets a spot on the committee is determined by the parties themselves. The party leaders generally select people based on the constituency lines to give TD X or TD Y a higher profile-I never saw an actual "expert" on a committee-Terence Flanagan, for example, was part of the select committee on finance and the public service but has no banking or property expertise.
Likewise, female TDs comprise 13% of the Dáil, so on a proportional basis its hard to have exact representation.
BTW, the sub-committee on women's participation in politics is not statutory as it is a sub committee, thus its membership is not strictly defined. One high-profile attendee is Ivana Bacik though. If people want to change this system they should lobby their TDs for a more appropriate skills-based focus on committee membership. Having said that, I don't want a woman to get a slot on a committee just because she's a woman, that's not doing anyone any favours.

The Corinthian

lazygal wrote: »

Having said that, I don't want a woman to get a slot on a committee just because she's a woman, that's not doing anyone any favours.

I do think it comes down to this. I think that one should aim towards the best qualified person for the position; being a woman may give someone an advantage in a women's rights role, but it does not mean she'll be the best qualified and other qualifications by another candidate may outweigh whatever advantage her gender may bring to the role.

If there was a men's rights role (which given we are apparently all penis-wielding oppressors will not happen any time soon) I'd rather have a competent female TD represent me than an incompetent male one. Regrettably, one thing that is evenly spread amongst the genders in the Dail is their inadequacy.

As to gender imbalance in the Dail, this is a more complex issue. On one side people (of both genders) tend to elect more men than women. Of course, there are also more male candidates too, but political parties are not dumb and have an incentive to select candidates who'll get elected, so effectively will tend to 'follow the market'. The 1997 presidential election is a good example of where the parties, wanting to exploit the 'Mary Robinson factor', all went through hoops to put forward only women - out of five candidates only one independent was male.

Personally, I think it more important to understand why more women do not stand for office, rather than assuming it is related to gender discrimination and rough hew a misconceived solution. It's all too easy to jump to conclusions and bitch about how we have a 'hung parliament'.

The_Minister

@The Corinthian: Actually, statistically speaking, a woman who runs is more likely to get elected then a man. Partly this is because all the no-hopers are male, whereas women tend to run only if they are fairly sure they will get elected.

The Corinthian

The_Minister wrote: »

@The Corinthian: Actually, statistically speaking, a woman who runs is more likely to get elected then a man. Partly this is because all the no-hopers are male, whereas women tend to run only if they are fairly sure they will get elected.

What you mean, I hope, is that male no-hopers are more likely to run and fail to get elected than female no-hopers. It's a jump to assume that no female no-hopers ever run.

The_Minister

The Corinthian wrote: »

What you mean, I hope, is that male no-hopers are more likely to run and fail to get elected than female no-hopers. It's a jump to assume that no female no-hopers ever run.

I can think of four female no-hopers out of the last two elections (defining no-hoper as someone who had no realistic chance of success). On the other hand, I'm sure if I went through the record I could find upwards of 30 (at least) male no-hopers who ran to make a point, or were just crazy etc.

In general, women only run if they have a high probability of election.

The Corinthian

The_Minister wrote: »

In general, women only run if they have a high probability of election.

I do not dispute, nor confirm, this. It could well be true. I simply corrected your erroneous statement that "all the no-hopers are male".

Boston

shellyboo wrote: »

No way to tell is there, Boston? But we can clearly tell none of them is a woman, which is the topic under discussion...

Sorry, I can't seem to find the moderators title under your username, if you feel my comment is irrelevant and off topic you are free to ignore it. The point I made goes directly to the point of the topic; in that the committee is probably made of very few if any people who have an inherent involvement in the any of the areas and that having such involvement may have no benefit what so ever. I'm sorry if this undermines the righteous indignation of the thread.

As a continuation of the point Corinthian touched on. If we are to believe that women need female representatives in order to have their views truly expressed in the corridors of power, then why should any man ever vote for any woman? Is it not likely, nei even probably, that peoples political views transcend gender in many ways. Or is the argument that men cannot represent both genders, but women can; though no special skill other then the placement of chromosomes. How many of you agree with ivana bacik, how many of you even support labor and how many of you would feel better having a unknown woman on a committee for "equality" simply because she's a woman.

Nevyn

I think that there are insights in what is it like to be a woman which frankly a man can't have cos he is not one and there are different rules and pressures on women then those which are on men.

I would like for all those who are on such committees to be qualified to do so but that there should be out of 13 many 2 memeber who are that and who are women.

I think that more women in politics would be a good thing and the things which bar or discourage women from getting invovled with should be looked at.

There are many things which I dissgree with Senator Bacik on, I do tend to support labour over the other parties but am not a party member and I have a lot of time and respect for my local Labour T.D. who is Joan Burton.

Would I want a woman on the comittee just cos she is a woman? No
I would expect her to be as qualified to be there as any other memeber.

panda100

This thread reminds me of a recent New Yorker cartoon!