Harriet Harman - Men should sit out of next leadership contest

Any female leader who got voted in on the basis Harriett proposes would get ridiculed by the press and would follow them around like a bad smell. Positive discrimination might work on a local / minor level but would be subject to ridicule on a national scale. It would be a too heavy chain for the woman leader to wear even if she had merit in the first place

@FeministBadger Does it occur to you that that is how small c or large C conservative men view themselves? Inasmuch that they don't just roll over and show their bellies to any Tom, Dick or Harry that comes along? There needs to be an actual display of ability in the competance heirarchy? The difference being that conservative men are at least willing to do the same to a Theresa, Diana or Harriet that comes along that shows the same?

I'm not arguing that conservatism isn't free from sexism, and I wouldn't dare argue that for a moment, merely that they are a lot further along the path of accepting women than most men on the left.

The difference is that on the left everyone will close ranks to protect and mitigate leftists men status as right on champions of equality and social justice. Just look at Jess Phillips rhetoric surrounding the abuse perpetrated by Jo Cox's husband or how Nicola Sturgeon rushed to Alex Salmonds defense declaring he wasn't sexist after sexist jokes he told at the Edinburgh Festival.

Sexism and misogyny is either universally not ok and needs to be called out, or it's just harmless but it can't be just rolled out to smear your political opponents but passes handed out when men on your own side does it. To do otherwise makes a mockery of the whole enterprise.

Women and feminism is often politically weaponized when it is convenient to the left, but thrown under the bus when it isn't.

@AnotherEmma

Mistake to @ you on that last post. Just sharing evidence that I've found backing up the structural imbalance. I'm being expected to explain this to clients now so I have research coming out of my ears. Other people may find it interesting. Client naysayers dismiss stuff unless there is data. It struck me how much Ms Wu found about the economists board sounded just like the labour party, if you've read those threads here. Apologies for sounding patronising. I don't think women can be described as pathetic as you did for expecting competitors to step aside when it's rigged market. The job market is rigged, women won't get to the top in my lifetime in equal numbers. Companies won't unilaterally change, they always want the most expensive man for the job. But politics is not supposed to be entirely marketised I would suggest.

@ErrolTheDragon No no no HH is asking for men to step aside, not for an all woman shortlist for Party Leader. The whole point is to reflect WHY no Labour men seem to countenance the possibility that a woman could be as at least as capable and potentially be the better candidate.

I don't interpret her question as being that women need special treatment, they simply need the ingrained biases amongst Labour males to be examined and moved beyond. A possibility I fear is less and less likely as the party moves more and more to the extreme right, which lets face it as a tremendous problem with misogyny.

In a sense this Trans Zeitgeist is a godsend as it lets them maintain their bias whilst simultaneously lets them trumpet how right on and progressive they all are! This plays well with the young idealists who lets be frank often haven't got the life experience to yet know when they are being manipulated.

I have a real problem with Labours lack of women leaders, I'm not a natural conservative but I can't make myself vote for a party that appears to hate women and that doesn't leave many options.

I guess it's an individualism vs 'class' sort of thing. HH is asking for special treatment for women-as-a-class. While positive discrimination is valid in some contexts, I really don't think it is applicable to singular positions such as party leader or PM.

I think the more prescient question would be what is going on on in the Labour Party when the Conservatives have had two female leaders who have both become Prime Minister with fewer female MP's in the time Labour have had none. AWS won't solve that conundrum because its not looking at the reasons why they need AWS when the Tories didn't

Yes, indeed,

no Conservative party has ever actually lost under a woman.

I hadn't thought of that but good point,

@OvaHere undoubtedly there are Tory men who are sexist, but on the subject of representation they have a better record than Labour when it comes to leaders/ Prime Ministers. What rankles me is one of the sticks Tories are often beaten with is old school misogyny as if this is a problem the enlightened left have evolved beyond, when in truth they are often worse.

