That 50% of MPs should be women

[Frumpitydoo]

Why aren't they? Why isn't this mandated? I know fewer females go into politics, but having had this brought to my attention through Mumsnet, boy has it riled me.

We just get shat on and shafted from the get go and stand no chance, do we?

In an ideal world the MP's elected to parliament should be representative of the voting public, of course they should, but in reality it's not going to happen - largely down to the party political system we have in place.

Compulsary voting is a terrible idea, though.

Positive discrimination is still
Discrimination

Fuck that

I want the best person for the job I don't care what's between their legs

Absolutely not!

@CurlewKate I like to think us women in management positions do understand what equality means and actually bend over backwards to try to level the playing field. The problem is, not all women seem to want a level playing field. Just take a look at some of the depressingly common themes on MN:

'It's not worth me going back to work because of childcare costs'
'I'll do part time so I can do the school run.'
'My dh earns multiples of what I do....'

'

More should be middle/working class. Having a bunch of privately educated trust fund babies who are looking out for their own interests is not good for the country.

It's never going to be properly representative of people who have no desire for power. And I've no idea if it's nature or nurture but more men than women seem to want power.

Never going to be properly representative of people with caring responsibilities.

Plus different profiles re risk...

Etc.

It isn’t really how democracy works.

Should the percentage also break down according to colour, disability, sexual orientation? Who picks the constituencies that are male/female?

We don't have pr so you may end up with party A fielding a male and party B fielding a female. What if the parties only field females in constituencies they think they'll lose.

You really should be voting for the party politician you think will do best.

I would feel less hindered by being given a role and people saying I only got it because I was a woman than by not being given it at all.
If some 'incapable' women got the role over some men that may be better suited, that's no worse than our current situation where multiple incapable men have roles over women who may be better suited.
As for the ineffectual women you list, they are women operating in an environment run by men for men. I'd like to reserve my judgement of women's performance until I see them operating as equals in an environment that isn't already tainted by male dominance.

Yes they should.

But we did that in Scotland. Significant percentages of women MSPs. Most parties in Scotland have been led by women. We've had a female First Minister.

And we still have a totally shit and corrupt government, our NHS and educations systems are failing and on almost every league table we perform worse than England.

So don't expect the world to change as a result of more female representation.

But the point is, if you have more women in influential roles; they can advocate for policy that reduces or removes those barriers! The examples you list are NOT women not wanting a level playing field, they are insurmountable barriers that only working mothers will face; in a structure designed by and for men.

Like Truss, Sturgeon, Patel, Braverman, May, Rudd, Badenoch etc etc.

Plenty of women in power in recent years alone.

The next chancellor will be a woman (Reeves).

So I am politically active. I remember this debate many years ago as a party policy, and young women like myself demanding no quotas as we should get there on merit. But over time almost all of us have changed our mind, and some of those women were elected as MPs without quotas.

But not having any kind of gender target, be it quotas/zipping or whatever means local parties can be lazy. The members who choose the candidates tend to be older, biased that women should be at home with kids. It just doesn't work.

That said, lots of women choose not to be MPs. If you are any distance from outside London it means being away 3-4 nights a week, working weekends, late nights, social media abuse. It isn't conducive to having a family as you either need to cart them up and down to London, or leave them half the week (this also puts off some men).

Meanwhile look at local government and you will see far more women, plus more women leading councils. If you are in politics, many people feel local government is where you actually change people's lives so a lot of women prefer it, as well as having more family friendly hours. It is where you deal with housing, social care, education. But it doesn't pay as well and you are less likely to hear about it.

All of that. And it would result in even the best female MPs not getting the respect they deserve, because people will assume that they're only in the post because of the quota.

And yes, the politicians that I despise the most are almost all women. So I'm not seeing the benefit here. If you think that women will be more caring and pro-women, just look at the bunch we've had recently.

I wouldn't. I only want a role that I want, am capable of and that I got on merit.

Do you think a newly qualified teacher with one years experience is the best person to be appointed school principle? In most cases, no because of limited experience. That's the comparison.

I work in a very male environment. I don't know any women who believes that her gender has been held against or hasn't progressed their career in the way they would like.

IMO a lot of people in favour of quotas wouldn't get there without them. People who have the desire and ability progress anyway in a lot of cases. If not, do you think the women who have progress are some sort of elite, unique, special cases. How did they manage it?

The problem with avoiding positive action to increase representation, is that without it true representation does not increase.
The dominant culture, be that based on sex, race, class sets the criteria for what capable and good looks like, and recruits and promotes in its own image. So anyone from outside that culture who wants to get on can end up having to fall in with it rather than challenge it and bring something of themselves to it.
If we want women to be represented, its not enough that a few may make the necessary adjustments to squeeze themselves into male shaped spaces, we need to free up some empty spaces and tell women they are theirs, to do with as they see fit.

"Do you think a newly qualified teacher with one years experience is the best person to be appointed school principle? In most cases, no because of limited experience. That's the comparison."

But appointing a principle is done with a trained interview panel based on the CV of the individual. Choosing a parliamentary candidate is maybe 100-200 mainly retired older people who ask questions of female candidates like 'What about your children if you are in London?' They never ask that of the male candidates. The two things are not comparable.

To be a true representation of the UK why stop at gender?

First of all - those pesky things MN hates, trans and genderqueer people, would need representation

Then there's breakdowns by race, religion, social class, disability, sexuality....

Some of these will over lap so there'll be a % of gay, black, disabled women and % of white, straight men and % of Asian, transmen etc

Now see how unworkable it would be?

That is just a lazy way of saying 'lets stick to the status quo because change is too hard'.

Women are 50% of the population, so start there. If you try and boil the ocean then you fail everyone. Then once gender balance is in a better place, then look at other characteristics.

Yeah, you're right. Way too much trouble. Best leave all the white, middle class, middle aged men to get on with running everything, and keep our fingers crossed they don't want to decide everything to their own advantage for evermore. Because there's no workable way of including other people in power positions.

Yes, everyone should be represented - I'm not sure 'single issue' constituency MPs would be helpful even if it was workable (which you're right, it isn't).
This is where a properly reformed second chamber could help. I don't know if there are any trans people in the lords - if not then yes, there should be a few. (Afaik the one minority which has always been quite well represented in the lords are gay men, albeit covertly until relatively recently so if the "LGBT community" was a reality rather than a co-opted collection of letters they're already represented)

I never said the Status Quo needs to remain 🤣

I said trying to break down by population % is unworkable

You enforce a 50/50 split and already you are excluding trans/non binary from representation (a minority which needs representation)

Then you get all the other ways you can split the population crying out for "their representation"

And suddenly policy and representatives are getting tangled in the right "look" rather than how to actually serve the population

As many others have said - rather than enforced % policies, tackling the issues as to WHY certain people don't feel they can be in politics and empowering them is more important.

All MPs are self serving, if you think being male or female makes a difference then you are deluded

As someone who works with politicians of all parties regularly, I can categorically say that is bollocks. Such a lazy trope.

You do need to be a certain type of person with the hide of a rhino and the energy of a duracell bunny to give up the amount of time most of them do. You have to listen to rubbish opinions like yours when you have just busted your ass for weeks with virtually no time off.

Yes, a small handful are self serving, but they are a small percentage of over 600 MPs.

100%

Maybe its better that the women are there because they deserve to be there and aren't "token" who got in there because of their gender.... You can't mandate that a specific percentage of women be MP's. Just like it doesnt work trying to mandate percentages in other areas.

Not only is it discrimination against a good male candidate just because they are a man its actually insulting to women that they need a leg up because they cant do it on their own merit and need to be given an advantage.