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> And accurate representation a good thing What if all the women decide a particular set of men best represent their values and priorities? That would be a ba

> And accurate representation a good thing What if all the women decide a particular set of men best represent their values and priorities? That would be a bad thing?

lhorie 5y ago
That's as realistic as all men voting for a all-female parliament. The point is that realistically, given a spectrum of political stances, a purely meritocratic system would statistically be more likely to yield a distribution with similar representation rates as the base population rather than a lopsided distribution.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  Implicit in your world-view is that its the women who voted for the women.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    Nah, you're projecting a black-and-white world view. Statistically speaking, some men would vote for men, some would vote for women, some women would vote for men and some would vote for women, and overall it would average out to around half and half representation. To be clear, it's not bad for an all-men or all-women parliament to exist in a high functioning democracy. It's statistically possible, just highly unlikely. If we look at a large timescale and there's a lopsided distribution the majority of time, or highly lopsided spikes for short periods of time, that sugggests that there are confounding factors that don't align with democratic idealism.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      Surely - if this is your goal - then its better to focus on encouraging a 50:50 representative choice of candidates and humbly accept whoever the men and women then chose to represent them? You may just get a large group of competent women who are very popular to all. I can't see why it would be better for as you say - democratic idealism - to then decry that some incompetent men candidates didn't get the gig.
      - lhorie 5y ago
        Sure, in theory that could happen, but then you'd be able to explain the lopsidedness somehow. For, e.g. professions like nursing, the lopsidedness can be satisfactorily explained by gender preferences wrt roles related to human care. The elephant in the room with regards to leadership is all the stuff related to perception of competence in patriarchal societies, boys clubs (recall that in many places, wealth is somewhat of a prerequisite for campaigning successfully), etc.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Unequal representation doesn't automatically imply something non-meritocratic is happening. There could be self-selection due to preferences, which explains why almost all nurses are women and why almost all garbage truck drivers are men. There could also be selection based on differences in behavior or competence: almost all prisoners are men because almost all of the most aggressive people in society are men. The justice system isn't sexist, the lopsided gender balance is a consequence of group-level differences in criminality due to genes and culture. In the case of societal leadership, sexism has clearly played a role in shaping representation historically, but that conclusion definitely doesn't follow from the mere observation of unequal distribution, it follows from an understanding of the details of why that distribution is lopsided.
- bobthechef 5y ago
  No. Women generally prefer male politicians. This suggests that sex matters. Men are traditionally heads of their households in virtually every society in history. The monarchy is an extension of the notion of fatherhood, hence the patriarchy. This is a natural role for men, and women generally sense this subconsciously. You need something potent to get women to work against this perception. Father wounds and the ideologies of resentment that exploit them are good bet. If men and women were identical, then you should expect matriarchies to account for half of all societies. But you don’t which means a difference must exist, and clearly a meaningful one. The notion that there is some adversarial misogyny behind patriarchy is preposterous. God bless the patriarchy!
  - rfrey 5y ago
    You don't think that bring physically stronger has any role in this on a historical basis? That it's just due to some vague "masculine nature" that women "subconsciously sense?"

> And accurate representation a good thing What if all the women decide a particular set of men best represent their values and priorities? That would be a bad thing?

lhorie 5y ago

That's as realistic as all men voting for a all-female parliament. The point is that realistically, given a spectrum of political stances, a purely meritocratic system would statistically be more likely to yield a distribution with similar representation rates as the base population rather than a lopsided distribution.

throwaway210222 5y ago
Implicit in your world-view is that its the women who voted for the women.
- lhorie 5y ago
  Nah, you're projecting a black-and-white world view. Statistically speaking, some men would vote for men, some would vote for women, some women would vote for men and some would vote for women, and overall it would average out to around half and half representation. To be clear, it's not bad for an all-men or all-women parliament to exist in a high functioning democracy. It's statistically possible, just highly unlikely. If we look at a large timescale and there's a lopsided distribution the majority of time, or highly lopsided spikes for short periods of time, that sugggests that there are confounding factors that don't align with democratic idealism.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    Surely - if this is your goal - then its better to focus on encouraging a 50:50 representative choice of candidates and humbly accept whoever the men and women then chose to represent them? You may just get a large group of competent women who are very popular to all. I can't see why it would be better for as you say - democratic idealism - to then decry that some incompetent men candidates didn't get the gig.
    - lhorie 5y ago
      Sure, in theory that could happen, but then you'd be able to explain the lopsidedness somehow. For, e.g. professions like nursing, the lopsidedness can be satisfactorily explained by gender preferences wrt roles related to human care. The elephant in the room with regards to leadership is all the stuff related to perception of competence in patriarchal societies, boys clubs (recall that in many places, wealth is somewhat of a prerequisite for campaigning successfully), etc.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
fighterpilot 5y ago
Unequal representation doesn't automatically imply something non-meritocratic is happening. There could be self-selection due to preferences, which explains why almost all nurses are women and why almost all garbage truck drivers are men. There could also be selection based on differences in behavior or competence: almost all prisoners are men because almost all of the most aggressive people in society are men. The justice system isn't sexist, the lopsided gender balance is a consequence of group-level differences in criminality due to genes and culture. In the case of societal leadership, sexism has clearly played a role in shaping representation historically, but that conclusion definitely doesn't follow from the mere observation of unequal distribution, it follows from an understanding of the details of why that distribution is lopsided.
bobthechef 5y ago
No. Women generally prefer male politicians. This suggests that sex matters. Men are traditionally heads of their households in virtually every society in history. The monarchy is an extension of the notion of fatherhood, hence the patriarchy. This is a natural role for men, and women generally sense this subconsciously. You need something potent to get women to work against this perception. Father wounds and the ideologies of resentment that exploit them are good bet. If men and women were identical, then you should expect matriarchies to account for half of all societies. But you don’t which means a difference must exist, and clearly a meaningful one. The notion that there is some adversarial misogyny behind patriarchy is preposterous. God bless the patriarchy!
- rfrey 5y ago
  You don't think that bring physically stronger has any role in this on a historical basis? That it's just due to some vague "masculine nature" that women "subconsciously sense?"