"The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it." -Roseanne Barr

[mcgillianaire]

A contender for the Labour leadership contest wishes he had assassinated Margaret Thatcher in the 80s and is applauded loudly. A twenty-six year-old accountant in South Yorkshire tweets about blowing his local airport sky high due to bad weather and is convicted.

Meanwhile, Harriet Harman the acting leader of the Labour Party believes half the cabinet should be made up of women. And there are more women Labour MPs than in all the other parties put together, but they make up just under a third (81 out of 258) of all Labour MPs. She says "Labour men are great - but they are not twice as good as the women". Fair enough, but her arithmetic falls short. 1/3rd women MPs should equal 1/3 cabinet posts right? Besides if she's so keen on gender parity, why didn't she and others join the leadership challenge?

Comments

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Of course. I was merely following her arithmetic to its logical conclusion. A third of women would double the current cabinet which has just four out of 23! I'm all for women's empowerment to higher positions in all walks of life but I'm not keen on measures such as these and all-women shortlists. There does seem to be a general problem with women getting picked as prospective candidates even though many make up the lists. I prefer solutions such as these (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/14/immigrant-women-politics-denmark). Despite the lack of women leaders at least the Labour Party have achieved significant levels of women and BME empowerment. There is not a single BME Lib Dem MP in this Parliament. But watch this space! :)

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

That Kvinfo program is cool. But, as Rushanara Ali said, it would be better if wasn't limited to immigrant women.

I also think that "affirmative action" should be limited to choosing the person from a less represented group, when two candidates seem equal.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

And yeh, that seems reasonable.