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.