Women in Politics
Interesting to note that the New Hampshire State Senate has for the first time in the history of the United States elected a majority of female members. The barrier to female success in the realm of politics seems to have been entirely smashed in the States this year with both Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin playing such a central role in the presidential election and Nancy Pelosi retaining her role as the most powerful female in the nation. In Ireland we certainly aren’t close to electing a female majority at any level of government anytime soon but of course it’s questionable whether that need ever be a legitimate goal, the notion of gender quotas seems so very abhorrent to democratic principles.
Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese have both risen to the office of President. Women have served as the second ranking member of Dáil Éireann for the last number of years, the role fulfilled by both Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan. At Cabinet, Mary Hanafin is at Welfare, Couglan at Enterprise, Trade & Employment and Harney at Health. Amongst the abundance of Ministers of State, Mary Wallace is responsible for Forestry and Máire Hoctor for Services for Older People (quite a P.C. name for any sub-deparment). 21 of the 166 T.D.’s, 11 of the 60 senators and 5 of our 13 M.E.P.’s are female.
Frankly I believe quotas for any elected office that involve questions of sex, race, religion or anything else are inherently wrong. Programs such as affirmative action are flawed attempts to rectify past mistakes by imposing further wrongs. Female involvement in politics can be tackled, but not through the artificial exercise of simply accepting political candidates for merely being female. Political parties must strive to stamp out sexism amongst the grassroots and perhaps more zealously seek out female members but never resort to creating another system of discrimination in a foolhardy attempt to boost female representatives.
Tags: Dáil, Ireland, New Hampshire, Politics, Seanad, Women
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November 13, 2008 at 12:59 pm
[...] improved its rating by one place (8th), but blogger “Conor Reidy” argues that the use of gender quotas is essentially [...]