Tag Archives: opposition

3 days to go: history is being made…

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It feels good.  This is an important week in the history of Ireland. We’re about to take an important step towards gender equality in political life.

It feels good that Minister Phil Hogan will introduce the Gender Quotas Bill in the Seanad on Thursday, February 2nd 2012 at 1145. Good that the government is fully behind this change. Great that Fianna Fail is so much in favour of gender quotas that it’s going to press for them to be extended to the Local Elections 2014.

Let’s welcome opposition to gender quotas…
Of course, there are voices against change – people who want to retain the status quo, conservatives. This is good – it means we have political debate – the interest of citizens will be sparked.  It would not be good if this historic change was made without public debate. The unconvinced sceptics & downright sexists strengthen our argument.

Wasn’t it encouraging…
Wasn’t it remarkable to see Leaders & General Secretaries of Fine Gael, Labour & Fianna Fáil in full support of legal gender quotas.  They’re the people who have to make it happen within their parties – deal with those who are disappointed, frustrated & angry.

Wasn’t it superb to see Sinn Féin & People Before Profit Alliance speaking up in favour of gender quotas – as part of their commitment to gender equality.

Right now, there’s furious internal debate within political parties. Many who dreamed of being selected as candidates in the next General Election have had their dream disrupted.

Imagine…
Imagine if this was 3 days before the introduction of the Bill to give women the vote in Ireland.  Imagine we were back introducing equal suffrage in 1922.
Would we be celebrating?  Of course we would.  Would we be satisfied? Of course we wouldn’t.  We would be saying this is a significant step in the right direction.

What we really want is gender equality in all law-making, all politics.  We want women & men equally involved in the whole process of governing our society.  So we are pleased at what we’ve achieved, but we have more to fight for.

Isn’t that what we’d have said in 1922?

Help the Cause now : Lobby your local councillors, TDs, Senators, party activists, party workers, local papers, radio stations, favourite media…

 

Gender Quotas: Why are they needed?

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Fiona Buckley, Department of Government, University College Cork writes…

Electoral gender quotas are highly controversial & stimulate a considerable amount of debate wherever they are adopted.

Analysis of the gender quota discourse in Ireland & elsewhere reveals that resistance to quotas derives from the liberal concepts of individualism & meritocracy.

  • Objectors consider quotas to be a form of discrimination, & a violation of the principles of fairness, competence & equality of opportunities.
  • Others believe quotas will lead to the selection & election of unqualified individuals who are in politics based solely on their biological sex & not on ability.
  • Liberal opponents suggest representation should be “about representing ideas, not social classes or categories” (Dahlerup, 2006: 10).

Merit & ability arguments assume, naively, that all election candidates make it into politics ‘on their own’.  This is untrue.

“Many candidates experience forms of advantage, whether it is family connections, large personal resources, favour by the party leadership, or, as is specific to Ireland, strong local profile due to GAA connections” (Buckley & McGing, 2011)[i].

These forms of advantage are considered normal – and are rarely questioned.

Politics is not a level-playing pitch.
Scholarly research has identified gendered barriers that prevent fair competition for political office.  These are summarised under the ‘Five Cs’ model as

  • care (childcare or otherwise)
  • culture
  • cash
  • confidence
  • candidate selection

Advocates argue that gender quotas are a compensation for the structural barriers that women face when entering politics. 

Gender quotas touch upon central debates in the theory of representation.  ‘Representation’ is a key concept in the study & practice of politics.  It is about:

  • who represents
  • who is represented
  • what is represented
  • how representation takes place.

Anne Philips’ seminal work The Politics of Presence argues that, as women all over the world have been excluded from representation, this must be taken as the starting point in the discussion of gender quotas & representation, not some abstract debate on the principles of representation[ii].

The continuing under-representation of women in Irish politics is a blight on our democratic record.

Speaking at the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Women in Politics in September 2009, former TD, Liz O’Donnell pronounced – until we have more women participating in politics is Ireland, ‘our democracy is unfinished’[iii].

Legislators would do well to keep this in mind as they work together to finalise the gender quota proposal.

[i] Buckley, Fiona & McGing, Claire (2011) ‘Women and the Election’, in M Gallagher and M. March How Ireland Voted 2011, London: Palgrave

[ii] Phillips, Anne (1995) The Politics of Presence, Oxford: Clarendon Press cited in page 4 of Dahlerup, Drude (2002) ‘Quotas  – A Jump to Equality? The Need for International Comparisons of the Use of Electoral Quotas to obtain Equal Political Citizenship for Women’, a paper presented for a workshop hosted by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), Jakarta, Indonesia – http://www.quotaproject.org/CS/CS_Comparative.pdf

[iii] Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Women in Politics (2009) Women’s Participation in Politics – http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees30thdail/j-justiceedwr/reports_2008/20091105.pdf