Can anyone tell me who precisely was responsible for coining the phrase “positive discrimination”? Google has been barren.
It is a phrase that attempts to evade responsibility for its own meaning. If it’s positive it can’t be that bad can it? Well yes, because a positive necessarily entrains a negative. Discrimination is still discrimination whatever zingy adjective you put in front of it. If we envisage positive discrimination as a possible route forward for our party, not only do we risk derision for undermining the whole basis of liberalism, we are also discriminating, and no-one who advocates it should be allowed to forget this.
We are discriminating against people who are unlucky enough to be born without ovaries (you poor blossoms) and people who are unlucky enough to be born with fewer dark skin pigments than others. Not good enough for us, I think.
November 29, 2007 at 10:55 am
In Bill Clinton’s biography he claims that positive discrimination doesn’t necessarily entail negative discrimination, as it’s not a zero sum game – by giving jobs to those who are most disadvantaged you create jobs for other people at the same time (or something like that anyway). Not an argument I buy, though.
November 29, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hm, interesting. I suppose I would buy that to some extent, but only in the context of the (very) long term and an open economy. Whereas we are talking about the “closed economy” of a limited number of PPC and councillor seats.
November 29, 2007 at 11:05 am
Or at least, we’re not talking about that in so many words. But we are really.
November 29, 2007 at 11:06 am
Alix, I and others do not use the phrase ‘discrimination’, rather prefer to say positive action. In other words taking action, within the law to address the inequalites that exist in key areas of society. How can you discriminate against the majority who are well represented in every walk of life? What is so equal about an institution, a public body, or in our case (which is what I think you’re refering too), a party that is so unrepresentative of our society?
In the 80’s & 90’s in local government, the race releations act was used to specifically target and recruit women and people from ethnic minority communities into frontline jobs.
Phrases like ‘we positively welcome women, people with disabilities, and ethnic minority communities who are under-represented in this departement’Or if you needed for example, a Turkish female social worker for a particular are of work. This approach was successful, which is why when you go to my and other council departments, you will find black men and women working in all areas. The Police force continue in their drive to recruit more BME officers because it is vital in successful policing.They have had targetted action days for particular communities.
I am not advocating positive discrimination, but as Nick Clegg has said, if we end up after 2 elections with an all White Parliamentary group, with unacceptablely few women, what is the alternative?
High minded liberalism if fine, but it cannot deliver equality, without taking some form of action. So far, I haven’t heard a formula, other than training, supporting etc etc, to address this.
Labour have more women MPs due to all women short lists, and women still represent only 19% of MPs. At this rate it will take another 50 years to get to 50%. Is this good for our democracy or society?
Rather than debate the negative, I would welcome more of a debate about how we all can actively contribute to a more equal and representative society. We in the Lib Dems should start with our Party.
November 29, 2007 at 11:26 am
I haven’t heard a formula to address the problem either, which partly feeds in to my disappointment with Nick’s unimaginative stance on this. The reason I bring this up now (and, as you rightly point out in an pretty high-flown and abstract way) is to point out what lies ahead on the Clegg route; an unseemly argument and a lot of damaging publicity. When it comes to it, it’s going to be tricky, politically and personally for all of us to some extent, to see positive discrimination implemented.
I also think your arguments work best in the contexts you cite: local government and public services. While exactly the same argument can and should be made for political representation, national and local, it involves one in far more practical problems. This is a closed economy of a limited number of positions, as I said in response to Gavin’s point. That means that by exercising positive discrimination (which I fully take on board is not your preferred way of doing it) there *will* be some people who are treated unfairly. The fact that they are part of the well-represented majority does not change that single fact. It is theoretically possible that we will *not* end up with the best people for the job, but with the most representative people for the job. It is however arguable that representativeness carries a merit value all of its own. I’m just saying we shouldn’t be shirking these points, because if it happens, we won’t have a choice but to face them.
November 29, 2007 at 11:27 am
Forgot to say, I hope your last paragraph was a light-hearted joke (!)- particualry the one on skin pigment..?
November 29, 2007 at 11:39 am
Hm, yes and no. I mean, yes, it’s a way of describing the white, male majority that tickles me. But divorced from the social context, possession of ovaries and the number of genes that are coded for melatonin pigment are still the factors that drive positive discrimination. The fact that this is done in the cause of a wider liberalism to counteract the discrimination against these things elsewhere is a separate argument. I was being uber-rational on purpose to underline this point about what positive discrimination actually entails.
November 29, 2007 at 11:47 am
Hi Alix,
Well done for opening the debate.
