Equality and quotas

Dave!

Hi there,

There has been a bit of debate about quotas today because Cllr Tom Brabazon (FF) wrote an article a few days ago opposing gender quotas, and Stephanie Regan (FG) wrote an article in response to him.

I work in tech, and there's big pressure within that field to encourage women to participate, and for tech companies to strive toward 50/50 gender breakdown. This isn't a project that I've necessarily given my full-throated support, and have gotten a bit of criticism over that from colleagues in tech. Similarly, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about gender quotas in politics (or indeed other fields).

At the risk of appearing as a misogynist (always a concern when you're a man discussing female issues... particularly on Twitter), I should clarify that I believe that women and men should have the same rights, are (or should be) equal citizens, and should be treated with the same respect in all fields.

I'm a bit self-conscious about my (tentative) position on these issues because I recognise that women have been oppressed for so long, and that misogyny is still a problem in the world, so it feels like I'm on the wrong side of the debate, so I want to challenge myself a bit. And also, I'm a white middle-class male, so am speaking from a position of privilege.

For me I think the reason why I'm on the same side of these issues is that both movements are predicated on the belief that exact equality is desirable. I can't really get past this premise, because I don't think that there's an a priori reason why this has to be the case—that if in a particular field the gender breakdown is not 50/50, that there is something inherently wrong or dysfunctional going on. It seems to me that there is going to be variance in different fields, and that that's alright. Everyone should have the same rights and opportunities, and discrimination shouldn't be allowed, and I think those should be the objectives—not achieving 50/50 balance. There's no reason to believe that any field should naturally break down equally to that ratio—there are too many factors at play.

Where have I gone wrong?

joe912

Dave! wrote: »

Hi there,

There has been a bit of debate about quotas today because Cllr Tom Brabazon (FF) wrote an article a few days ago opposing gender quotas, and Stephanie Regan (FG) wrote an article in response to him.

I work in tech, and there's big pressure within that field to encourage women to participate, and for tech companies to strive toward 50/50 gender breakdown. This isn't a project that I've necessarily given my full-throated support, and have gotten a bit of criticism over that from colleagues in tech. Similarly, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about gender quotas in politics (or indeed other fields).

At the risk of appearing as a misogynist (always a concern when you're a man discussing female issues... particularly on Twitter), I should clarify that I believe that women and men should have the same rights, are (or should be) equal citizens, and should be treated with the same respect in all fields.

I'm a bit self-conscious about my (tentative) position on these issues because I recognise that women have been oppressed for so long, and that misogyny is still a problem in the world, so it feels like I'm on the wrong side of the debate, so I want to challenge myself a bit. And also, I'm a white middle-class male, so am speaking from a position of privilege.

For me I think the reason why I'm on the same side of these issues is that both movements are predicated on the belief that exact equality is desirable. I can't really get past this premise, because I don't think that there's an a priori reason why this has to be the case—that if in a particular field the gender breakdown is not 50/50, that there is something inherently wrong or dysfunctional going on. It seems to me that there is going to be variance in different fields, and that that's alright. Everyone should have the same rights and opportunities, and discrimination shouldn't be allowed, and I think those should be the objectives—not achieving 50/50 balance. There's no reason to believe that any field should naturally break down equally to that ratio—there are too many factors at play.

Where have I gone wrong?

The bit were you believe that being a white middleclass male is a privilege.
how many white middle class males, have won a equality case in an employment tribunal.

johnnyskeleton

I dont think anyone wants an exact 50:50 gender ratio in any area, but rather they point out areas where the female participation is low percentage wise and focus on that.

Sheldons Brain

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I dont think anyone wants an exact 50:50 gender ratio in any area

Marriage would seem a good place for such an exact ratio.

Manach

On quotas in general, for the proponents, I can't help being reminded of agiprop pieces from the old East Germany where a writer demands redress of the evils of past injustices by the promotion of the right type of prolatateriates to the "middle-class" professions so as to build the better more egalitarian future. Well at least it leads credence to the phrase "History repeats ... first as tragedy, then as farce"

The Corinthian

Gender quotas at present have nothing to do with equality. Why? Because they're selective and they often ignore the cause for an imbalance in the first place, in favour of a quick fix that ultimately does not fix anything.

