Ladies and gentlemen, the first ridiculous consequence of gender quotas

Potatoeman

zeffabelli wrote: »

All the egalitarians should be happy.

Dumb but happy.

Egalitarians would for equal opportunity not equality of result. Positive discrimination is still discrimination.

Chips Lovell

Storm in a teacup.

Party HQs (and not just Fianna Fail's) have frequently overruled local organisations on choice and number of candidates. The only difference this time is that the gender quota is part of the equation.

FF can of course ignore the quota and field an entire slate of men if they want to, but won't get as much public funding.

Quota is only 30 percent. I'd find it hard to have sympathy for any party who can't manage to find that number of female candidates.

Daith

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Quota is only 30 percent. I'd find it hard to have sympathy for any party who can't manage to find that number of female candidates.

They've always had same sex issues....

suicide_circus

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Quota is only 30 percent. I'd find it hard to have sympathy for any party who can't manage to find that number of female candidates.

Maybe, just maybe it's not the party's "fault" they can't magic up the arbitrary 30℅ quota? Maybe women can make their own decisions and the party can't force them to become candidates? Maybe there's a slim chance that the reason we have fewer women in politics is that more men than women have an ambition to be involved in politics? Or maybe it's the unfortunate but undeniable biological truth that women can have babies and often do. Women have just as much right and opportunity to entre politics as men but fewer choose to do so which really irks a cohort of people as this does not suit their particular world view.

osarusan

Pretty sure there were allegations that Fine Gael did this at the local elections, there was quite a storm within the party about it.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/tralee-mayor-resigns-from-fg-over-gender-quotas-1.1672731

Daith

osarusan wrote: »

Pretty sure there were allegations that Fine Gael did this at the local elections, there was quite a storm within the party about it.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/tralee-mayor-resigns-from-fg-over-gender-quotas-1.1672731

"Mr Hussey yesterday said he had no problem with women joining councils, although it would be expensive for them in terms of babysitting and other arrangements. "

Do men not babysit at all down in Kerry I wonder?

NachoBusiness

That's it. I'm gonna throw myself in front of a horse at the Curragh.

Chips Lovell

suicide_circus wrote: »

Maybe, just maybe it's not the party's "fault" they can't magic up the arbitrary 30℅ quota....

So it's the women's fault?

It's funny how some parties don't have much trouble hitting the quota, while the "where are they going to find a babysitter" types in FF and FG are the ones struggling with it. Pure coincidence no doubt.

diomed

Fianna Fail. Nobody cares.

The Randy Riverbeast

Hopefully they only need one or 2 women to fill the quota.

Caliden

Multinationals have hiring quotas for years ranging from gender to ethnicity. Got talking to a hiring manager before and he had to offer a job to a lesser qualified candidate to fill such a quota.

suicide_circus

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

So it's the women's fault?

It's funny how some parties don't have much trouble hitting the quota, while the "where are they going to find a babysitter" types in FF and FG are the ones struggling with it. Pure coincidence no doubt.

That's the thing, its nobody's fault. There is no conspiracy. If people are serious about increasing the amount of women in any walk of life, paternity leave increases should be first on the agenda, not these sinister quotas

The Randy Riverbeast

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

Hopefully they only need one or 2 women to fill the quota.

I think they have suggested 2 women might be necessary...to do the work of 1 man...;)

expectationlost

Pat Mustard wrote: »

I was speaking to a Fianna Fáil supporter recently. He told me that there is EU funding for the political parties, which is conditional upon the implementation of gender quotas in the nomination of candidates.

What he also offered was that where candidates had to be selected on the basis of gender rather than ability or popularity, it was likely that such candidates would be chosen to run in constituencies where FF wouldn't have much of a chance anyway.

FF is prepared to pay lip service to this gender quota idea in order to get funding.

its not EU funding it Irish state funding, if they don't get 30% of either gender the funding is cut by 50%

kneemos

expectationlost wrote: »

its not EU funding it Irish state funding, if they don't get 30% of either gender the funding is cut by 50%

They just going to run the extra female candidates in unwinnable constituencies anyway so I can't see any net gain in gender ratio.

Satan is Real

Lol so much for equality. Welcome to the 21st century where get penalized just for being a man.

KomradeBishop

zeffabelli wrote: »

All the egalitarians should be happy.

Dumb but happy.

Hmm? What's it got to do with egalitarianism? This is giving advantage to the women involved (to the point of giving them a monopoly on the current selection), and disadvantaging (to the point of excluding) the guys.

Daith

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Hmm? What's it got to do with egalitarianism? This is giving advantage to the women involved (to the point of giving them a monopoly on the current selection), and disadvantaging (to the point of excluding) the guys.

Not really? Deirdre Heaney went through the process and was selected over Sean Haughey.

FF added Sean Haughey to the ticket anyway because they expect him to be in a better chance to win a seat.