I guess the first thing you have to ask yourself on the topic of ‘positive discrimination’*, is what is it you’re trying to achieve in the end; why are we even talking about it? What are your aims?
* I too prefer Meral’s term ‘positive action’ – my guess is that framing the debate in terms of discrimination was perhaps done by those not in favour of it!!
For me, the aim is about ensuring that those who represent us are representative of us.
If you buy into ‘diversity as a good thing’ then you are effectively saying that people’s gender, sexuality, colour, race or religion contributes to their experience of the world and that experience in turn influences their priorities and modus operandi. If you don’t have diversity then you will have a predominance of one set of priorities and only one way of doing things.
So if you do buy that argument then the next question is: what is the best way to achieve that diversity?
For me, the best way is a way that works, and so far, our current approach of ‘encouragement and training’ is not working.
It is not getting us more female and ethnic minority MPs. I would love it if it did, it would suit my liberal feminist beliefs perfectly, but I don’t see it happening. In fact we have fewer female MPs now than we did at the 2005 GE. Meral’s 50 years to get to 50% is a little optimistic; it is in fact 200 years for women of any colour and 300 years to have ethnic minority women properly represented.
In our party we have a habit of blaming the problem on a lack of supply of women – we’re either not skilled enough or not committed enough, apparently. That opens for me a whole other can of worms (which would take several posts on my own blog to go through so I won’t bore you now) but I will leave you with what I think is an interesting phenomenon for those who think that positive action encourages mediocrity. When Finland brought in positive action for women in politics, they suddenly found the supply of women rise willing to get involved rise disproportionately. The talented, skilled women who were using their talents elsewhere suddenly recognised politics as an environment less hostile to their gender and there was in fact a point to getting involved. There was no watering down of skills and ability.
So, you can spend all your time making the process your priority or you can look at what you are actually trying to achieve and why and then look at the best way do that, based on the empirical evidence that no national parliament in the world has delivered even 30% women without recourse to positive action.
November 29, 2007 at 11:48 am
Speaking from the position of someone who recently got beaten by a woman in a PPC selection race I have to say it was entirely due to them being a more qualified and experienced candidate with a better campaign.
The individual concerned also mentors other women candidates and will no doubt be a contributor towards there being more and more effective women in elected positions in future.
I personally think that’s the way to go and how this will change. People ulimately make the sacrifice of going into politics because they are inspired by others and have the self-confidence and determination to succeed. The support provided by the party’s GBTF, personal connections, mentoring and other support services helps bring that out in people. When people go through the rigour of that process they also get to test their potential and find out if they really want the extremely tough job of being a candidate.
I don’t agree that adding a layer of discrimination to that through all-women short-lists or other quota systems will help. Tokenism and talent are not easy associates and the damage done to the party by failure in the first category is as nothing compared to failure in the second. And ultimately good candidates don’t need it.
Evidently chucking talent into the deep end of what can be some pretty weak local parties and Council groups and hoping they learn on the job hasn’t worked well. Equally where tokenism has been tried it’s had some pretty grim consequences both for the party and individuals put in out of their depth… discuss…
So in that respect to answer Meral’s question the alternative is to keep trying and in particular having a clearer idea of what we’re looking for which should inform in which groups and organisations we go looking for talent.
At the moment I feel we’re making a mistake by sending out a signal that we’re desperate for any women or any BME candidates.
We are not and that approach actively puts off talent. What we are hunting for is liberal-minded, inspirational, talented individuals who want to make a difference to their communities and country through public service and leadership. If that description fits you, we will encourage you, we will support you and we will help you succeed so you can help others.
More of a ‘be the best’ approach than ‘represent the rest’.
The more interesting element of Nick Clegg’s comments in that respect were the Academy proposal. I think that will succeed and we won’t go down the token route…
November 29, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Jo, I am really encouraged by your Finland example. This is a new one on me; I like the idea that establishing a framework artificially quickly leads to its being self-supporting, rather like a topiary shaper thing (possibly). I hadn’t thought of it like this, but it’s true that importation of a better atmosphere would have a positive effect on me, for one. However, I would still question (as I think you are) whether positive discrimination would necessarily import that atmosphere. I don’t know much about the Finnish parliament – is it as generally ghastly and offputting as ours (I’m going on news footage here!)? It strikes me that positive discrimination would still fall some way short of creating an atmosphere conducive to more women doing their best work at the top level.
