Labour MP Austin Mitchell
has made a tit of himself recently with some ill-conceived
remarks about women in Parliament. However, despite a lot of misjudged
waffle he is right about one key thing - that all-women shortlists are
un-democratic and pretty much always a bad idea.
On Newsnight feminist Labour
MP Stella Creasy took Austin Mitchell to task for his views, reminding him that
“Only 23% of MPs are women, barely more than one fifth” despite women making up
just over half the population. So what? Less than 1% of garage mechanics are
women, but that doesn’t mean women are being discriminated against in that
profession, it probably means that very few women want to mess around with oily
engines all day. Less than 13% of primary school teachers are men, but that’s also
not evidence of discrimination, it is evidence of there being more women
candidates for the role of primary school teacher.
Even if it is true that
women are under-represented in Parliament, representatives are voted in
democratically, which only goes to show that in a democracy more men get voted
in than women. Perhaps voters have a greater preference for men MPs than women.
Or perhaps not. Either way, you have to decide how much you value democracy,
and to what extent you’ll let democracy run its course. Britain and America
celebrated the first democratically elected president in Iraq Palestine
More women in Parliament may
well be desired - but the problem with artificially advancing one group is that
you have to artificially disadvantage other groups in the process. Why should
one group, be they men, white people, heterosexual people, or whoever, be
discriminated against purely on grounds that they happen to belong to the wrong
group on a particular issue? Promoting MPs just because they happen to belong
to a group called ‘women’ is not only unfair on the other group called ‘men’ it
rather deindividuates the individuals in question too. The process of demanding
high calibre MPs while at the same time artificially increasing the probability
of low calibre MPs by swerving merit-based selection is not something we should
champion.
Don’t get me wrong, it may
well still be the case that society still has too much of a bias against women,
and that there is a serious redress needed – but that redress must come about
by changing attitudes, increasing openness and opportunity, and extension of
choice where it is lacking – not by affirmative actions that discriminate
unjustly against the group(s) not in favour. Merit-based societies are the best
way to go, precisely because they are unbound by group preferences. Imagine the
absurdity of trying to artificially improve the education results of
under-performing working class students by changing the meaning of grades instead
of encouraging their academic prowess. From now on if you go to a private
school you need A-level As to get into a top university, whereas if you go to a
State school grade Cs will do. Just as such a system would undermine scholastic
gradation, so too do all-women shortlists undermine the qualities perceived by
a democratic body (the electorate) to be worthy of selection as an MP
candidate.
As black student Clarence
Thomas once pointed out, “As much as it
stung to be told that I’d done well in the seminary despite my race, it was far
worse to feel that I was now at Yale because of it.” MPs that are in
Parliament because they are women
have every reason to feel the same.
Finally, the other reason
why all-women shortlists should be discouraged is because a democratic process
like our voting system (it isn't exactly wholly democratic, but it's close) is
the only power the citizens of the UK have against their elected MPs. Democratic
accountability - and how I wish there were more - means feedback from political performances.
Remove the ability of the electorate to vote in or vote out individuals based on
their skills, merit, views and performance alone and you unleash discord through
the gradual disempowerment of the voter. As we've seen in previous blog posts (here
and here),
diversity has to be considered with all its merits and demerits factored in.
