30% of political candidates must be female....

iptba

"Electoral quota is patronising" (October 22)
http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/electoral-quota-is-patronising-211491.html

Goes on to say various reasons why female politicians are better.
If this person, or anybody else, doesn't then think male politicians are better in other ways (I never hear much talk of these), then it would seem they are female supremacists.

Blisterman

Not only is this law patronising to women and discriminatory, it undermines all female politicians, because there's now going to be an automatic assumption that they're there for tokenistic reasons rather than on merit.

If there's a shortage of suitable female candidates, then the solution is to try and attract more women into politics from a grass roots level.

Feathers

IMO the biggest damage that this law will do is outside of politics, by virtue of normalising the idea of quotas in other areas — such as boardrooms, which is being discussed at present.

To a certain extent, it will only be offensive on principle in politics, as to be honest, one whipped back-bencher voting with the party is the same as the next — be it man, woman, child or dog; the same when they become members of the cabinet & act as instructed by spin doctors/civil servants/contracted consultants.

Sleepy

The 30/40% will mainly comprise of the existing TD's wives imo...

Pawwed Rig

Don't forget daughters and sisters

Annasopra

Sleepy wrote: »

The 30/40% will mainly comprise of the existing TD's wives imo...

Funnily enough we are moving away from this. Most current female TDs are not family of previous TDs

The Corinthian

mango salsa wrote: »

Funnily enough we are moving away from this. Most current female TDs are not family of previous TDs

Which is a good thing. I wager we'll be moving back twoards it if we introduce these quotas though.

Sleepy

Since so few women are interested in running for election, I think it'll most likely the parties will fill these quotas with current TD's wives as a few bright young things aside, they'll be limited to women past child-bearing age (as few women with children are prepared to work the hours required of a TD).

Since it seems unlikely to me that a husband and wife team could secure enough votes to return both of them (due to overlap of their social circles) that while the parties will put these women forward as candidates, the funding will be biased in favour of the returning candidate (who'll no doubt feature prominently in their partner's posters too). This is a country of stroke politics and the strokes required to get around these quotas couldn't exactly be described as deft...

And then we'll all be back here as Senator (because the Irish electorate still won't have voted for her in a real election) Ivanna Bacik will be calling for legislation to force parties to spend more on their female candidates or some form of list system to ensure an even 50:50 split of gender in the Oireachtas.... :rolleyes:

walshb

I am all for gender equality but if women don't want to take up a role or are not capable or cannot meet the standard then why are we coming up with legislation like this?

Similar to EU legisaltion that is on the cards as regards female participation on the boards of companies. If the numbers and talent are not there, leave it alone. Why interfere? I think it may only lead to a weakening society and economy. If the woman/women is/are good enough then she/they should succeed.

walshb

And, why 30 percent? If they're serious, then why not go the whole way and make it 50 percent?

iptba

walshb wrote: »

And, why 30 percent? If they're serious, then why not go the whole way and make it 50 percent?

It's only 30% for a few years, then it's 40%.

Sleepy

walshb wrote: »

And, why 30 percent? If they're serious, then why not go the whole way and make it 50 percent?

Because even the most die-hard feminist is aware they'll have a hard time attracting that many female candidates for an Irish election?

The Corinthian

Sleepy wrote: »

Because even the most die-hard feminist is aware they'll have a hard time attracting that many female candidates for an Irish election?

In fairness because it would be close to impossible to impose.

The legislation is gender neutral, this means that both sides would need a minimum of 50% - in other words exactly 50% - and going down such a road, would be laughable.

donfers

politics in ireland is a bit ****

if people think having more women politicians will make things better they are missing the point by a lightyear or two

it's not about having more women politicians

it's about having a better political system

reform the system, don't play populist cards that will just bring us more of the same in a skirt/business suit/whatever

the sad thing is how naive and gullible the so-called reformers, the people who fancy themselves as revolutionaries, as a force of change are - so easily bought off by a tokenist gesture that changes nothing - I am amazed that anybody can welcome this, they are as much a part of the problem as anything else for being so short-sighted and foolish

Frogeye

I contacted all the big parties a few months back by email asking for information on the gender make up of party membership: SF, FF, FG, Lab.

I wanted to know the % breakdown of male/female members. Only FG replied ( but to be fair I didn't really push the others) but basically I got a load of stuff about their commitment to equality but the wording of the email suggested they didn't know the % make up themselves -something like " that information is not available". I can't believe this info isn't being collected given the focus on this issue.

My guess is that female membership is very low and that the 15% of female TD's may well indeed be higher than the % of female members.

If 50% of the party membership was female and "they" only had 15% of the seats I'd say there was a problem . This quota business really bugs me.

Annasopra

Frogeye wrote: »

I contacted all the big parties a few months back by email asking for information on the gender make up of party membership: SF, FF, FG, Lab.