Would I also be right in suspecting that Finland has infinitely better childcare arrangements and a healthier attitude to combining work and family life, and that this is one of the can of worms you mention?!
Andy, I think you express my worries exactly. As a comparative outsider, desperation is exactly what I’ve detected. The way you put the message is far more constructive. It marries up well with Jo’s point about making the endgoal, and not the process, your priority. It’s exactly the nitty-gritty process of positive discrimination that I find so repellant. All-women shortlists looked pretty silly when Labour did them, and if anything it would look worse for us.
Note: as I wrote on someone’s blog yesterday, FWIW I have a half-suspicion that the canny Cleggster has no intention at all of following up on positive discrimination, and he’s just trying to scare the daylights out of us so that we all pull the finger out over the next few years to make it happen with the system we’ve got. If I had any evidence I was right, I’d vote for him on that score alone…
November 29, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Alix, the reason I responded was the negative way this is always presented. Your comments-’and people who are unlucky enough to be born with fewer dark skin pigments than others. Not good enough for us, I think’ were unhelpful.
History has rather demonstrated the opposite!
I agree with Jo and Andy, we don’t want tokenism, and most certainly not ‘any woman or ethnic minority’. This is what Labour did in local councils in the 80/90s.
I’ve seen this happen nearer to home with people who are dragooned in to ‘make up the quota’, and often fall by the wayside when they realise that they havent been prepared for this, and get little support.
I do get fed up though that whenever we talk about this issue, someone always says- ‘we want the best not just any BME etc’
Moves me to retort, do we really believe that all the men in Parliament are there because they are the ‘best?’
I have little faith that more of encouragement and support etc, will work.
There have been interesting proposals from both leadership candidates, which I hope whoever wins, will show the drive and leadership this issue needs if we’re to be a truly liberal and democratic party.
November 29, 2007 at 12:39 pm
The “unlucky” was the ironic bit. And ovaries were in there as well, and it is equally “unlucky” not to have them in a positive discrimination system. I have a feeling you might be zeroing in in a way that isn’t quite deserved here? “Not good enough for us” was not negativity directed at people; it referred to any system of discrimination based on physical characteristics being not good enough for a true liberal. Which, in abstract, as we’ve established, we all agree on, and it’s only the reality of the situation which might override this.
“Moves me to retort, do we really believe that all the men in Parliament are there because they are the ‘best?’”
Hehehe, good point well made!
November 29, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Meral & Jo, it is discrimination, regardless of what you call it: 2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit from (dictionary.com).
If you’re going to win the argument, you’re going to have to do it by explaining why this particular form of discrimination is a good thing, rather than by denying that it is discrimination at all.
With that said, I’m not sure that discrimination is necessarily always wrong, nor am I convinced that it’s right in this situation. It’s an open problem, nobody really knows the answer.
I do have a principled objection to discrimination though, and in order to suspend that objection I’d have to be convinced that the long-term result would be an end to discrimination. In other words, pursuing a programme of discrimination can be justified if it can change the situation itself, in order to create a new situation where no discrimination is required. Positive discrimination should eventually make itself obsolete.
There’s an extent to which positive discrimination can end up being about hammering square pegs into round holes. This could take the form of promoting unsuitable (underqualified?) candidates, but in my opinion this is the wrong way of looking at it. The problem might not be the candidate, but the role. Rather than just grabbing another round peg, perhaps we need to make the hole a bit more square-ish? (we might call this the Vitruvian solution). What I mean is that there is no point in, for example, artificially increasing the number of women in parliament if parliament remains a place where women can’t be effective (because of the culture, working practices or whatever). The problem needs to be considered from start to finish, not just at the candidate selection stage.
If there is a systemic problem which is preventing female or ethnic minority candidates from succeeding, any long-term solution must involve addressing those problems rather than compensating for them with a blunt instrument like discrimination. Of course, this is easier said than done, and it’s easily said by a white male like myself. This is why I’d go along with Nick Clegg’s stance on this; at some point, we do have to consider discrimination as an option if nothing else works. I just hope that an alternative can be found, as discrimination of any kind is something that grates severely against my liberal sensibilities.
November 29, 2007 at 12:54 pm
“Moves me to retort, do we really believe that all the men in Parliament are there because they are the ‘best?’”
Not necessarily, but whatever routes they used are freely open to anyone, so evidently they were better at winning than their rivals.
