I have an interest to declare. I am a white, middle-class male.
For that reason, I’m sure some will discount what I’m about to write as the bitter ramblings of a malcontent, angered by the prospect of his white, middle-class brethren losing their bear-like grip on the upper echelons of the Labour party. Not only are they wrong, but such arguments are trite.
Harriet Harman’s proposals to impose an equality quota on the Shadow Cabinet – 50% men and 50% women – deserve proper scrutiny. Not because of the objective of greater gender balance in the highest ranks of politics, but because of the mechanism she believes will best achieve it.
And I hope our leadership candidates will join me in ensuring that Labour women are no longer kept in the shadows.
We have 81 Labour women MPs – more than all the other parties put together. Labour is the only party in parliament which speaks up for women in this country. We have some excellent experienced women and some brilliant new women MPs. We still do have twice as many men MPs as women. The labour men are great – but they are not twice as good as the women – so I want the PLP when we revise our rules for shadow cabinet elections to have 50.50 men and women in the shadow. It’s time for Labour women to step out of the shadows.
As a short term proposal, there is much to commend it:
- A greater number of women in the highest ranks of the Labour party will provide positive role models for other women to aspire to.
- Better gender balance in the Shadow Cabinet will ensure gender equality is prominent in public debate.
- Better gender balance in positions of power will ensure some of the obstacles to greater gender equality are dismantled sooner by those pioneers, thereby providing greater equality of opportunity for future generations.
- It is shrewd politics – the Shadow Cabinet will show up the lack of gender balance in the Cabinet.
And yet, it is at once a problematic idea. If quotas are seen as a sort of compensation for structural issues which prevent their ascension to the very highest ranks of politics, then it is right to ask what is being done about those obstacles at source. Factors such as culture, party selection procedures and parliamentary working practices may be part of the root cause for lack of gender balance, but quotas do little (directly) to address these issues. And there is a danger – as has arguably happened with All Women Shortlists – that such quotas are seen as sufficient to redress gender balance issues, whereas they actually mask the underlying problem(s).
So gender quotas should be welcomed in the short term for the reasons listed above, but maybe they should come with a firm sunset clause. This may incentivise greater and faster action to remove structural and cultural barriers to achieving the same end without output based regulation.
Because, in the long run, true equality is not needing quotas at all.