You'll never find gender quotas where there are more women than men, for example - they are only ever applied to roles where women are at a disadvantage. Also you'll only hear of them in roles that are desirable - gender quotas in management and politics, sure. In coal mining or sanitary work (where men are also the vast bulk of those involved), no that can stay as it is.

That many gender imbalances are down to the continued presumption that women must sacrifice their career to take care of the children is typically also not considered. Easier not to deal with this, not to improve the rights and presumptions so that men are equally seen to fill that role, and instead introduce quotas, I suppose.

So my attitude is, ideally deal with the root problems rather than use quotas, but if we must then let's introduce gender quotas for child custody, then I might take any more quotas designed to benefit women seriously. Quid pro quo and until then piss off.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Dave!

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I dont think anyone wants an exact 50:50 gender ratio in any area, but rather they point out areas where the female participation is low percentage wise and focus on that.

That's not really the case Johnny. In politics certainly lots of activists are striving for 50:50, and I think in tech that most events (Web Summit, Startup Weekend, Startup Soccer) aim for 50:50 in invitees, staff, and speakers.

https://twitter.com/NWCI/status/575076778630344705

gandalf

No I certainly am not in favour of quotas of any type based on gender, race or any other demarcation.

If we don't have enough women in politics then rather than putting in an artificial quick fix like gender quotas the underlying causes of why women are not attracted into politics should be looked at and dealt with.

People should be elected because of merit not because their reproductive organs are on the outside or the inside their bodies.

Given the issues we have with bad politicians in the past the last thing we need is to limit the political gene pool even further.

Dave!

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

There is a long history of (legal & societal) oppression of women, it's only relatively recently that this has changed, so men have had a long time to secure their position in society. Selecting one metric (education) as the basis for saying that white men are not privileged is a bit disingenuous.

Also, you know I'm arguing against quotas, right?! So no, I would not argue we need gender quotas in those professions, or any professions. That's exactly the point I was making in the OP :P

DoYouEvenLift

Regarding the above tweet: So democracy should be achieved at the expense of having the absolute most suitable and qualified government? These people seriously believe that we shouldn't make putting our best people forward the priority, but rather we enforce silly quotas so we can have a number that looks good on paper?


To clarify, in case any idiot with comprehension difficulties puts words in my mouth, I do not care if the government was 100% female or 100% male. Gender is not an important, relevant factor when deciding the most important, integral part of a country: the government. What IS important are actual credentials such as education and experience relevant to the roles.


Business knows no gender.

Dave!

Their argument would be that women make up 50% of the population, so shouldn't they make up 50% of the parliament in a representative democracy?

But I've never heard a good response to the question of whether we should then have quotas for gays, different nationalities, religions, etc. Gender to me seems like a completely arbitrary characteristic to care about. Also, women often vote for men, and men often vote for women, so I don't see how it could ever (consistently) be 50/50; people vote for policies (and personalities I guess), not gender, so why would we expect that it would break down so neatly along gender lines?

Gbear

If the overall thought process behind equality is to consider each person as an individual and not define them by their gender, race, religion or whatever, then it shouldn't matter what the split is in the Dail, in a business or anywhere else.
If you're trying to dismantle gender roles, then, by extension, you should be against any form of quota system because gender shouldn't even be relevant.
It seems a bit hypocritical if you're defining people by what you're supposedly trying to dismantle in the first place.

I don't believe that a lot of these arguments are really about equality. I think they're more a case of one group fighting their corner or fighting for the underdog.
There's nothing wrong with that, but the "equality" tag seems more like PR than an accurate reflection of what's being advocated.

There are probably a million and one reasons why society partitions itself the way it does and these factors are what need to be changed if equality is to be acheived.

However, it's entirely possible that a completely free society with minimal levels of prejudice would still be partitioned because there's no reason to assume people actually want equity in every part of society. Sexual dimorphism, differing cultural values, and so on, are perfectly benign reasons for why there mightn't be perfect equity between all genders and races in all industries.

rrpc

I'm not convinced by quotas either, since they are predicated on quantitative rather than qualitative criteria. What would be far more useful is some system to identify what the logjams are for women in employment.

So looking at promotional opportunities and candidates and externally evaluating the balance of genders applying for these against those who are successful may help cast some light on what is happening (if anything).