November 29, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Andy – you know that the well worn path from Oxbridge to Westminster for white middle class men is not ‘freely open to anyone’
One of my fav quotes:
“I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government” ~Cissy Farenthold…
November 29, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I’m extremely glad to have written this post. I’m about eight times better informed than I was when I got up this morning. Thank you everybode. I may never bother doing any work ever again…
Couple of points. Rob, I think you were writing @ 13 while we were commenting, so you will have seen I am entirely with you on (a) total inability of discrmination to change things like culture and working practices of parliament and (b) that other policy avenues, like those on childcare, should be exhausted before discrimination is resorted to. How we do that without being in power is another matter; I gather we are discussing this within the party anyway?
One small point to pick up on, Jo, I am framing this debate in terms of positive discrimination because that is the phrase Nick Clegg has used at hustings, as a necessary evil we will have to undergo if we can’t get there by other means. If I were to end up voting for him, this would be my main problem with him, and so I want to pound out exactly what he’s saying.
It is possible that my definitions of positive action and positive discrimination are at fault. I’m gathering that +ive action is what we’ve got at the moment, +ive discrimination means quotas. I gather from what Meral says that that is also her definition? Jo’s definition seems to be slightly different, with a more fluid transition between the two?
November 29, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Alix,
Diversity isn’t about valuing specific physical characteristics or not, it’s about getting in the different experiences and approaches that stem from how society treats people with those physical characteristics.
We know society treats men and women differently, we know that all sorts of different groups are treated differently based on how they look or what they sound like or any number of irrational bases.
The irrational (illiberal) thinking has already taken place! although, having just read through your comment on the reality of the situation overidding the abstract, I think we may be saying the same thing.
Plus, would like to echo Meral’s comments about men only being there when they are the best. When we have as many mediocre women around as men then we know we will have achieved equality!
November 29, 2007 at 1:38 pm
“Andy – you know that the well worn path from Oxbridge to Westminster for white middle class men is not ‘freely open to anyone’”
I don’t agree with this level of conspiracy Meral. It’s akin to suggesting that all our current male MPs were hatched from the womb rather than the result of a very different routes and backgrounds to where they are now.
November 29, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Rob,
Exactly right, on your square and round pegs and hole thing. That’s what I mean by it being a hostile environment. I really resent the idea that there is only one way to be an MP, candidate, councillor or whatever and that way is the way that it’s always been.
I also agree on your point about increasing the number of women if they modus operandi works against them. However, there is evidence that there is a tipping point of around 30% women where not just the laws made but the way a parliament operates (both logistically & culturally) changes. Below that number you have a whole pile of women who have to operate and be effective in spite of the ways parliament is not because of it.
I think, Alix, I probably do have a more fluid view of +ve discrimination versus action and I take your point that you were reflecting the language that Nick used.
I’m fully aware that I’m one of the least oppressed women on the planet but still I see discrimination around me every day from little niggly things to quite big things like being likely to earn around 25% less than my male equivilants. When that stops, I might find it a little eaier to stomach the idea that a couple of hundred men having to make room (difficult though that is for them on an indvidual level) for some more women to enable a whole new way of undertaking politics and improving the lives of millions of men and women is really worse than what is currently in place.
This isn’t about box ticking and ‘looking’ right for me, it’s about having a more equal spread of power and the positive impact I believe that would have on this country and in fact, the world.
November 29, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Andy – it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a system; that’s all.
November 29, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Now that is a great cumulative argument! I think we are getting a lot closer to satisyfing my point that “we are also discriminating, and no-one who advocates it should be allowed to forget this” and Rob’s point that “positive discrimination should eventually make itself obsolete”. All this is assuming that the 30% tipping point thing is valid.
I am still unhappy about the possibility of unfairness (as, essentially, we all are) but I am a lot clearer now about the end goal. I think it has to be expressed at all times in terms of the common good, and not the individual good of those currently discriminated against. Although I’d still question whether quotas are the right way to get there. Seems to me that women/BMEs themselves being the weight that triggers the tipping point, even with strong support mechanisms, can’t be the only way – it’s slightly akin to doing what Andy said of local councils, throwing the talent in at the deep end and hoping they learn on the job.
November 29, 2007 at 2:23 pm
It might be worth setting out a time limit – say, a maximum of 10 years – for which positive discrimination would be used. If it hasn’t led to a substantial improvement by the end of that time, then it wasn’t working anyway.
In fact, I think that kind of thing (putting down some kind of written promise of what we’re going to do, why, and the criteria are for judging the success of what we do) is generally a good idea, and doubly so when we’re doing something controversial which could, in theory, become dangerous of it spirals out of control.
