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I always found it hard to understand what are the ultimate generic principles that drive people with the attitude that you demonstrate (which is even more surpr

by gnull 5y ago

I always found it hard to understand what are the ultimate generic principles that drive people with the attitude that you demonstrate (which is even more surprising given that so many people around me also do that). Why should the percentage of women in parliament be related in any way to their percentage in the population? Why don't we apply the same reasoning to all the other properties which can be used to divide people into groups (e.g. right- vs. left-handed people, gamers vs. book readers, engineers vs. lawyers, meat-eaters vs. vegans). When there's literally an infinity of possibilities, what makes women vs. men so special? Why does your notion of representation require sharing traits with the elected person? If I took part in the elections (and I believe they were honest and not rigged in any way) then the person who wins represents me in the sense that this person is now legally authorized to make the decisions (limited by the laws) on my behalf. As some others noted here, since women voted on elections before, how can one claim the elected people did not represent them? You seem to be having a different idea of representation. What is it and why should it matter? This is an honest question, not trolling or anything.

lhorie 5y ago
A different way to look at this question is to ask why do certain roles have lopsided gender distributions. For, e.g. nursing, it can be explained by gender preferences towards human care roles. For leadership, there's elephant-in-the-room factors that explains higher rates of male leaders, i.e. perception of competence in patriarchal societies, the relationship between boys clubs and wealth as prerequisite for successful political campaigning, etc. If we were to control for these factors, we should be able to see representation rates that are 50/50 (or at least rates that are explainable by "morally acceptable" factors, e.g. rate of interest by gender)

by gnull 5y ago

lhorie 5y ago

A different way to look at this question is to ask why do certain roles have lopsided gender distributions. For, e.g. nursing, it can be explained by gender preferences towards human care roles. For leadership, there's elephant-in-the-room factors that explains higher rates of male leaders, i.e. perception of competence in patriarchal societies, the relationship between boys clubs and wealth as prerequisite for successful political campaigning, etc. If we were to control for these factors, we should be able to see representation rates that are 50/50 (or at least rates that are explainable by "morally acceptable" factors, e.g. rate of interest by gender)