I was listening on the radio to an educated Iraqi woman discussing the new Iraqi constitution.

Women's rights were was raised in passing. It occured to me that we can hardly offer our own democracies as examples to the rest of the world. Our governments do not have equal representation by the majority of our national populations: Women!

How can we Europeans tell others to be democratic when we have such low numbers of women represented in our parliaments?

I am firmly of the belief that women are the vital negative feedback which controls the ridiculous peaks in men's illogical behaviour. Without which you get wars and religious extremism ending up with places like Afganistan.

Surely we should have truly proportional representation with women being given 50% of the seats in the House of Commons sharing equally within each party? That would then be a true example of democracy to show the world.

but is it democratic to give a job to someone just because of their sex rather than vote for the 'best' person?

I am not too sure a ruling body will ever reflect the exact demographic, ethnic, sexual, class, religious (or for that matter any other measure you wish to use) make up of the population and it may be wrong to expect so for people should be selected upon ability to do a job. Why stop at women? Is this just not the case of those in another country wishing to impose their own wishes on the makeup of a sovereign countrie's ruling body? - wars may well have been started for much less.

I fell this may come down to equal oportunity vs positive descrimination, both tools can be used to change the balance and it is up to those in power to first decide that the balance needs to be changed and then it is up to them to select the right tool (for them) for the job.

1. Labour recently put an all-female candidate list into a local election in a safe seat in wales.The local population ( quite rightly IMO ) took extreme exception and labour got caned.

2. Thatcher, M.

Personally I don't see what is so democratic about citizen participation in government happening for about 30 seconds every three or four years. I seem to recall JJR referring to this as just handing over sovereignty ritually every few years.

Perhaps the same attitude ought to be taken as to jury service - ie: submissions to select committees etc being compulsory if you're chosen and seen as a civic duty?

How about this - prepared earlier.

Stark_Raven.wav (339 Kb, 26 downloads)

At last! A positive contribution.

quote:

Originally posted by Nime:
At last! A positive contribution.

I would have called it a neutral contribution...

(What does Adam get up to in his spare time? Did he hover over the wireless (in the dark with only a headtorch illuminating the dials), finger ready to hit the record button? Perhaps he has contacts in the "intelligence community" that have passed this along to him? the mind boggles. A bit.)

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:

I would have called it a neutral contribution...

Then you are too timid! As have been several other contributors to this thread. Some of whom were more sexist than one would hope for in this day and age.