November 29, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Jo, Meral
“Andy – it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a system; that’s all.”…
You both inspired me to check the MP’s biographies. Of the 63 I found
Men 37 non-Oxbridge, 17 Oxbridge (69% not Oxbridge and of the 17, 3 were post-grads so really 74%)
Women 6 non-Oxbridge, 3 Oxbridge (66% not Oxbridge)
Net 68% did not attend Oxbridge universities, some did not attend university at all.
I don’t think it can be considered unusual that in a highly sought after job that requires a quick mind that about 1 in 3 of the Parliamentary Party went the country’s allegedly two best academic universities. Or that that this is a diversity problem. Do we now want discrimination againgst or in favour of which school our candidates go to?
Further within the Oxford set the notion that Simon Hughes and David Laws followed the same or even a similar path to Parliament is clearly not true.
This is also an unhelpful route to take. In some respects even raising the stereotype of the white middle-class Oxbridge male as a pejorative is playing into exactly the complaint of unreasonable prejudice that Alix made in her original post.
By all means let’s level the playing field by giving effective support to under-represented groups, but let’s not try and justify that by making unwarranted claims that the existing MPs are somewhat lacking in merit due to the circumstances of the their birth and education.
November 29, 2007 at 3:44 pm
“You both inspired me to check the MP’s biographies”
Is anyone doing any work today? It might be a lot easier if we just all went down the pub (sorry Rob, but we could put you on webcam.)
That’s certainly a far better ratio than was operating in the Focus delivery team I was in on Sunday. Of six of us, three had been to the same college! The Oxbridge thing is really just symptomatic of the wider problem that the middle-class/intelligentsia are more engaged with politics, therefore they make it in their image, etc, and the system self-propagates.
I wonder if Meral’s original point has more application with the other parties, who seem (anecdotally) to be more inclined to push Oxbridge grads with a few years’ work experience into their unwinnable seats. I suppose the thinking is that it’s not an expensive gamble because they’ve got the money to do it, and who knows, a few of them might make good. I’ve heard of this happening in two Labour cases.
November 29, 2007 at 5:05 pm
It might be a lot easier if we just all went down the pub (sorry Rob, but we could put you on webcam.)
I see, I’m being discriminated against as a Northerner
Although I see that positive discrimination is working in my favour too, since the party is apparently coming to visit me for the Spring Conference, so perhaps it works after all.
November 29, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Sorry, had to go off and do some work,(some cllrs do work!) so missed a lot of the thread, but glad I picked this up this am. It would be easier to just go off and talk about this! Before I go off to do the evening shift, can I just say to Andy and Rob, as a woman from an ethnic minority background, I had to overcome substantial barriers to even get elected as a councillor 13 years ago.. This was from my own community. I was the first female Turkish woman to stand for the council, and I was met with the usual chauvinstic crap – what does your husband think!; why doesn’t he stand?; what about your children?, blah blah. It was so alien to them. Forget Oxbridge, that was just a cliche. BME communities and particularly women, have to overcome that first before we tackle the other obstacles in our way from political parties who are after all, gatekeepers (childcare etc) My friends, we have a mountain to climb, and we are still hand-wringing about whether white middle class men could be disadvantaged! As Jo said above, the day we have the same quality of women etc…
Lets exhaust all other avenues, but lets make sure it yields results. But I believe that in the end, we may have to seriously bite the bullett, and look to taking positve action- in the widest sense.
November 29, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I may be being simplistic, here but:
- allowing yourself to believe that the ends justify the means allows you to do all SORTS of unpalatable things.
- you KNOW that any woman/black person/etc. who got a job on the basis of positive discrimination would face “you only got that job to fill a quota” accusations throughout their working life (as my local MP still does) and that this would increase, not decrease, the amount of resentment felt to those groups by the dominant group.
Apart from anything else, is it not insulting to women/black people to suggest that they can only compete on an unlevel playing field? Because to accept that women can only compete with men if there is positive discrimination is to accept that women are less valuable.
I WILL NOT vote for any party or candidate who endorses positive discrimination.
November 30, 2007 at 12:10 am
I have a lot to say on this…………but it is past my bedtime! Great to get this debate going. Two thoughts to start with – is it that the talented women and BME candidates are not there already? Who defines “best”?
I will return!
November 30, 2007 at 1:39 am
Hmm so many utterly contradictory points of view and I can’t decide what I agree with. :S
I think a party that is truly representative of the people they want to represent is a stronger and better party as a result.
