All women selection lists: Doing more harm than good for equal rights?

By David Higgerson on Mar 12, 10 03:37 PM

As I bloke, if I suggest that all women selection lists for parliamentary candidates in constituencies are a foolish idea, I run the risk of being called sexist.

But what if an audience of, say, 200 women, attending a political discussion saved one of their loudest rounds of applause for a statement from a woman who said: "I'd rather a woman was selected on her own merits, regardless of whether or not her rivals were male or female."?

That's what happened during Question Time last night, which was in front of a female-only audience to mark International Womens' Week. I didn't take a shorthand note of the statement mentioned in the paragraph above, but that's the gist of what she said.

While on one hand, there is clearly a problem in that the House of Commons can't claim to be a true reflection of society when just 150 of its members (out of 600) are female, surely there has to be a better way than foisting all-women short lists on to constituencies.

Working on the assumption that men and women are equal, then why aren't an equal number of men and women becoming candidates anyway?

To me, there are two possible reasons. Either women aren't as keen to go into politics as men, or constituencies don't like selecting women.

Either way, women-only shortlists don't solve the problem. If there is a shortage of women putting themselves forward, surely women-only shortlists won't solve the problem, because the issue of why women aren't putting themselves forward isn't being addressed. And if there's a smaller pool of women to pick from than men, then can it really be argued that all-women short lists are really leading to the best possible candidates?

If it's because constituencies selecting candidates are sexist, then just forcing an all-women shortlist on constituencies won't solve the problem either. True, in some cases it might result in some party members finding their doubts being removed, but in many cases it'll just prompt tension in the local party with the national party. That sort of small-time politics can manifest itself in many ways, and surely it's not good for the victor of an all-women shortlist to be faced with that?

Caroline Flint, one of the panellists last night, argued that it's only when you have a number of women in power that discussions about issues such as childcare become real issues on the agenda. If that's true, then it's proof than politics probably just isn't as appealing to women as it is to men at the moment.

As the woman who complained she had become 'window dressing' in Gordon Brown's cabinet, then surely she should be opposed to all-women shortlists, which threaten to leave other women in similar positions? In 1997 it was Blair's Babes. Already, in 2010 we have Cameron's Cuties. This smacks to me as being particularly demeaning to women.

If I think of the town halls I covered as a journalist, all had up to half of their members as women. None of them were on all-female shortlists to be picked to stand, or if they were, it was because that just happened to be that way. So again, why so many women at local political level but not at national level?

Ultimately, what every party should be striving for is the best possible candidate, regardless of their sex. Forcing the issue through a quota system simply won't work in the long run, because it's not tackling the contributing factors.

Does this make me sexist? I don't think so - and the loudest round of applause on Question Time for a woman making the very same point convinces me that our politicians are just making the problem worse.