Why not positive discrimination?

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you're assuming that experience' women have less merit, This is just 'the merit otherwise the argument's argument pushed one step irrelevant. Unless you're back. If you've been conprepared to accept that sistently discriminated women have only 5% the against, so you've never capability of men, then how got into positions in the do you explain the pitiful first place, then of course number of women MPs for you'll be lacking in experexample, who have been ience. This is saying:

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THE argument for positive discrimination is dead simple. Women are as good JOHN HARRIS.

as men, yet everywhere you look, in politics, in the unions, we're pushed into the back seat. Something must be operating to stop us taking our rightful place, and positive discrimination is the attempt to overcome it. Even calling it 'discrimination' is misleading, since all we're talking about is women getting a fair deal for a change.

Actually, the arguments against positive discrimination are dead simple too: women are inferior. Of course, it's not presented like that, but that's what lies behind it. So here's a guide to the various disguises thta the argument for women's inferiority gets dressed up in. 1) 'We want to choose on merit, not on the person's sex' Rut that must mean NOW Yes, yes, you've had a bad d selected on the basis of merit? 2) 'Wa mant someone with BACK but we must choose on merit... discrimination is out from today, but we won't bother about the effects of yesterday's discrimination.

Thatcher 3) 'Margaret Thatcher's a woman. You wouldn't want her?' Margaret Thatcher's woman. So too is Shirley Williams. So too was Hitler's mum and Attilla for c the Hun's granny. Does that make all women Margaret Thatchers?

Are there no socialist women? That's self evident nonsense. If anything is the case it's the exact opposite - more women vote Labour than men now, within the Party women consistently take positions to the left of the party as a whole, and similar things could be argued within the unions. Besides which, has anyone yet discovered a supporter of positive discrimination who wants to put the Margaret Thatchers of this world on their shortlist? It's a blue herring. 4) 'We want politics in the interests of women, not women politicians' True, but the whole experience has been, the protestations of left-wing men notwithstanding, that it has only been when women have got together and decided to push for policies that they wanted, that those policies have been taken up. We can all now grandly proclaim that abortion, for instance, is a class issue but it was never seriously seen as such until women within the labour movement had fought tooth and nail for it. Of course men are capable of taking up and understanding 'women's issues' ', but they only ever seem to do so when women take the initiative. 5) 'We're interested in politics, not structures. All this tampering with the forms won't work' But politics is also about forms. Who is and who is not allowed to take part in political decision-makng is a central political question. We would not argue for Polish workers, example, to only concern themselves with wages or the price of bread and not bother with the nature of the political regime that's oppressing them or the fact they have no say in the running of the economy. Political democracy is major advance in the conditions under which we can wage our struggles, and for women, while we have the formal right to vote, effectively we're denied any role in shaping policies. 6) 'It will only benefit ambitious, middle-class women' Arguably true, initially. Those who are better placed by their education and class background will be the first to take advantage of any gains for women. We've had ambitious, middle-class men running the show tor long enough, it can't be any worse. If these relatively privileged women can't even get a look-in, what chance is there for the rest of us? Any advance in the position of women as a whole will, ultimately, benefit underprivileged, black, working class women more because of their double or triple burden. 7] 'Aren't blacks/ manual class. Unity that does not rest on equality, that's based on the suppression of one section's rights, is not worth the proverbial carrot. 9) 'It's just tokenism' We should have such tokens! At the moment we've got nothing, anything would be an improvement. The way to ensure thạt it doesn't just remain on the level of tokens is for us to organise to fill out the hollow forms with substance. It's curious that those who raise the objection of tokenism, don't follow their logic through to its conclusion. If, for example, one woman on a shortlist is token, then why not go for all-women shortlists until the balance is righted? Then we get accused of being silly, though it's perfectly logical.

For the moment, I'm content to start with tokens, though we have to battle ferociously to get even these. When we've made some headway on thta, then we can look to genuine equality.

10) 'I agree with you, but the voters/membership/etc won't wear it.' Have you tried them? This is the final ploy of every jumped-up petty

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