The Corinthian

Dave! wrote: »

There is a long history of (legal & societal) oppression of women, it's only relatively recently that this has changed, so men have had a long time to secure their position in society.

Which men would these be? The dead ones?

Relatively recently - talk about disingenuous...

zielarz

The answer is simple, people are different, men and women are different. Not better or worse, just different. Women dominate in some areas like healthcare or primary education. Men dominate in technical roles. There is no point feeling sorry or guilty about this. The worst thing we can do about it is trying to fix it.

They want to make you feel guilty because they believe in marxism, they believe that whenever people cooperate one of them takes advantage of the other (like employee vs employer, man vs women etc. ) which is a nonsense.

rrpc

zielarz wrote: »

The answer is simple, people are different, men and women are different. Not better or worse, just different. Women dominate in some areas like healthcare or primary education. Men dominate in technical roles. There is no point feeling sorry or guilty about this. The worst thing we can do about it is trying to fix it.

These are so stereotypical as to make me wonder are you taking the p1ss?

riding_shotgun

Gbear wrote: »

If the overall thought process behind equality is to consider each person as an individual and not define them by their gender, race, religion or whatever, then it shouldn't matter what the split is in the Dail, in a business or anywhere else.
If you're trying to dismantle gender roles, then, by extension, you should be against any form of quota system because gender shouldn't even be relevant.
It seems a bit hypocritical if you're defining people by what you're supposedly trying to dismantle in the first place.

I don't believe that a lot of these arguments are really about equality. I think they're more a case of one group fighting their corner or fighting for the underdog.
There's nothing wrong with that, but the "equality" tag seems more like PR than an accurate reflection of what's being advocated.

There are probably a million and one reasons why society partitions itself the way it does and these factors are what need to be changed if equality is to be acheived.

However, it's entirely possible that a completely free society with minimal levels of prejudice would still be partitioned because there's no reason to assume people actually want equity in every part of society. Sexual dimorphism, differing cultural values, and so on, are perfectly benign reasons for why there mightn't be perfect equity between all genders and races in all industries.

the kind of people ( feminists ) who promote the idea of gender quotas tend to be cultural marxists so i doubt they go in for considering each person as an individual too much

riding_shotgun

The Corinthian wrote: »

Which men would these be? The dead ones?

Relatively recently - talk about disingenuous...

i believe thats known as the legacy of guilt , very popular with feminists and those who believe in positive discrimination

riding_shotgun

zielarz wrote: »

The answer is simple, people are different, men and women are different. Not better or worse, just different. Women dominate in some areas like healthcare or primary education. Men dominate in technical roles. There is no point feeling sorry or guilty about this. The worst thing we can do about it is trying to fix it.

They want to make you feel guilty because they believe in marxism, they believe that whenever people cooperate one of them takes advantage of the other (like employee vs employer, man vs women etc. ) which is a nonsense.

their professional busy bodies who couldnt get a job doing anything else

zielarz

rrpc wrote: »

These are so stereotypical as to make me wonder are you taking the p1ss?

I am just stating the facts. Are you willing to challenge them or continue accusing me?

FactCheck

It always interests me that discussions on gender quotas in Ireland on Boards always seem to focus on the possibility of introducing them to benefit women. There's almost no acknowledgement (presumably due to lack of awareness) of the fact that there have already been several major and concerted efforts to improve the position of one gender - but that gender has been men.

Several years ago, concerned that Ireland's medical schools were being swamped by females, the gender-, race-, and school-blind CAO admissions system was revamped to include the HPAT. Here's an article from the Irish Medical Times outlining the thought process:

Professor of Academic Medicine and Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning at Trinity College, Prof Shaun McCann, said one of the aims of changing the entry system to medical school was to adjust the gender balance. “From the [medical] profession’s point of view, a 50/50 mix is desirable,” he said.
Foundation Head of the Graduate Entry Medical School at the University of Limerick, Prof Paul Finucane, said: “The pendulum had swung too far in favour of females. It’s important we have a system that doesn’t disadvantage males in the way that 40 to 50 years ago, it disadvantaged females.”

[Just to note - there were several other reasons for the introduction of the HPAT, it was not entirely social engineering. And there was some dispute, mostly internal to the medical profession, over whether discriminating in favour of boys was just or warranted.]

