Posts Tagged ‘all women shortlists’

All women shortlists are an insider’s charter

02/03/2012, 01:30:22 PM

by Ben Cobley

“White people love playing ‘divide & rule’ We should not play their game”, these words, tweeted by Diane Abbott, ignited a storm of accusations and denials of racism and opened a window into the complexities of identity politics.

While it is doubtful that many white people were properly offended by the tweet, it does expose Abbott’s assumption that black and white people should be divided, and that they have different (and opposing) interests.

The “divide and rule” agenda that Abbott talked about in fact applies more to her in this instance. She was clearly trying to draw a racial drawbridge between black and white people.

This is the sort of political philosophy that George W. Bush espoused when he said, “You are either with us or against us”; one group’s identity is defined opposite to the other – and if you do not share the dictates of your own group’s “leaders”, then you are letting your side down. Bim Adewunmi herself made a strong argument about this.

As it is highly unlikely Diane Abbott is a racist, how did she get into such a tangle?

Part of the answer surely lies in the way that certain curious, arcane attitudes are still widespread in liberal-left circles.

Abbott herself responded to the tweeting controversy by saying that she was talking about the politics of colonialism. But she clearly was not discussing history in her tweet, and that is where the colonialist worldview belongs – and where the anti-colonialist mentality will have to find a home sooner or later. It is hopelessly outdated in a country where the evidence of integration is all around us, not least in the many children and young adults of mixed race.

The unthinking identity politics of the liberal-left maintains and extends this anti-colonialist narrative though, by simplistically inverting the racist, sexist and ruling class ideologies of past times.

So it is that dark skin is favoured over light, female over male, while the possession of assets and money is deemed as something to be ashamed of.

This attitude is woven into Labour Party practices and procedures, especially when it comes to candidate selection.

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All who oppose quotas are not knuckle-scrapers

26/07/2011, 12:00:29 PM

by Rob Marchant

Sexism is alive and well in modern Britain. Wherever it is to be found, it is a blight on our society; it lowers people’s horizons and expectations. An indisputable social evil. Obviously not like it was a hundred, or even twenty, years ago: but there.

Arguably, its most persistent manifestation is in the workplace: like the difficulty of women returning to work after children, pay inequality and prospects of reaching top management. The last Labour government helped somewhat in these areas by, for example, improving access to childcare and consolidating equality legislation. And perhaps it could, and should, have done more. Inequalities persist which, being about opportunity and not outcome, rightly concern all of us on the left.

But agreeing on the problem is not the same as agreeing on the solution. And we don’t to need enter into the complex debate over the many methods of combating sexism, in order to evaluate a specific one: quotas. Aiming for gender equality and aiming for numerical gender balance, to state the obvious, are not the same thing.

Is it not telling that, in all the years of putting in place legislation to fight sexism, the western world has seldom got to the stage of implementing gender quotas for jobs? Could it be because (a) they’re often pretty unworkable in practice (just think for a second about how you’d ensure gender balance across all comparable roles and departments in an organisation, and you’ll start to see the logistical nightmare)? And (b) a lot of women, as well as men, don’t like the idea?

However, for some reason, in the Labour party, we have long ago come to a majority view that quotas are not only desirable, but unquestionable. It’s as if we, with our more developed moral compass, provide a beacon of best practice which all other right-thinking organisations should follow. They’re a bit behind us, that’s all: given time, everyone will come round to adopting our advanced ways.

Well, some news: the British public doesn’t agree. The rest of the country looks at these practices – introduced into the party, for the record, by a tiny knot of politicians and NEC members – and think us odd, not advanced. Look, here comes the Labour party. With its strange gender-target obsession.

Naturally, that group includes a vast number of proud, upstanding women and men who are not content to leave sexism unchallenged in the pub or the workplace. Yes, there are people without a sexist bone in their bodies, who just don’t think much of quotas. A lot will want to see more women in positions of power, but don’t see this as the right way. Many of them may not be against affirmative action per se: the debate is more nuanced than that. Many may not even be entirely against quotas, in extremis: but they aren’t for them in general.

And then there is our unhelpful habit of choking off debate on the matter. How? By viewing any questioning of this logic through the following prism: that a challenge can only come from a well-meaning but misguided woman; or a reactionary, Neanderthal man. And, for the record, neither does the debate-stifling trick necessarily follow gender lines: it is often as likely to come from men as women.

But is it not understandable that some of those many party members who are not sexist, and have spent their lives fighting sexism in all its forms, might at some point get frustrated at having the sins of the few visited upon them? Because there is a respectable, differing point of view which deserves at least a hearing, rather than a moral judgement.

It is this: that the numbers game has become an end in itself rather than a means to an end. And it is the cumulative effect of this thinking which, bit by bit, avoiding sensible debate and taking quotas as a universal good, ends with what Neil Kinnock might term the “grotesque spectacle” of the summary Refounding Labour strategy document suggesting, with a straight face, that we might have not just a cabinet chosen by quota, but a leader and deputy leader chosen by quota. Well, no.