I think this adds value (in the supply and demand sense) to candidates that aren’t middle aged white males. We need proper training for all so that every candidate has the right skills to make a success of their campaigns but, really, the challenge for us as a party is to genuinely promote the notion that diversity is a really, really good thing so that when we’re asked to select candidates we should ask ourselves: Do we really, really need another white male on the Council? Really? Does the national party really need another white male MP?
If we can’t sort out this problem through debate and education then honestly let’s just pack up and go home, because, aren’t we supposed to be telling people that there’s always liberal solutions to problems? If we have to solve it through authoritarianism then we cause ourselves a seriously embarrassing problem don’t we? Members select the candidates to fight seats, so… let’s make start there?
November 30, 2007 at 9:23 am
* applause and whistling *
November 30, 2007 at 10:08 am
Charlotte, you’ve started to focus the issue on the voting membership, which is good. I absolutely agree that we need to educate the party to see why voting in more women is a good thing(not least becasue it can lead to an increase in votes for whichever party has female candidates). I agree with you; I think it is seriously embarrassing that although the party bends over backwards to give the membership a choice, time and time again the members prefer the status quo. To be fair it’s not just us, it’s the same in all the parties. The only reason why Labour have more women then us is down to positive action.
I would love us to do more on being a bit louder about the benefits that having a female candidate can bring; it’s not just about it being fair or a nice thing to do..they’re an electoral asset. If we could use such a logical, liberal approach and if it actually worked I would be a very, very happy bunny.
I think we also need to look at how the Rowntree funding is being used. Can’t say much more on that as I have no idea how it is being used but James Graham has some interesting thoughts on this.
I spend most of my conferences standing on the PCA stall, like a sea anenome, luring in women and ethnic minority members and (hopefully) giving them the confidence and self belief that they are just what the party needs as candidates.
As Meral says, we must exhaust every avenue.
Linda makes a very good point; I think this party has plenty of talented and skilled women, whom I think would make fantastic candidate and MPs. I’m not convinced though that the membership has the same view as me as to what qualities that is; so how we define and describe a successful MP is very important.
One of the most powerful ways to get a view on what is successful, is as always to look at who has been sucessful so far. And so far, in the Liberal Democrats, that it is white middle class men; so it is no surprise that when the chips are down (that is, when there’s a chance we could win) that the group voting plays safe.
That’s one reason why the numbers of men and women as MPs count; the other is that there is a severe lack of role models. Which impacts the supply side.
No one can argue that we don’t have a supply problem and whilst training and mentoring are a good thing I do not feel that they are going to deal with the root of the problem. Which is that being a candidate is not a very attractive option for talented women, who, because they are talented and skills, have plenty of choices and go off and make their difference to the world somewhere else, more inviting.
In fact, I think as Lib Dems we have a very calvinist view of what the life of the candidate should be like whether male or female. Some of that is a function of being a third party but I think we lose and/or have failed to attract many talented and skilled people. A penchant for masochism should really be a requirement for being an MP but I fear it is.
Lastly, we talk a lot about positive action being illiberal but I can’t see how what is happenning now is any more liberal. Are we really trying to pretend to ourselves that this world that we live in is a level playing field between men and women? That ignoring discrimination against women and minority groups, ignoring the outcomes of our party processes becasue we quite like the process in itself, is really liberal?
Sorry, another post length comment but I can’t log on to my own blog from here and for some reason I can’t post on Jo A’s excellent thread on female blogging (although I can read it…what torture!!); but I’m very excited to see the recent rise in female bloggers and the increase in posts on topics such as this!
November 30, 2007 at 10:11 am
I meant to say that a penchant for masochism SHOULDN’T really be a requirement for being an MP!! Oooops!!
November 30, 2007 at 10:40 am
I’ve said this at Jennie’s, so a summary here-we already have a bloody good party policy to make Parliament and other elected bodies more represenatative of the nation at large.
It’s called multi-member constituency STV. Respectable-white-man-in-a-suit syndrome is a symptom of FPTP, which rewards, especially for us, candidates that can work the constituency hard almost to the exclusion of all else and look the part. And partially local parties want to select something they know can win, there’s an inherent conservatism even within us, as Jo Swinson found looking for selections before and after Sarah was elected in Brent.
Barbara Castle was convinced she was selected for Blackburn as their second candidate in a two-member constituency (only abolished in ‘47) because they already had a sitting male MP, and while I hate this element of the process, we need to fight it and deal with it.
Let’s stop fighting symptoms—excess male MPs is an excess of humours in Greek medicine, it’s not the problem, it’s a symptom, let’s deal with the actual issue.
