Sandi Toksvig and Politics

[sausageeggbacon11]

So Sanda Toksvig has had enough and has decided to put together a feminist party. Which considering MB has started his and the Pirate Party and Sexual Freedom Party are already in place does the party stand a chance? Or like MB and the others is it just going to try and highlight issues?

I do wonder if anyone on the boards will end up standing for the general elections in 2020?

Well the world got interesting read more here

sausageeggbacon11 wrote - "annoyed that there is a insistence on quotas, if we are good enough we don't need to be protected... if we want a meritocracy then everything has to be above board and no one being shielded from having to be the best. if we are good enough we don't need to be protected".

I find it ironic that this is an argument used to resist 50% quotas for female MPs in the UK Parliament. Currently, the protection is on the male MPs' side, protecting their current 75% quota. Quotas for women would remove some of that unfair male protection and make it a more level playing field.

Having quotas for female MPs will not destroy an existing meritocracy, because male MPs are mostly not in Parliament on merit as if they can do the job better than anyone else. These male MPs are in Parliament because they won a first-past-the-post election in which voters voted very much more on the basis of party policies rather than evaluation of an individual candidate's competence.

sausageeggbacon11 wrote - "I spoke to a friend about Labour's Rachel Reeves who was protected and parachuted into a safe seat. No matter how good or bad she is people will question could she have got to where she is if she hadn't of been given the seat without having a challenge."

What is your opinion of the dozens of male MPs who have been protected and parachuted into safe seats, over the past three hundred years?

"I think the best way to tackle this is with hard financial logic. There have been plenty of studies (wish I could cite them here - can dig out!!) showing that companies with more women in senior mgmt positions (including Board) do better. As in - are more profitable, enjoy better performing share prices, make better investments."

This is true, my company cites it a lot. And as such, they have all sorts of D&I initiatives, awareness training for managers, very careful HR things and so on.

Why? Because even with the cold hard logic, unconscious bias exists aplenty and so if you have an organisation mainly populated by a certain type of person (with my company white men) then they tend to choose people who are like them, and they don't even realise they are doing it.

Hence, women need a leg up to get around the fact that in many places they are disadvantaged as they are "different" to the norm.

Same as the reverse is true in predominantly female roles - however when there are initiatives to get more men in, eg primary school teachers, everyone says Yay Brilliant and no-one starts whiffling on about merit or quotas or positive discrimination of anything.

Actually that's pretty stark isn't it.

Anyway. I'd vote for Sandi's party or similar. Very disillusioned with the usual suspects so yes I'd definitely be up for that.

Those that don't believe in quotas, I understand the rationale. But most jobs can be done to a high standard by many candidates. Is it really the case that less than 20% (in my industry) who could possibly do the jobs have vaginas?

Quotas raise quality. By eliminating the mediocre bottom rung, and replacing them with higher quality candidates who've been previously ignored.

Read the section on the "zipper quota" here curt-rice.com/2014/07/03/2-ways-quotas-for-women-raise-quality/

To all the 'pro quota' camp. …

It should go without saying that I totally understand (and respect) your viewpoint. As with so many things - it's a question of which approach gets us where we want to be most effectively.

After much thought, I've come to the conclusion that quotas are not the best way of achieving that, but that doesn't mean to say I am not FULLY in agreement with you that the current situation is illogical and wrong. Yonic, of COURSE I don't think only 20% of women are capable of doing your job - whatever that is. I am posting in the women's rights section FGS!

The no hard quotas approach doesn't mean sticking with the status quo and doing nothing. There has been a huge shift in the % of women on corporate boards in this country, for instance, with none. Naming and shaming companies who claim to be 'incapable' of finding suitable female candidates seems to have worked v.well. Still work to do, clearly, we are not at 50% - but a lot has still changed and will continue to.

I think the main thing is to realise that we are all on the same side here and want the same thing. We need to stand together. We are all horrified that in 2015 we still don't have genuine equality. It is a disgrace. I am delighted to see what Sandi's new party hopes to achieve and I look forward to being part of it.

BTW Slightlyeggstained, just checked out that link. Very interesting and many thanks for sharing. Have signed up to newsletter. Agree that argument about quotas improving quality is extremely interesting and potentially powerful.

Merse, I didn't say that you thought that. I said "is it really the case".

As other posters have said - the candidates who are getting there "on merit" now are not the only ones able to do the jobs well. That was my point. Sorry if you felt it was personally directed at you.

Am also excited about the Women's Equality party

Just want to chip in about @5050Parliament campaign as I am in the fringes of the campaign team - it is not pro quota. It is deliberately agnostic re methods but is calling for a debate on how getting better gender equality in the HoC can happen...

I would hate for people to not be signing up due to this confusion.< Sorry for slight derail.>

Personally I am pro quota - there is some interesting UN stuff about 'temporary special measures' re quotas to kick start equality. I will see if I can find a link. I love the idea of a women's equality party acting as a pressure group. I wonder if it will crowd source policies. Am reading Zoe Williams book about politics which talks about the rise of new political parties in Europe - I think this is the new model in a social media world.

It is an interesting and powerful argument isn't it? I think that even if you choose not to use quotas, it's useful to be able to point out that actually, selection for jobs or political roles is not all on merit, and increasing the number of women doesn't lower quality.