That’s right: you vote for two people, but if the leader turns out not to be a woman, all male candidates for deputy leader will have to withdraw. Or two separate, hugely expensive, all-member ballots. Or some similarly unworkable scheme. And, by the way, insisting on a 50-50 cabinet, if Labour were in government, would be an extraordinarily unhelpful constraint on a prime minister to get the cabinet which best fitted skills to positions (not to mention quite possibly illegal).

Finally, we patronise decent male politicians by assuming that, should they find themselves in a majority in a non-quota system, as a group they cannot be trusted not to make sexist decisions or policy unless we remove some of their number and replacing them with women, to “even things up”. It doesn’t make sense, unless you believe that there are seriously sexist men at the top of the party. Who are these cavemen? We should name names.

Yet one of the great attributes of the twenty first century Labour party is that, itself, it is already way ahead of the curve. Yes, you can be sure to find the odd situation when you’ll find some old feller with a dodgy opinion, and you can also be sure he’ll be roundly condemned for it. On average, you’d be hard-pressed to find a group of people less likely to be sexist than at a local Labour party meeting. We mostly fall over ourselves to get this right and we should be proud of that. But if we spent as much time and energy fighting sexism in the workplace as we do on tinkering with our internal processes to mixed results, you can’t help thinking that we might be helping the cause a lot more.

As a grown-up political party of 110 years standing, we’re surely self-confident enough to have an open debate about this. No name-calling, no ad-hominem judgement of the person voicing the opinion, or their sex. Just a simple, clear-headed analysis of where positive action is appropriate, and where it is not.

Peter Hain, who is in charge of Refounding Labour, in 2006 apologised for the fiasco in Blaenau Gwent, where an imposed quota led directly to the loss of a seat. A recognition that quotas are not a universal good. Surely he, of all people, should encourage this debate?

Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour party manager who blogs at The Centre Left.

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All women shortlists in inner city wards: no dispensation from representation

12/06/2011, 02:00:18 PM

by Waseem Zaffar

Last month, I was elected to Birmingham city council for the first time. A couple of weeks later was the council AGM, at which, amongst other things, we elected a new lord mayor. Councillor Len Gregory handed over to senior Labour councillor, Anita Ward. The whole occasion made me proud to be taking part and proud to be a Brummie. Cllr. Ward will be a fantastic first citizen.

But something about the ceremony also embarrassed me. Made me wonder whether Birmingham is truly the multi-cultural capital that we think it is, whether equality is the strong point that it ought to be. Cllr. Ward is only the seventh female lord mayor of our city. That is a shame and an embarrassment to us all: to the city and to all political parties.

Despite positive discrimination being introduced by Labour years ago, there is still a lack of women in the council chamber.

That can’t be right. We have to have the best people to represent our city. And those that represent our city have to “look” like the city they stand for. For example, Birmingham is the youngest city in Europe outside Turkey and has the largest population of under 30s. However, the council chamber, despite a number of young additions this year, still does not reflect the various age groups in the city.

Gender is also a huge issue for the council chamber. And Cllr. Ward’s elevation to lord mayor of Birmingham has opened up a debate.

We hear conflicting reports from the Birmingham Labour party. The Birmingham Labour party has a grid system which requires all wards to have a minimum of one female councillor/candidate (out of three) every four years. I support this. Yet, a number of largely ethnic minority populated wards have hitherto been excepted from this rule. The argument being that asian communities will not vote for women candidates. I do not agree.

The time has come for us to encourage more women to take part in democracy as, if I am not mistaken, slightly more than half the population of Birmingham and our country is female. And women play a huge role in society that goes largely unrecognised.

This argument that if a woman stands in an inner-city ward in Birmingham made up of largely ethnic minorities she will not win the seat is nonsense. I won by a majority of nearly 4,000 in my inner city ward because I was a Labour candidate. Not because I am male, or because I am of a particular ethnic origin. The election of Cllr. Tony Kennedy in Sparkbrook (white candidate in the ward with possibly the highest ethnic minority population in Birmingham) clearly endorses this argument. Despite what our egos may want to believe, the Labour rose is what puts votes on the ballot paper.

So, if a man can win by a majority of nearly 8,000 in Washwood Heath, I am certain that a woman can win the seat. The same can be said in Aston, Bordesley Green and Springfield, as well as other inner city seats.

It’s time for our ethnic minority communities to “get with the project”, in particular Birmingham’s Muslim community. Just look at what Shabana Mahmood MP, Cllr. Yvonne Mosquito, Cllr. Paulette Hamilton, Cllr. Penny Holbrook et al have achieved. They are role models for young girls growing up in Birmingham, and we need to bring through more role models from to encourage all sections of the community to participate in our democracy.

Shabana’s election to the House of Commons last year was so well received from all sections of the community. We need more “Shabanas”. The Birmingham Labour group is currently chaired by Cllr. Yvonne Mosquito. We need more Yvonnes out in the community engaging with other females and encouraging them to become the “next Yvonne”.

The West Midlands regional office has held a number of training sessions for women who may want to consider standing for election. The Birmingham Labour party needs to follow this through to ensure that no ward in which an AWS is due is denied its entitement under Labour rules to elect a women. There should be no special dispensation from representation.

Waseem Zaffar is Labour councillor for Lozells & East Handsworth ward.

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