FF aren't going to block any candidate they think has a good chance of winning.

KomradeBishop

Daith wrote: »

Not really? Deirdre Heaney went through the process and was selected over Sean Haughey.

FF added Sean Haughey to the ticket anyway because they expect him to be in a better chance to win a seat.

FF aren't going to block any candidate they think has a good chance of winning.

It's stated right in the OP quote.

Daith

KomradeBishop wrote: »

It's stated right in the OP quote.

So why not to the same in Dublin Bay North? They're picking what areas to run only women in.

They'll get their gender quota in calculated areas that they don't believe they'll win.

The guys aren't getting nominated because the party lacks faith in them

KomradeBishop

Daith wrote: »

So why not to the same in Dublin Bay North? They're picking what areas to run only women in.

They'll get their gender quota in calculated areas that they don't believe they'll win.

I'm talking specifically about the candidate selection discussed in the OP, not making a general statement about the overall candidate selection.

Pat Mustard

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

Storm in a teacup.

Party HQs (and not just Fianna Fail's) have frequently overruled local organisations on choice and number of candidates. The only difference this time is that the gender quota is part of the equation.

FF can of course ignore the quota and field an entire slate of men if they want to, but won't get as much public funding.

Quota is only 30 percent. I'd find it hard to have sympathy for any party who can't manage to find that number of female candidates.

I couldn't entirely agree with that.

It's true that the parties can nominate whichever candidates that they wish.

However, if funding for political parties depends upon the implementation of gender quotas, then I think that there are serious problems, in relation to interference with the democratic system and in relation to actually dealing with the issue of too few women in politics.

If those in power were serious about getting more women involved in politics and if they wanted proper candidates to run rather than those parachuted in on the basis of gender, wouldn't they be better off looking at removing the barriers to entry to the job, and introducing systems such as attendance and voting by electronic means, appropriate childcare etc? Surely those kinds of measures would help address the imbalance of male/female representation in the Dail. And that would be representation on the basis of ability, not gender.

But instead we are presented with gender quotas which must be fulfilled in order to get political funding. The result is extra female candidates running in constituencies where FF are not likely to succeed.

Political funding dependent on gender quotas in this instance is an indirect attempt to subvert the democratic system by encouraging nomination of candidates on the basis of gender instead of ability.

Religious quotas or quotas based on ethnic extraction wouldn't be a far cry from this and would make just as little sense.

zeffabelli

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Hmm? What's it got to do with egalitarianism? This is giving advantage to the women involved (to the point of giving them a monopoly on the current selection), and disadvantaging (to the point of excluding) the guys.

Egalitarianism is a response with social or economic engineering to perceived in qualities.

The perception is not enough women in politics.... the pursuit is equality but the result is unfair and undemocratic. It's government interfering in the voting process.

Daith

KomradeBishop wrote: »

I'm talking specifically about the candidate selection discussed in the OP, not making a general statement about the overall candidate selection.

I'm talking about FF as a whole. The wider picture is important to consider here.

I don't actually agree with the quotas myself but there's far more thought put into it from FF here.

Chips Lovell

Satan is Real wrote: »

Lol so much for equality. Welcome to the 21st century where get penalized just for being a man.

Eh, there's gender quotas for men too.

Pat Mustard

expectationlost wrote: »

its not EU funding it Irish state funding, if they don't get 30% of either gender the funding is cut by 50%

Do you have a link for this? I'm curious to see the details and I haven't found them yet.

Chips Lovell

Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2012/act/36/enacted/en/print.html

zeffabelli

Potatoeman wrote: »

Egalitarians would for equal opportunity not equality of result. Positive discrimination is still discrimination.

But their argument is that you need to use positive discrimination in order to create equal opporunity, because the opportunity is not equal in the first place, hence the social and economic engineering.

So you know... you have to tell colleges who they can admit, you have to tell employers who they can hire and you have to tell voters who they can vote for.

That is what egalitarianism is. It may may equal but it sure as **** aint fair.

KomradeBishop

zeffabelli wrote: »

Egalitarianism is a response with social or economic engineering to perceived in qualities.

The perception is not enough women in politics.... the pursuit is equality but the result is unfair and undemocratic. It's government interfering in the voting process.

The latter isn't egalitarianism/equality. As another poster said, egalitarianism isn't really about equality of outcome.

Daith

Pat Mustard wrote: »

Do you have a link for this? I'm curious to see the details and I haven't found them yet.

I think this is it?

[2012.] [ Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) No. 36.]
Act 2012.

Payments calculated in accordance with this
Part shall be reduced by 50 per cent, unless at
least 30 per cent of the candidates whose candidatures
were authenticated by the qualified
party at the preceding general election were
women and at least 30 per cent were men

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2012/act/36/enacted/en/pdf


So we actually have gender quotas for men...just easier to achieve