Over on Jim Killock’s blog there’s a poll in which you can express a preference for who should be running for the new Green Party leadership positions. There’s not too much doubt who’ll finish No 1, but the No 2 is pretty evenly split in these early stages. (All of this being complicated by the constitutional requirement for gender balance – which I do support, even though it does produce complications.)
And after you’ve done the serious stuff, do go over and check out dogsblog. (Legal note: if you are unable to resist adopting a stray dog after following that link, I accept no responsibility.)
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Re: gender balance – I’d be for it on GPEx – although quite how it would work I’m not sure.
I’m not really for it for the green party though because, as things stand now, I don’t think there’s an inherent bias against women getting the role – in fact I’d go so far to say that both roles would be filled by women if we had no rule in place.
I’d prefer an “at least one of whom shall be a woman” clause – as I don’t think we’re guarding against men being excluded from leading roles. but I doubt it’s going to change anytime soon.
Surely the question of gender balance is about redress or ensuring that women, who have historically been marginalised, are fully represented.
Therefore it makes sense to say “at least 50% of the leadership will be women” but does not make sense to stipulate a quota for men.
Exactly!
I remain of the opinion that this is a terrible mistake, which panders to individual ambitions rather than working collectively together. A sad day for what was a different party.
Mmm – you’ve posed an interesting question here Jim. I instinctively recoil from “one must be a woman”, yet I’m not sure that I can defend that reaction logically.
Two women would obviously be highly media friendly, make us look very different to the other parties.
And the provision is obviously mainly directed at ensuring there is a woman there – but there is at least something of an argument I think for balance – not of course that gender is at all the only thing you’d like to balance, but it does mean you are forcing some range of experience into the mix.
To look at the other extreme – Poland where you had twins as president and prime minister; you’re getting two almost identical people in the top two posts, which is obviously a nad idea.
So having two genders there is a positive things…
Hmmm, I’m not convinced. Unless we’re in danger of creating a purely matriachal party I think ensuring men have a space is a bit of a non issue. I think we’ve turned a necessity (ensuring women have space in the leading positions of the party) into some sort of principle to the cost of the advancement of women who are not Caroline.
Now, off the top of my head we have what, twelve, GPEx members of whom… two(?) are women – that concerns me.
Obviously I’m also concerned about the Party’s reach into particular communities too, i think the question is how best to address this and sometimes the formal, rule based approach is required as part of a package of other approaches.