I think the fundamental argument against equality initiatives (whether quota based or not) is based on a belief of female inferiority, that increasing women's participation will necessarily lower standards. Being able to "divide and conquer" by diverting us into arguing about quota or not quota is a very effective way of avoiding addressing the main point.

www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work/un-system-coordination/women-in-the-united-nations/strategies-and-tools

^ UN Women link including info on temporary special measures

I'm so excited by WEP - will sign up and definitely vote if they stand a candidate in my area next time round.

The timing is perfect. We live in an age of coalitions and minority government, which makes it easier for single-issue groups and parties to influence policy by threatening to take votes off the bigger parties. WEP is very sensibly going for a focused approach, they are not trying to fix all society's ills but targeting the single cause of women's equality. Which seems fair enough seeing as we are bloody 51% of the population!

Interesting the women who think that there shouldn't be quotas and that women should get to the top by their own hard work. To my mind all that suggests is that women who haven't made it just haven't tried hard enough, although I'm sure that's not what you're thinking.

The problem comes of course when you recognise that a lot if people assume that women who have worked super hard and got to the top have also slept their way into the position, or are rubbish wives and mothers because they have spent too long on their career, or must be utter bitches or whatever other reason people come up with to explain the aberration of a powerful or successful woman.

My view is that, until these societal views become less prevalent, quotas are probably the single best way to force society to just get used to equality in the boardroom. With the hope that that equality of view will also be reflected in the lives of us mere mortals who will never have a seat on the board, but are also useful to the world.

"The no hard quotas approach doesn't mean sticking with the status quo and doing nothing. There has been a huge shift in the % of women on corporate boards in this country, for instance, with none"

Don't lots of companies have soft and hard targets for increasing women at various levels of the business? My company has a hard published target of X women on the board by Y which sounds a bit quota-like to me.

Lots of really interesting food for thought here. I agree that some people will always question the competence of women who succeed (as per Buffy & Puffins' posts above). I suppose I just worry that quotas give these idiots extra ammunition. But maybe that is the wrong way to look at it…. I am not 100% anti - just probably over 50% (but not dogmatic and refusing to reconsider!).

Yonic - sorry if I misinterpreted. Although I wasn't really taking offence anyway, just keen to stress how much I agree with you/all on this thread about big picture.

And re. implying that there aren't enough competent women if they aren't already in equal positions on merit - obviously that isn't the case. We all know about prejudice, unacknowledged bias (and bloody acknowledged bias for that matter). Maybe I am influenced by the fact that I worked in a very male-dominated environment (financial services) for many years and came to the conclusion that bringing the stuffed shirts on board worked best when done gently rather than a more direct way (which tended to alienate them and make them dig their heels in). Just the method I ended up adopting as it seemed most pragmatic to me, but not suggesting it's the right/only way. And maybe the idea of making any concessions on timing is plain wrong.

Whirlpool, I mean no officially imposed quotas. So your company have have elected to impose that quota on themselves (which says extremely positive things about mgmt and corporate governance), but Westminster isn't mandating it for all corporations.

I also used to be dubious of quotas BUT the unconscious bias is really hard to get through and so the best and quickest and most effective way of stopping it is by changing the "look" of the company. You want more women at higher levels going forward? Then you need to get them there now so that a. the unconscious bias of the current predominant group is no longer such a huge majority b. up and coming women see "people like them" doing the higher up jobs and c. "higher up person" no longer conjures an image of men in suits it conjures an image of men and women in suits.

The same thing needs to be done if you want more diversity in age, race, religion, disability, etc. You need to make people with these characteristics "the norm" and not the exception, and then it's all just normal and well obviously a black woman can be CEO what's unusual about that?

And as with women on the board, companies operate better with a range of people generally - plenty of diversity bringing all sorts of different backgrounds and experiences to the table.

Yy whirlpool.

It was this bit Merce "There has been a huge shift in the % of women on corporate boards in this country, for instance, with none (no quotas)" which I don't think is quite right because as we agree, lots of companies do effectively have quotas or at least hard or soft targets and so this will have influenced the increase you talk about. So it's not true to say that the % of women has gone up with no quotas. Just no externally mandated ones.

Well there may be externally mandated ones in some parts of the public sector? I don't know about that, it's possible. Similarly I wonder if any industry bodies have published "best practice" or "guidance" and so on around this to the industry they look after. Again, I don't know. It's possible.

Interestingly I am in the financial sector too but work in the UK arm of a company which is European and it is incredibly right-on and fabulous.

It's the first company I work for where they have talked the walk around this stuff AND walked the walk and I mean they really do.

I love it and feel incredibly lucky. And it makes me realise that actually all this stuff is doable, if the will is there.

Talked the talk

That was the written equivalent of a tongue twister!

Sorry for multiple posts.

I have to say that the men I work with do view women in senior positions differently to the men. I would say that they are much more critical of them, they bitch about them more, they are willing to ascribe very negative character traits and so on BUT they are obviously keeping a lid on it as they know that the culture in our organisation is that women as leaders is a good thing. So the culture forces them to behave themselves to a certain extent.

And then the idea is that you get more women into leadership roles and it becomes the norm and they can be people, rather than "woman in leadership role cor what a hard-nosed bitch she is".

Yes - I should have specified I meant externally mandated ones. I just meant that as the mood shifts, companies (like yours) will CHOOSE to do it anyway (either by self-imposing targets or it happening organically). And that creates its own momentum, meaning that outlier companies who don't do it start looking out of touch and irrelevant.

Great to hear your financial services company are for real. Sadly most of the ones I have worked for have been very old school indeed.

I agree with Buffy that intersectionality and inclusion of women of colour and working class women is a concern. I am very excited about the WEP and think that the best place to advocate for that is from within.