I wanted to know the % breakdown of male/female members. Only FG replied ( but to be fair I didn't really push the others) but basically I got a load of stuff about their commitment to equality but the wording of the email suggested they didn't know the % make up themselves -something like " that information is not available". I can't believe this info isn't being collected given the focus on this issue.

My guess is that female membership is very low and that the 15% of female TD's may well indeed be higher than the % of female members.

If 50% of the party membership was female and "they" only had 15% of the seats I'd say there was a problem . This quota business really bugs me.

Claire McGings research is what you are looking for then!

http://politicalreform.ie/2011/07/06/rising-through-the-ranks-women-as-irish-party-members-and-ge11-candidates/

mango salsa

mango salsa wrote: »

Claire McGings research is what you are looking for then!

http://politicalreform.ie/2011/07/06/rising-through-the-ranks-women-as-irish-party-members-and-ge11-candidates/

I do love conclusions being drawn from simple correlations. Time in the party along with a few other things will be factors in getting nominated. Then there's the fact that women make up what, 51% of the population but around 13% of independent candidates. That's a bigger difference than in any of the parties so I'm still not seeing any evidence of women being held back by the parties.

deandean

Yeah well legislation should be passed for 30 percent of primary school teachers to be male. that would make for far more effective gender equality than percentages of toothless politicians.

Ellis Dee

I'll be voting in the municipal elections in Helsinki on Sunday. Right now I'm in the country that was the first in the world to give full political rights to women (i.e. they got both the franchise and the right to stand for election when the electoral law was amended in 1906) and they won 19 of the 200 parliamentary seats when the first elections under the new system were held the following year.

Now women hold nearly 40% of the parliamentary seats and around half the cabinet seats (including the finance and home affairs portfolios). I believe the general consensus in the world is that Finland is a successful and well-governed country.:)

When I voted in the last parliamentary election, I chose a Black-skinned, Muslim woman, who is - like myself - originally an immigrant and a member of the Greens, who are the second-biggest party in Helsinki.:D I'm a man, by the way.

Although Finnish women have established themselves on the political scene far better than most Irish women would even dare to dream of, all this has been achieved without quotas of any kind.:)

In fact, I agree with most Finns, who believe that quotas are counter-productive and having them will only give enemies of true equality ammunition like the argument that "she'd never have gotten anywhere without the quota".;)

Rather than the State coercing political parties into nominating women, what Ireland really needs is a range of things that Finland and the other Nordic countries take for granted: an effective nationwide system of inexpensive and high-quality day care, 360 days of maternity leave at almost full pay and much longer at a reduced rate, a statutory right to return to one's job after maternity leave, hot, high-quality meals free of charge for all children up to the age of 16 in all schools --- and so on.

Those are the things that need to be in place, not token things that are only designed to fool women.:rolleyes:

I suppose it also helps that the majority religion - Lutheranism - is very low profile, has virtually no role in education and seems rather open to accepting the modern world.:cool:

The Corinthian

Ellis Dee wrote: »

Although Finnish women have established themselves on the political scene far better than most Irish women would even dare to dream of, all this has been achieved without quotas of any kind.:)

The Finns, indeed the Scandinavians in general, approached this issue logically. As has already been pointed out, the principle reason that women are poorly represented at the highest levels of politics and business (not to mention the infamous salary gap) is because women overwhelmingly sacrifice career to peruse the role of child carer. This option is not available to men in Ireland, due to the social and legal landscape surrounding this role.

So the Finns and other Scandinavians tackled this issue and soon women were climbing the corporate and political ladder.

In Ireland, it appears the solution is not to solve this imbalance, but maintain the status quo and allow women to be both the primary carer and advance in a career.

Why? I suspect the reason is a the old 'cake and eat it' approach to lifestyle choices - women want the male role, but don't want to sacrifice the female one. Problem is that someone has to sacrifice; positive discrimination will ultimately mean that someone gets 'negatively' discriminated against, and as is the habit in Ireland, this means men.

How long can such an 'cake and eat it' agenda continue in Ireland? I'm sure it can for a while, but it's pretty evident that the drones are already grumbling. Unless Feminism cops onto this, they may risk a future backlash that will reverse not only these inequities, but many of the achievements of previous generations of Feminists.

Feathers

Ellis Dee wrote: »

I suppose it also helps that the majority religion - Lutheranism - is very low profile, has virtually no role in education and seems rather open to accepting the modern world.:cool:

Do you mean as opposed to women in politlcs in Saudi Arabia, or Ireland? Don't think I've seen any research saying that Catholicism was holding back women from standing for office.

Agreed with the rest of your post though, good points.

Reku

Deleted User wrote: »

I do love conclusions being drawn from simple correlations. Time in the party along with a few other things will be factors in getting nominated. Then there's the fact that women make up what, 51% of the population but around 13% of independent candidates. That's a bigger difference than in any of the parties so I'm still not seeing any evidence of women being held back by the parties.

