Gender equality not priority

Whatever the make-up of the Assembly, it is likely a natural occurrence. It may not reflect the make-up of the diverse community it serves, but there is likely a perfectly valid explanation for this.

The implication in the Opinion article is that there are differing proportions of men/women and young/old in the States relative to the populace, and that this is somehow a bad thing. The call by Deputy Burford for more women to put themselves forward in politics is again an implication that there is something wrong with the current make-up.

I do not see any problem. This is democracy. If someone wants to be a politician, they can become one. If young people feel disillusioned with politics and have little interest in it then it is a shame, but no more than that. Maybe they are just happy with the way the 'old' people are running the place. Maybe they are just lazy. Either way, any attempt to encourage or discourage any particular group into politics is a perversion of (our) democracy.

The negative implications made by Opinion and Mrs Burford would seem to be that, given the under-representation of women, the interests of women will somehow not be fairly supported. This is patently absurd. Women can vote and are able to vote for the candidates that they think will benefit them the most personally, irrespective of their gender. It is not a particularly honourable element of democracy that votes are cast in this way, but reality is reality, and the person they vote for may or may not be a woman. More women voted for Obama, despite having the option of Clinton, specifically because Obama, despite being a completely different gender, was more supportive of women's campaigns than Hillary. In fact he has (sadly) pushed through positive discrimination legislation which was not (in my opinion) needed as it dealt with a fictional problem and has actually created a situation of gender inequality where none previously existed. Although I disagree with what Obama has done it is hugely disingenuous to imply that an elected representative, because of their gender, will not be capable of adequately representing the interests of that part of the electorate who are of a different gender.

If Mrs Burford thinks that there is some sort of sexism at work, then she is giving a rather dire assessment of our democracy. If women do not want to be politicians that is their choice. Leave them alone. Why encourage someone into politics who doesn't really want to do that sort of thing? Surely we want people who are motivated to do the job.

And if Mrs Burford is trying to be a vocal feminist, aiming for equality in the workplace, then I think she should start by looking at jobs such as labourers, block layers, bin men, sewage cart drivers, road gangs etc. There is an even greater under representation of women in those professions. Unless, of course, she is just trying to be a stereotypical feminist, less interested in equality, more interested in unfair advantages for one gender only such that they can cherry-pick the jobs they want and leaving the other gender to do the less savoury hard work. Women live longer and do less of the physical jobs. Perhaps the extension of the age of retirement should, in the first instance, apply only to women?

So far as I am aware there have been no allegations of sexism levelled against current deputies. There has been just about every other negative allegation, but I do not recall sexism being on the list. And yet there are States departments that exist that are frequently referred to as being grossly sexist and are staffed entirely by a single gender (for example the Safeguarders unit, which is 100% women). Is it not more important to concentrate on these areas? An 11% representation of the minority gender in these departments would be an unthinkable accomplishment, so to hear Burford bemoaning the fact that only 11% of the legislature is female just shows how utterly vacuous her argument is.

Why does the Opinion piece ponder 'how to get more women into the Chamber'? Positive discrimination can be justified in a situation where there is genuine negative discrimination to begin with, but it otherwise just creates inequality where there was none before. And to suggest that 'as a modern society we shouldn't give up on encouraging more women into politics, as surveys suggest that women politicians are more likely than males to effect real change for women and children' is an incredibly naive statement. Perhaps if we encouraged more blind people into politics they would effect more change for ... blind people. And perhaps more people from the finance sector would effect more change for the finance sector. Perhaps if we encouraged more petrol heads into politics we could have our speed limits raised. How are any of these things valid reasons to encourage any one group into politics?

To suggest that a modern society should actively encourage people into politics on the basis that they will be self-serving is an utterly absurd argument.

To understand the dangers of what Mrs Burford and, it seems, the Guernsey Press are proposing, I would suggest that readers familiarise themselves with the youtube vlogs of some of the very intelligent and articulate persons that post their opinion and analysis there, many of them very strong women such as Karen Straughan and Diana Davison.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD.