I was watching Yes, Prime Minister last night and I found one sentence particularly striking:
The Chancellor will never forgive the Prime Minister for beating him to N.10 and the Prime Minister will never trust the Chancellor, after all, one never trusts anyone one has deceived.(The Smoke Screen - Yes, Prime Minister)
Some things really never change!
24 October 2004
15 October 2004
The Stepford candidates
This autumn's Welsh conference is set to be heated and controversial. The Party will be deciding whether or not it wishes to change the constitution so as to allow positive discrimination so as to ensure gender balance.
Personally, I’m favourable of some form of positive action/discrimination in some instances, although this should be adequately researched. I expected those who prepared the motion to look at other countries’ examples, analyse their mechanisms, their effects and whether it would be possible to apply them to our situation. Ehm, never mind. The paper lacks any in-depth analysis and simply doesn’t make the case for it.
Although I would still support action to make committees more representatives, I would not support the same move for candidates. We simply haven’t got this problem at present, so what are they trying to fix?
I think people are missing the point of positive action/discrimination. We have come to that because women are systematically discriminated against, they are seen to be inferior to men. If they are strong they are judged aggressive, if opinionated a nuisance. They are often denigrated because they are not supposed to be in competition with the men. Sexism has not died away, it’s alive and well as shown recently by the likes of Bob Geldof and fathers 4 justice. Expectations, perceptions and prejudices endure, even if only at the subconscious level. That’s why domestic violence is rife, why women are paid less than men, and why there are so few women in top jobs and in politics!
So, let’s now put things together: women still do the main bulk of the house works, look after the children, get paid less, a woman dies every three days as a result of domestic violence… and you expect them to go leafleting and canvassing for months, do the casework and deal with the media?
Women need support, moral and physical! We all need training in campaigning, but women need more. They need somebody to share the work with. They need encouragement but they also need colleagues to be supportive instead of competitive and expecting them to be good-looking, intelligent (but not too much, we leave the thinking to the boys) and a nice would-be mother/housewife.
There will always be the Stepford candidates, who sometimes are there just because we need a woman candidate, sometimes because they are nice candidates. Society’s pressures are on men as well as women, however a good male candidate is intelligent, assertive and can afford to have a personality.
The motion is right to call for special training for possible/aspiring women candidates, for gender awareness training for candidate assessors, Party officers and officials, but that’s only the first step. We need an Orange book on thinking differently about ourselves.
It’s time to create an environment where our false consciousness is challenged. It’s not politics, it’s society, but I thought the reason why we were in politics was to change society.
Personally, I’m favourable of some form of positive action/discrimination in some instances, although this should be adequately researched. I expected those who prepared the motion to look at other countries’ examples, analyse their mechanisms, their effects and whether it would be possible to apply them to our situation. Ehm, never mind. The paper lacks any in-depth analysis and simply doesn’t make the case for it.
Although I would still support action to make committees more representatives, I would not support the same move for candidates. We simply haven’t got this problem at present, so what are they trying to fix?
I think people are missing the point of positive action/discrimination. We have come to that because women are systematically discriminated against, they are seen to be inferior to men. If they are strong they are judged aggressive, if opinionated a nuisance. They are often denigrated because they are not supposed to be in competition with the men. Sexism has not died away, it’s alive and well as shown recently by the likes of Bob Geldof and fathers 4 justice. Expectations, perceptions and prejudices endure, even if only at the subconscious level. That’s why domestic violence is rife, why women are paid less than men, and why there are so few women in top jobs and in politics!
So, let’s now put things together: women still do the main bulk of the house works, look after the children, get paid less, a woman dies every three days as a result of domestic violence… and you expect them to go leafleting and canvassing for months, do the casework and deal with the media?
Women need support, moral and physical! We all need training in campaigning, but women need more. They need somebody to share the work with. They need encouragement but they also need colleagues to be supportive instead of competitive and expecting them to be good-looking, intelligent (but not too much, we leave the thinking to the boys) and a nice would-be mother/housewife.
There will always be the Stepford candidates, who sometimes are there just because we need a woman candidate, sometimes because they are nice candidates. Society’s pressures are on men as well as women, however a good male candidate is intelligent, assertive and can afford to have a personality.
The motion is right to call for special training for possible/aspiring women candidates, for gender awareness training for candidate assessors, Party officers and officials, but that’s only the first step. We need an Orange book on thinking differently about ourselves.
It’s time to create an environment where our false consciousness is challenged. It’s not politics, it’s society, but I thought the reason why we were in politics was to change society.
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