Ireland: Room for women in politics means ‘unseating men’

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2014-06-06 18:14

Article here. Excerpt:

'Former Progressive Democrats minister of state for foreign affairs Liz O’Donnell has said making space for women in politics will mean “unseating” male politicians.

Addressing a National Women’s Council of Ireland conference in Dublin, Ms O’Donnell complimented the Government on introducing a quota law which will halve State funding to parties unless 30 per cent of general election candidates are women.

“Like it or not, making space for women in politics means unseating men. Women tend to do better in smaller parties where there’s space, but if a woman has to undo a man’s position then that’s when it gets tricky – and that’s why it hasn’t happened,” she said.

Ms O’Donnell said she thought the quota law would be a “game-changer”.

She said feminism was needed more than ever, and the debate about abortion legislation last year was “merely a rerun” of debates in previous years.

“If feminism was stronger and completely centred as a part of political ideology in Ireland we would not be dragging ourselves through this tortuous conversation and dialogue about the rights of women in pregnancy,” she said.

Journalist Una Mullally said Ireland had yet to deal sufficiently with the historical abuse of women and their children in religious and State-sponsored institutions.'

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Comments

Here's a revolutionary idea: Women run for political office. That's all. Just run for the offices. Quotas are not needed. In the U.S., we have no electoral quotas for female political aspirants and yet, they are getting into political offices all over the country: governorships, statehouses, the Congress, etc. They are doing so because they are running for office. It's that simple. If people like what they are standing for vs. what their opponent is standing for, then they vote for them.

Quotas de-legitimize a person who is in office or in a job who is a member of the "quota class". Even if they really were the best candidate for the job at the time it needing filling, no one will entirely believe it, perhaps not even them. Quotas undermine not just others' sense of confidence in an office- or job-holder, but that actual holder's as well.

In addition, they are sexist/racist/etc. Whatever the quota is based on, that's what they are. Nasty.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2014-06-07 22:53