November 30, 2007 at 11:36 am
Meral, I really like the passion of your comment @ 26. It’s good to remind ourselves that while on one level we’re all “wimmin” we’re also coming at this from different angles. I grew up in leafy PC Surrey, went to an all-girls school and then to a college with a strong women’s tradition, and so I’ve never had it suggested to me even slightly that I couldn’t be as good as, or better than, men.
I have one small caveat with hand-wringing about disadvantaging white Oxbridge men, and that’s that they’re people with hopes and aspirations too! I think Jo captures it slightly better when she talks in terms of a wider liberalism being under attack as a result of unequal numbers, therefore it is permissible to limit the liberty of the few.
I think this partially answers Charlotte’s point as well, though she and Jennie start essentially from the same position I do. She rightly asks why we can’t solve the problem with liberalism, and the answer from Jo is that we can, that positive discrimination (which by her definition needn’t be quotas necessarily) is ultimately aimed at boosting the wider liberties of society, and to take it Rob’s point, this should mean that it eventually makes itself obsolete.
November 30, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Apologies for taking the debate off on a random tangent, but I saw this post today and found it fascinating. I think this ties in with the point about expectations – we have a political culture that expects certain behaviour from MPs, candidates and so on, and these expectations might favour men. Our culture has been shaped to see certain masculine traits as desirable (which reminds me of this post), so the ultimate solution to the problem might involve long-term cultural change.
I think it’s very important that we don’t forget this aspect; quotas and shortlists can’t be some kind of bargain whereby ‘women’ are given ’special preference’ which they don’t really deserve and they should therefore be ‘grateful’ for. Even if we set a quota of 50% women and 50% men in parliament, we might gain the outward appearance of equality without addressing the underlying causes. This is why positive discrimination can’t go on forever, because if it does then we’ll never know if we’ve succeeded in creating real equality.
November 30, 2007 at 1:44 pm
[...] the People’s Republic Posted by Alix under Polly-ticks | Tags: equality | As two current threads on equality are unravelling to marvellous effect for one and all – by golly, we’ve learnt a [...]
November 30, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Hmmm… too long a thread for me to follow I’m afraid, so apologies if I’m just repeating what others have already said…
There is positive action and positive action. Back in 2001 when we had the gender balance debate which lead to the establishment of GBTF, the argument was between those who support all women shortlists and those who support pro-active measures such as mentoring, training, providing support and actively searching out potential candidates. The latter is the GBTF approach.
GBTF has been broadly successful, but it has never been allowed to reach its potential because the party has never been prepared to fund it adequately. That’s why I welcome Nick Clegg’s promise of an academy and the fact that he claims to have already secured funding and even a permanent location.
Like many here, I’m confident that if such an approach were adopted we wouldn’t need quotas, AWSLs and so on. But, like Nick, I’ve grown incredibly impatient with a party that pays lip service to working to ensure it looks more like the wider society it seeks to represent but isn’t prepared to do anything about it. The “quotas in two elections hence” is about setting a deadline with teeth. I’m delighted he’s raising it as it will concentrate minds.
If you don’t like the idea of quotas, then work to ensure the alternative approach works. The clock is ticking.
November 30, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Well, I am back again. Where to start? Firstly, the talent is already there, of that I am totally convinced. But some of those people I know who are hugely talented are also equally frustrated with the party. Sometimes it is really patronising to keep telling women and BME potential candidates that they need training etc to reach the mark.
The first thing I would do is to have a more rigorous approval process – at all levels. Maybe we should include a transparent grading process. Let’s be honest, many of the party electorate vote without ever having met the candidate, or seen him or her perform. It is even worse for European elections (as I have just demonstrated!).
Secondly I would focus attention at the grass roots. To use my boring analogy, we will never get a Wimbledon champion until we widen the base and make tennis (an expensive business as I know to my cost) accessible to all!
Thirdly, we have to find ways to enable those who have family responsibilities (and this is where women often lose out) to participate. The expectation that one is prepared to spend every waking minute working for the party may be fine for some, but especially now, with most women working fulltime – and still having most of the childcaring responsibilities, putting themselves forward as a candidate becomes really difficult. Maybe for those who can afford fulltime nannies etc. it is not a problem, for most of the rest of us it is. As a youth worker already working 3 or 4 evenings a week with small children – there was no way I could even consider standing until my children were teenagers.