Indeed, when the quota insists on a higher % in the parties than exists among the independents then that's an example of lowering the bar for women to step over and then raising it back up when a man comes along. Utterly daft and I must admit that I'm tempted to avoid voting for any non-independent women candidates just to spite this idiocy since if the 30% is pulled from a pool of ~15% then it is quite reasonable to assume a lower quality of candidate, with a higher quality in the men (since the worst of them would be dropped)*.
Heck, there's only been one female TD that I respected and seemed to genuinely have the public interest in mind instead of just lining her pockets on the public purse (feel the same of most male politicians too: money-grubbing-fecks, only out for themselves, before anyone thinks that's a gender thing).


*keep in mind though that the party concept of "best" and "worst" relates to chance of being elected, not who would best serve the Irish people.:(

iptba

It seems possible the (Irish) constitutional convention may suggest gender quotas of various sorts be put into the constitution - although only ones to help women perhaps:
https://www.constitution.ie/AboutUs.aspx

The task that the Constitutional Convention has been given is set out in the Resolution of the Houses of the Oireachtas of July, 2012 and includes consideration of the following:

[..]

Amendment to the clause on the role of women in the home and encouraging greater participation of women in public life;

Increasing the participation of women in politics;

Anyone can make a submission on the site.

lechiennoir

If this is ratified then I will never, ever give a female candidate so much as a preference in future.

http://www.womenforelection.ie have been calling any woman vaguely related to political parties here, I know as I know a few who have been contacted, and pleaded with them to run at the next election. No question of caliber, no question of interest, it was put as it being a duty as being a woman that they should run. They will then take these people and tell them what to say, which boxes to tick to get votes i.e completely stripping out any merit whatsoever.

So now we may have a situation where 30% of the candidates are being ran merely because they don't have a penis. That's not something I'll support and as such, since they're asking us to vote based on what's between someone's legs, I'll do as they wish and vote for male candidates only.

iptba

lechiennoir wrote: »

If this is ratified then I will never, ever give a female candidate so much as a preference in future.

http://www.womenforelection.ie have been calling any woman vaguely related to political parties here, I know as I know a few who have been contacted, and pleaded with them to run at the next election. No question of caliber, no question of interest, it was put as it being a duty as being a woman that they should run. They will then take these people and tell them what to say, which boxes to tick to get votes i.e completely stripping out any merit whatsoever.

So now we may have a situation where 30% of the candidates are being ran merely because they don't have a penis. That's not something I'll support and as such, since they're asking us to vote based on what's between someone's legs, I'll do as they wish and vote for male candidates only.

I believe it has already effectively been passed a few months ago (although I did read about some debate in the Oireachtas in recent weeks which confused me a bit).

And just to remind people again, it's basically a 40% quota: the 30% quota is just for the first few years.

lechiennoir

iptba wrote: »

I believe it has already effectively been passed a few months ago (although I did read about some debate in the Oireachtas in recent weeks which confused me a bit).

And just to remind people again, it's basically a 40% quota: the 30% quota is just for the first few years.

Use your vote to protest these changes - do not vote for female candidates in the future.

Pawwed Rig

That is just as bad an idea as quotas. How about voting for the best candidate regardless of gender, age, race etc? We need good politicians now and unfortunately we do not have too many

maggy_thatcher

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

That is just as bad an idea as quotas. How about voting for the best candidate regardless of gender, age, race etc? We need good politicians now and unfortunately we do not have too many

With quotas in place, the onus is on the female candidates to demonstrate that they weren't selected to fill a quota. If they were selected to fill a quota, then they aren't the best candidate for the position and shouldn't be voted for. If they weren't selected to fill a quota, but instead got it on her own merit, then they can be voted for, but how does a candidate prove that?

For me, unless she can prove she got the selection legitimately, I'm not going to vote for her. As such, the quota has had a reverse effect on "encouraging" women to get selected.

Pawwed Rig

You are assuming that those currently selected are selected on merit which is often not the case. Many are selected because their second name happens to be Lenihan, Enwright, Kenny, Cowen, De Valera, Ahern etc etc

maggy_thatcher

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

You are assuming that those currently selected are selected on merit which is often not the case. Many are selected because their second name happens to be Lenihan, Enwright, Kenny, Cowen, De Valera, Ahern etc etc

Firstly, that's not enshrined into law, like this one, so it's up to each party if they want to be discriminatory or not.

Secondly, how do you know that they were selected because of their name, or that they were selected because their family connections meant that they got involved in politics at a much earlier age, and therefore put themselves out there more?

With this law in place, a woman is now, by default, suspect - her nomination will have a cloud of "did she deserve it" associated with it. It's entirely up to her to somehow disperse this cloud, and to do so without openly disparaging the quota will be very difficult.