Five years on, the government's national research group found that the state's attempt at artificially boosting boys had failed anyway, as they continued to be underrepresented in new entrants.

And this isn't the Irish state's first hamfisted attempt at social engineering. In the early 2000s they wasted € € € on the MATE scheme (Men As Teachers and Educators). It was supposed to boost male entrants to teaching. It was another expensive dismal failure.

To take things back to Dave's post, I would say that you are dead right to be considering this as an individual. Look at young people you're working with. Look for private charity and advocacy efforts run by people you respect - not just as warriors for a better future, but as actually competent in their own industry.

But any attempt to look to mass official State quota programmes should be avoided like the plague. They pour taxpayer's money down the drain and have nothing whatsoever to show for themselves.

For what it's worth, I've been a woman in tech for a long time. I do everything I can to make my companies good places for women to work (one employs disproportionally a great number of women, one (much smaller) employs no women at all at present). I mentor as many young women as I can (and young men). There is far more to be done, far more than I could ever hope to do as just one person.

It's great to be active and encourage people and generally try to make one's industry as accessible to as many different backgrounds as possible. But any attempt at government-mandated interference should be resisted as strongly as possible. Whether they claim to be "benefitting" men or women. They haven't a clue what they're doing.

SeanW

HPAT is long gone, and I don't recall any leftists of any hue asking for it to be kept.

This is probably the most feminist government in Irish history.

FactCheck

SeanW wrote: »

HPAT is long gone, and I don't recall any leftists of any hue asking for it to be kept.

I think you must be confused. The HPAT is very much still in existence.

It's a shame there is so much ignorance about the government's social engineering and sexism regarding admission to one of the most prestigious and high-earning careers in the country.

Still, now you know.

SeanW

Looks like I was wrong about the HPAT

As to social engineering and sexism in education, this is nothing new.

It is widely held that men/boys do better and are more engaged with practical subjects, (construction, science, technology, some maths) while women/girls do better in subject that are heavy in theory and memorisation (lots of other things)

Thusly, in 1st and 2nd level education, the outcomes of the sexes are determined by the curriculum. A theory/memorisation heavy curriculum will result in a better outcome for girls, a practical or learning-through-doing heavy focus will result in a better outcome for boys.

Thusly any result (including the current overrepresentation of women in university and worse outcomes for boys in virtually all sectors of the education system) is necessarily and unavoidably the product of government policy.

FactCheck, would it be unfair to garner from the previous 'experiments' that gender quotas don't work?

I'm not in favour of them for anything and would fully support the end of both schemes.

jackofalltrades

Dave! wrote: »

Where have I gone wrong?

You've bought into the white middle class guilt and third wave feminism nonsense.
Look at the arguments for and against gender quotas, make up your mind and then have confidence in your position.
And remember privelege is mainly used by people who want to shut down debate with people whose opinion differs to theirs.

Dave! wrote: »

There is a long history of (legal & societal) oppression of women, it's only relatively recently that this has changed, so men have had a long time to secure their position in society.

Were women ever conscripted in their millions to fight wars?
Women in Ireland to this day still benefit from a legal principle that says that they are better parents.
So being a woman isn't all disadvantage.

Selecting one metric (education) as the basis for saying that white men are not privileged is a bit disingenuous.

Lets look at some other metrics.

Life expectancy for men is 5 years shorter than women.
Men are significantly more likely to commit suicide than women.
Single women out earn single men by 17%.
Men don't have automatic guardianship of their children.
The family law courts viewing men as inferior parents.

expectationlost

The Corinthian wrote: »

Gender quotas at present have nothing to do with equality. Why? Because they're selective and they often ignore the cause for an imbalance in the first place, in favour of a quick fix that ultimately does not fix anything.

You'll never find gender quotas where there are more women than men, for example

the political candidate quota goes both ways, atleast 30% of either gender, and its linked to state funding they don't have to do it

FactCheck

Deleted User wrote: »

FactCheck, would it be unfair to garner from the previous 'experiments' that gender quotas don't work?

I'm not in favour of them for anything and would fully support the end of both schemes.

Good question, sorry for not responding yesterday, I wanted to give it proper attention and I was rushed for time.

