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Nicola Sturgeon consciously appoints 50% of each sex into the Scottish Cabinet

I was just wondering how people feel about this. Whilst equality is generally a good thing, is there a chance male politicians might have been negatively discriminated against here? Sturgeon admitted to deliberately ensuring there was 50% of both sexes in the Scottish Cabinet - and seeing as in both UK and US Cabinets, for example, the majority of members are male, could it then be deduced that Sturgeon has deliberately excluded certain men from roles in the Scottish Cabinet that they might otherwise have been appointed in had Sturgeon not been consciously seeking a 50% split in sexes?

Is having a 50% split in sexes for the sake of equality the right thing? To me it seems there could be an issue with fairness if a man was actually more suited to one of the Cabinet roles than one of the women appointed. I am sceptical about Sturgeon because she's shown herself to be a passionate feminist, so I question whether everyone really did get into the Scottish Cabinet by their own merits.

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(edited 9 years ago)

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I would argue that it is sexist to shoehorn women into the Scottish Cabinet in order to meet the quota of 50% women. After all you're picking women based on their gender, and denying men the opportunity because of theirs.
Surely given there's no specification as to the percentage split she was choosing from, there could just as easily have been more females suited to the Cabinet roles than males? It seems a bit of a leap to say men were being discriminated against :holmes:
Sturgeon is so full of ****.

She says they're there "on merit" and then says she wants to "promote women". You can't have both.

Politicians should be there on merit. Having an all-male or an all-female government is fine as long as they are the best people for the job, gender or any other irrelevant factor should be discarded.

The fact that Sturgeon and Miliband proudly point out the 50/50 split in their government is pretty despicable. Fair enough if that's just how it happened to split but both have emphasised that they are promoting gender equality, which means discriminating against men in this case.
Original post by shadowdweller
Surely given there's no specification as to the percentage split she was choosing from, there could just as easily have been more females suited to the Cabinet roles than males? It seems a bit of a leap to say men were being discriminated against :holmes:

"The Cabinet line-up is also a clear demonstration that this government will work hard in all areas to promote women, to create gender equality and it sends out a strong message we will start the business of redressing the gender balance in public life, starting right here."
Nicola Sturgeon

So no, she made it quite clear the focus was on discriminating in favour of women.
Reply 5
Original post by shadowdweller
Surely given there's no specification as to the percentage split she was choosing from, there could just as easily have been more females suited to the Cabinet roles than males? It seems a bit of a leap to say men were being discriminated against :holmes:


I leap to the idea that men were being discriminated against because of what I've seen of Nicola Sturgeon. She's always maintained the idea about getting more women into politics, and by extension the Government. Otherwise I would have agreed with you that, in the same way men might have been discriminated against, women might have too. But there are no suggestions that this is the case here, from what I can tell.
Reply 6
Disgusting enforcement of positive discrimination.
Original post by shadowdweller
Surely given there's no specification as to the percentage split she was choosing from, there could just as easily have been more females suited to the Cabinet roles than males? It seems a bit of a leap to say men were being discriminated against :holmes:


Unlikely seeing as there are more male politicians.

But it's irrelevant anyway. This gender % is wrong in principle. it should be possible for 100% of males or females to be put in, providing the 100% are the best, or perceived to be the best based on non gender issues.
Nothing wrong with a 50:50 split if that's how it happens naturally, but setting out to create one is actually selecting candidates on the basis of gender, which could potentially be unfair.
Reply 9
Original post by Reluire
I was just wondering how people feel about this. Whilst equality is generally a good thing, is there a chance male politicians might have been negatively discriminated against here? Sturgeon admitted to deliberately ensuring there was 50% of both sexes in the Scottish Cabinet - and seeing as in both UK and US Cabinets, for example, the majority of members are male, could it then be deduced that Sturgeon has deliberately excluded certain men from roles in the Scottish Cabinet that they might otherwise have been appointed in had Sturgeon not been consciously seeking a 50% split in sexes?

Is having a 50% split in sexes for the sake of equality the right thing? To me it seems there could be an issue with fairness if a man was actually more suited to one of the Cabinet roles than one of the women appointed. I am sceptical about Sturgeon because she's shown herself to be a passionate feminist, so I question whether everyone really did get into the Scottish Cabinet by their own merits.


Agreed. Completely.
Original post by KingStannis
Unlikely seeing as there are more male politicians.

But it's irrelevant anyway. This gender % is wrong in principle. it should be possible for 100% of males or females to be put in, providing the 100% are the best, or perceived to be the best based on non gender issues.


However the demographic split doesn't dictate the quality of said politicians. There could still be a higher number of suitable females than males.

Of course, I wasn't agreeing with the quotas, just pointing out it wasn't necessarily discriminating against men. Though as Reluire and tengentoppa have pointed out, it does appear to be in favour of women, in this instance.
Original post by shadowdweller
However the demographic split doesn't dictate the quality of said politicians. There could still be a higher number of suitable females than males.

Of course, I wasn't agreeing with the quotas, just pointing out it wasn't necessarily discriminating against men. Though as Reluire and tengentoppa have pointed out, it does appear to be in favour of women, in this instance.


Numbers tho.
The only time gender can be qualification is in teaching in which children need gender role models. I don't see the purpose of this at all. I certainly don't see why woman can't be in a cabinet given how much more education support and job prospects they get than men, but it's a very dumb way of doing it.

I dislike the notion that equality means we need to enforce an arbitrary 50-50 split.
(edited 9 years ago)
This is ridiculous. Give the jobs to the best candidates, regardless of their gender, race or age.

If it happens to be that every one of the best candidates for the job are young white males, then so be it. Same as if the best candidates were all old black women. Give them the job.
As much as it may needed to change the system of the old boys club, I still find it ludicrous that sex/gender must still factor in to whether you can be considered a worthy politician.
I'm in support of this. Part of having a good political system is to represent the people, and a part of that is having a government that is representative of having wider demographics. I don't always favour quotas in general, but I think politics is different because there is an inherent importance in having diversity amongst those in power.
*sigh*

So many in this thread need educating about feminism. :rolleyes:
Reply 17
Absolutely thick woman. :facepalm:
I just want to point out that 'quota' is plural whilst 'quotum' is the right form of the singular form of the word. Many people are misusing them here.
A cynical attempt to get the female vote.

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