Fourthly, my very serious point about the notion of “best” this is trotted out by a lot of men (with all due respect to you all!) as why all women/black shortlists are wrong. That may hold water if there was any evidence this was the case. Democracy has its downsides – if a man gets a job for which a woman is better qualified she has redress in law, if, because of the subconsious prejudices of an electorate that sees an MP as a white middle class well educated man, as better than a more qualified woman, she has no redress. This is the difficulty of using the word best.
Then there is the issue of perception, if you don’t see yourself reflected in Parliament, in a party, why would you imagine you could be there? Sorry, but another story (with apologies to those who have heard it) when my daughter was about 6 we were talking about ballet and I asked her if she would like to be a ballet dancer. “But brown girls can’t be ballet dancers” said she. I hadn’t noticed but she had, that all the ballet dancers she had ever seen had been white. A few years later, a funnier example. When John Major replaced Maggie Thatcher she very seriously asked me, “But Mummy, can a man be Prime Minister?” (still pondering that one!)
It is burying our head in the sand if we really think it is a level playing field for all. When I first stood for council my local party accepted that I would have to work harder because I would face prejudice merely because of my surname at that time. So let’s not pretend we can just say everything is equal and the “best” candidate will prevail when discrimination is an every day experience for our fellow citizens.
Phew! Yes James, the clock is ticking and its past me bedtime now!
Nite Nite
L
December 1, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Good to see you here, Linda, the thread wouldn’t have been complete without you!
I think everything you say makes total sense, and in particular I;m absolutely with you on the children issue. This is so massive and fundamental a problem, the way people’s days get filled up when they are basically the glue that sticks a family unit together. I think it was Meral who pointed out on another thread somewhere recently that female MPs tend to be either quite young and at the pre-children stage, or older with grown up children.
This is going to be the trickiest part to change, because changing the culture on candidates with family responsibilities within the party just won’t be matched by equivalent change outside it, and it is going to be a long process in which some brave people will likely get bruised before Westminster follows suit. But for everyone’s sanity and the good of society, it must be done. I think this, and not quotas, is the right way to be bold and controversial if we’re going to be at all. Women simply need more time away from politics because they have more different things to do with their lives (I mean, on the whole – all I have to do is get up from the computer occasionally to make some toast
).
December 4, 2007 at 9:41 pm
A fascinating thread – thanks for raising this issue Alix.
Having been very involved in the party’s internal debate on this culminating in the rejection of all-women shortlists and setting up GBTF, I think it is important to look at the facts.
What the statistics told us then (and similarly now) is that in our party an individual woman is just as likely to get selected for a given seat as a man – i.e. the problem is not inherent sexism in the selection process. That’s not to say there are no sexist comments made by any individual members, just that it doesn’t overall affect the balance (incidentally I’ve also had members in selections tell me they will vote for me because I am a woman).
Our problem is that we have three times as many men on our approved list as women (used to be four times as many – we are making some progress!) and not surprisingly therefore, more men than women apply for seats and get selected.
So it’s not just about training existing women candidates, Jo, though of course with just 25% of our approved candidates being women we do want them on average to punch above their weight and be more likely to be selected, so we do invest a lot of training resource in them. What is really important is the outreach work, confidence building, mentoring and training to find the women who are not yet candidates and supporting them through the approval and then selection process.
At least on gender we have been putting considerable effort into this for 5 years (albeit not always as well-resourced as we would like). On BME, I get so frustrated when senior party figures bemoan our lack of BME MPs and then conclude that positive discrimination is the only answer – as if we’ve ever seriously tried any other solution! Until the appointment of Issan Ghazni, our Diversity Adviser, two months ago, the party’s total contribution to solving this problem was a couple of receptions, a voluntary organisation (EMETF) with no funding or staff resource at all and lots of hand-wringing and fine words.
Sorry for the overlong comment…
December 6, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Jo, I’m pleased to see that the ratio of male to female approved candidates is becoming more even (although still a long way to go).
As a party I feel we have an issue with a lack of people actually wanting to become approved candidates; and a lack of approved candidates who actually want to become MPs. There really doesn’t seem to be the sense that an inexperienced candidate should cut their teeth on a seat where realistically we’re not going to win this time, but where there’s a huge opportunity to make a massive difference and either prove they have what it takes to stand for a target seat next time, or actually continue with that seat and make it winnable at some future point. Sorry, a bit off topic, but doing what it takes to increase the number of women and BME approved candidates to an appropriate ratio would/could go some way to dealing with this issue . . .
December 19, 2007 at 1:14 am
[...] has the fluffy one) and Linda’s question touched on positive discrimination which I have been pummelling very [...]