I reject the notion we shouldn't entirely dismiss the fact the Tories have fielded two female Prime Ministers as if we should somehow dismiss some of that. I could advance the argument that as a nation we have thrived under female leadership. I don't think we would be half the nation we are today were it not for the Monarchy of Queen Elizabeth I who as far as Monarchs go presided over colossal advancements in art, culture, philosophy, religion and most significantly of all the birth of science from the backdrop of natural philosophy. She was fully engaged with and instrumental in leading.

Also the sheer fact is that the Tories have proven TWICE that the British electorate are content to be governed by and will embrace a female leader. The fact that Labour haven't thus far reveals that in truth they are rather backwards and seemingly can only really talk the talk and rarely walk it.

Mouth
With all due respect your reply to me was a bit patronising. I’m not an idiot. I’m a feminist. I know the system is biased. I even referred to the “uneven fight” in my post. I was taking that as a given, tbh.

Way too many massives in that post. I really shouldn't try to multi task when discussing politics

Do the Conservative male MPs believe Theresa May is their equal though?

She didn't become PM under normal circumstances and it could be argued that the situation came about because none of the men wanted a job that, at that point, looked like career suicide.

Making the massive assumption (for the sake of argument) that Brexit from 2019 onwards isn't a massive shit show and the Tories regain public confidence does anyone really think there won't be a massive power play to usurp Theresa and replace her with a favoured man to be the face of a new Britain.

Just to be clear I don't think Labour are any better at all and quite likely worse given recent goings on but I'm unconvinced with the idea the Tories are hugely pro- women.

Although I will concede the visuals of having had 2 female PMs and the value of that can't be totally dismissed.

Sounds a bit like the Labour Party.

Ms. Wu mined more than a million posts from an anonymous online message board frequented by many economists. The site, commonly known as econjobrumors.com (its full name is Economics Job Market Rumors), began as a place for economists to exchange gossip about who is hiring and being hired in the profession. Over time, it evolved into a virtual water cooler frequented by economics faculty members, graduate students and others.

It now constitutes a useful, if imperfect, archive for studying what economists talk about when they talk among themselves. Because all posts are anonymous, it is impossible to know whether the authors are men or women, or how representative they are of the broader profession. Indeed, some may not even be economists. But it is clearly an active and closely followed forum, particularly among younger members of the field.

Ms. Wu set up her computer to identify whether the subject of each post is a man or a woman. The simplest version involves looking for references to “she,” “her,” “herself” or “he,” “him,” “his” or “himself.”

She then adapted machine-learning techniques to ferret out the terms most uniquely associated with posts about men and about women.

The 30 words most uniquely associated with discussions of women make for uncomfortable reading.

In order, that list is: hotter, lesbian, bb (internet speak for “baby”), sexism, tits, anal, marrying, feminazi, slut, hot, vagina, boobs, pregnant, pregnancy, cute, marry, levy, gorgeous, horny, crush, beautiful, secretary, dump, shopping, date, nonprofit, intentions, sexy, dated and prostitute.

The parallel list of words associated with discussions about men reveals no similarly singular or hostile theme. It includes words that are relevant to economics, such as adviser, Austrian (a school of thought in economics) mathematician, pricing, textbook and Wharton (the University of Pennsylvania business school that is President Trump’s alma mater). More of the words associated with discussions about men have a positive tone, including terms like goals, greatest and Nobel. And to the extent that there is a clearly gendered theme, it is a schoolyard battle for status: The list includes words like bully, burning and fought.

In her paper, Ms. Wu says the anonymity of these online posts “eliminates any social pressure participants may feel to edit their speech” and so perhaps allowed her “to capture what people believe but would not openly say.”

@AnotherEmma

We don't on the whole earn our place fair and square, men esteem men much more that they esteem women.
I'm not making this up.
These articles are an interesting assessment of the effect on economics. This is why the gender pay gap will never close!

www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/business/why-womens-voices-are-scarce-in-economics.html

www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/upshot/even-famous-female-economists-get-no-respect.html

And a great piece on a study done by Ms Wu on how women in economics are talked about.

www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/upshot/evidence-of-a-toxic-environment-for-women-in-economics.html?_r=0

So if the top of the pyramid is weighted heavily male, there is more support inherent in the decision making levels of the pyramid for males, meaning it is a statistical anomaly that woman will get a leadership position.