So, do gender quotas work? Well, let's be fair, neither of the two projects I mentioned are straightforward quotas. If, instead of jigging the HPAT test to try to give male candidates a leg up over female candidates, the Dept of Education had (for example), said to the various universities offering medical degrees "Ok, we are funding 40 places for medical students every year - we will fund no more than 25 places each, within that, for men/women". I mean, that would work, in that you would have roughly a 50-50 split. But would it be fair? How much lower would the points for men drop?

I mean, let's be realistic, probably actually not that much. It's only a handful of the weakest women who will be missing out, to a handful of men who are only slightly weaker than them. Socially - if you went in to A&E right now, and you were treated by a male junior doctor - would you worry that he was less competent than some of his colleagues? Would you worry that he had only gotten to be in front of you because of a test that was rigged in his favour?

I mean, honestly, I wouldn't, particularly. Medicine is a tough course, there are a lot of safeguards, a lot of further exams, if the guy doesn't have the chops for it he won't be performing my heart surgery any time soon.

The education gender gap is complicated. For one thing, at the very top, the top ~5%, where we'd be taking medical students from, it narrows considerably. There are still more women in the top 5%, but there are a lot of very competent men. I mean, just anecdotally, look at the "11 A1s" crowd that fill the newspapers every LC results day. There's no shortage of boys there!

[Source for this: the Dept of Education's Se Si Gender in Irish Education report, which I would highly recommend reading if this interests you, there's a lot more in there.]

Gah, that was a bit of a tangent. Other examples where gender quotas have "worked"? Well, the usual examples with political quotas is Rwanda. Here's an article that goes into how they work there and how Rwanda became the first and only country with over 50% female politicians. (It's an opinion piece, in favour of quotas - I don't agree with that, but the info is still there!). Honestly, I don't know enough about Rwanda to say whether their quotas are right or justified. I mean, on the face of it, they have very successfully rebuilt their country after horrific genocide. Which is great. But the concerns and priorities of a post-genocidal developing nation are just completely, totally different to the concerns of stable Western democracies like Ireland.

So, to get down to the tl;dr - I don't think that forcing blunt gender quotas is justified in Ireland. I don't think that rigging examinations to give one gender a "leg up" is justified. Even if it worked, which it didn't. If I was forced to choose, I would say that the kind of gender policy that the MATE teaching scheme was formed on - simply an advertising scheme trying to make the profession seem more attractive to men - well, I suppose if forced to pick, I would say that's the most attractive option, since it's the only one that didn't/doesn't involve outright State coercion. It's attempting to introduce equality of opportunity (ie, make men feel that they are welcome as educators, and praising male contributions) rather than attempting to force equality of outcome, which is what rigged examinations and blunt quotas do and is just totally wrong.

However, at the end of the day, I'm forced to look at the State having wasted over a hundred grand on a pointless advertising scheme that achieved absolutely nothing. The reasons men don't want to be primary teachers are complicated. There are a lot of pat soundbites ("they're afraid of being called paedophiles!") but the reality is it's a combination of complicated factors, not one easy thing. I have no faith in the ability of the government to force social change. It will come organically. It already is - look at how acceptable gay teachers are now. As recently as my own school days, this would have been scandalous, out of the question. But social norms change. And no thanks to the State, which kept homosexuality illegal until the 90s and is only now, embarrassingly late, condescending to allow gay people the freedom to marry.

SeanW

expectationlost wrote: »

the political candidate quota goes both ways, atleast 30% of either gender, and its linked to state funding they don't have to do it

The principle is the same - the State puts a party at a large disadvantage if they don't toe the line.

This is only marginally less f'ed up than Iran, where the Ayatollah determines who is "Islamic" enough to run for President (or w/e his criteria is) and then that subset goes on to the ballot paper.

The principle here is the same - a powerful anti-democratic force in control of the State determines who may and may not appear on the ballot paper.

This goes against the very core concept of open, democratic, free and fair elections.

expectationlost

SeanW wrote: »

The principle is the same - the State puts a party at a large disadvantage if they don't toe the line.

This goes against the very core concept of open, democratic, free and fair elections.

less of an advantage rather then large disadvantage i'd say

SeanW wrote: »

This goes against the very core concept of open, democratic, free and fair elections.

what do you think of state funding for incumbent parties in general?