There is inherent bias in the system. This supports our gut reaction to IDing your way into the AWS . It is biased. And the bias has a self fulfilling effect on women.

Actually I think asking a man to stand aside is striking exactly the right tone, as for any man to step aside he must trully believe that the female candidate is at least his equal if not more capable. The status quo reveals that Labour men don't really believe women are their equal at least not really. A fact you cannot accuse the Tory party of.

No one else seems to be bothered about the fact that Harriet Harman is asking men to step aside instead of just having the courage to stand alongside them.

Obviously there are a whole host of factors that make it an uneven fight, but to not even try, and instead to expect your competitors to step aside... it just seems a bit pathetic to me.

And this is coming from a feminist who would love to see all/mostly female candidates. But I don’t want people arguing they haven’t earned their place fair and square in opposition to the men.

Sorry that above line should read no Conservative party has ever actually lost under a woman. Apologies

I do think all women short lists are bloody ridiculous, but that isn't what Harriet Harman is saying. She's asking men to step aside, and actually I agree with her as when you stand for a leadership role you are stating two things:

First you are saying you want the job, but secondly and more importantly you are asserting you are the best person for it too. Now for it's entire existence the Labour Party in the UK (although not in Scotland, and it's important to point that out) has seen an unbroken succession of men asserting, and securing their place as Labour leader.

What this also unfortunately asserts by implication is that no woman was competent enough when up against the men, and this compounds as time goes on particularly in the light that we are not only on our second Conservative female leader but both the women were/are bloody Prime Ministers. It's also worth pointing to the fact no Conservative Party has actually lost an election, so we can actually and confidently state only men lose general elections, women have a 100% success rate in actually winning them! In the UK that is!

What needs to be asked of every potential male labour candidate is: "If you believe you are the best candidate for the job are you happy to join the unbroken line of male candidates who have asserted their superiority over their female colleagues in this regard? And can we safely dismiss any claims that you are an avid supporter of women as simple political rhetoric designed to win votes, and is in fact not your own personal view?"

What Harman is doing is laying the track for this debate to happen and hopefully in the future bear fruit. I was disappointed she didn't stand against Corbyn as when she was acting leader she impressed me a whole lot.

the party that has always seen itself as being the party of the liberal left,

If that ever was an accurate description, it surely isn't now in this age of Bromentum and antisemitism.

(the other contender for that description - the libdems - seem to do even worse on lack of women.)

*lots of potential female leaders

To be fair I'd rather have a true socialist as leader rather than someone who is just a woman because they're a woman. ..

Blair (the war criminal) was far more feminist than Corbyn, but he continued in the vein of Thatcher in progressing the neo-liberal agenda which makes life harder overall for women.

Blair brought in lots of potential leaders for the party including Stella Creasey who still hold similar ideology to him. Blair made wide use of AWS.

Unfortunately by the time more recent leadership elections came all the women Blair brought in were right-wingers and times had changed, there was hunger for true socialism.

I'd rather women were given opportunity to advance through the party and if AWS help this they should remain in place.

But in terms of leader, I'd rather vote on their political position than their sex.

True swivel I was just thinking in terms of the resulting difficulties for the woman who gets the job if there's allowed to be outright hostility. Although, as you say it was already there so how much difference would it make?

Oh Christ yes - it's not like it really makes it any easier, because once you're in, now you have to justify it twice as hard.

It's a ridiculous state of affairs when you step back - that people have to be forced to consider women.

I cant see it happening either - but if it starts a conversation about why the party that has always seen itself as being the party of the liberal left, that has prided it'self on being political correct, has failed to pick a woman as a leader, when the Tories - who have prided themselves often on being the home to conservative and traditional views - have not only picked a female leader twice, but proved that the country will vote for a woman PM.