Back in March 2013, Deputy Montfort Tadier suggested that if there was a move to larger multimember constituents, then reserving seats for women in Jersey's next election may help overcome the gender bias in the States.
Now the same idea has surfaced again in the “States Assembly Gender Audit: Diversity Forum Report” presented by Deputy Louise Doublet with Deputy Jess Perchard, Deputy Kirsten Morel, Lucy Stephenson and Peter McLinton.
“Options discussed by the audit group include requiring there to be an equal number of male and female senators; permitting job sharing; and requiring gender balance in multi-member seats.”
This seems to be badly thought through, and I’ll explain why. Any political assembly which works by democratic voting has a trade off between equality of opportunity to stand, and the resulting imbalances in the composition of that assembly.
Now if you are taking a sample of the population, and you want it to be representative, you will take that sample and overlay on it the weightings for the makeup of the general population from the census. This can be by gender, by nationality, by ethnicity, by age range. The aim is to produce what is called a “stratified sample”, one which has been adjusted to reflect the makeup of the general population.
That’s fine for a sample, when you want to make it as representative of the makeup of the population as a whole, but it doesn’t work when you are looking at adjusting the results in a voting system. A democratic assembly should allow everyone an equal chance to stand, and an equal opportunity to get voted in, regardless of creed, colour or gender.
To impose a bias on a system such as gender simply begs the question: why that bias, and not others. If we look at ethnicity, 8.2% of the population in the 2011 census count as Portuguese and 3.3% as Polish. So we should have 1-2 Poles in the States, and 4 Portuguese members if we wanted to reflect the same diversity as we see in the general population.
The problem with forcing the makeup of the assembly to reflect a kind of diversity within the general population is that there is no firm case for prioritising one group over another. While the makeup of the States shows a gender imbalance, it also shows an imbalance with regard to ethnicity.
Now the same idea has surfaced again in the “States Assembly Gender Audit: Diversity Forum Report” presented by Deputy Louise Doublet with Deputy Jess Perchard, Deputy Kirsten Morel, Lucy Stephenson and Peter McLinton.
“Options discussed by the audit group include requiring there to be an equal number of male and female senators; permitting job sharing; and requiring gender balance in multi-member seats.”
This seems to be badly thought through, and I’ll explain why. Any political assembly which works by democratic voting has a trade off between equality of opportunity to stand, and the resulting imbalances in the composition of that assembly.
Now if you are taking a sample of the population, and you want it to be representative, you will take that sample and overlay on it the weightings for the makeup of the general population from the census. This can be by gender, by nationality, by ethnicity, by age range. The aim is to produce what is called a “stratified sample”, one which has been adjusted to reflect the makeup of the general population.
That’s fine for a sample, when you want to make it as representative of the makeup of the population as a whole, but it doesn’t work when you are looking at adjusting the results in a voting system. A democratic assembly should allow everyone an equal chance to stand, and an equal opportunity to get voted in, regardless of creed, colour or gender.
To impose a bias on a system such as gender simply begs the question: why that bias, and not others. If we look at ethnicity, 8.2% of the population in the 2011 census count as Portuguese and 3.3% as Polish. So we should have 1-2 Poles in the States, and 4 Portuguese members if we wanted to reflect the same diversity as we see in the general population.
The problem with forcing the makeup of the assembly to reflect a kind of diversity within the general population is that there is no firm case for prioritising one group over another. While the makeup of the States shows a gender imbalance, it also shows an imbalance with regard to ethnicity.
And there are other ways of slicing the population map. As the report itself notes, Professor Sarah Childs, looking at the UK Parliament, suggests that “A greater diversity of MPs should be present in the House of Commons, not least in terms of class, disability, ethnicity, sex/gender, and sexuality.”
But diversity in itself is not a compelling justification for the use of structural preferences of this kind.
A lot of confusion stems from ideas of discrimination. Where someone is discriminated against standing because of various factors common to that sector of the population, there should be mechanisms to rectify this imbalance outside and before they stand, and after they stand, to ensure that the demands of being an elected member do not prove a burden. (On passing, I'd note that a wheelchair user might find considerable difficulty to access the States Chamber).
An older example is the payment of States members. Before that was introduced, the ability of anyone to stand for election was severely curtailed so that the makeup of the Chamber tended to come from those with sufficient independent means to stand. In that instance, positive discrimination came from remunerating members so that no one, however talented, could be disbarred from standing because of lack of financial means.
Another example from recent news also provides an illustration of positive discrimination. New mothers who work for Jersey States will get paid breastfeeding breaks, starting in September. The Social Security Minister wants all employers to provide facilities and time for breastfeeding or expressing milk. Now the same should be true of women in the States, should they also have young children. This is discriminating in such a way as to provide a fair and equitable playing field. It is removing obstacles from standing to the States and participating in the Assembly.
In this respect, it is a good suggestion of the report that “A room where priority is given for breastfeeding mothers should be made available in the States Building when it is next required.”
Another note by the report, although this is not strictly gender related (and I can say that as a single-parent who sometimes had to juggle work and looking after children) is also sensible: “Sitting hours are generally family-friendly but late sittings can be agreed without notice, which causes problems for Members and staff with childcare responsibilities. The audit group considers that the Assembly should decide by lunchtime whether or not to sit beyond 5.30pm, to provide time for Members with parental and other caring responsibilities to make plans so that they can stay late. If necessary, this could involve changing Standing Orders.”
But there are other suggestions which come back to the kind of forcing matters to reflect diversity rather than positive discrimination against obstacles.
“The audit group considered that it should be mandatory for the Chief Minister to have at least one male and one female Assistant Chief Minister.”
At present, the Assembly largely consists of independent members, although there is a rough political spectrum which might be charted out. But it is assumed that the political position of the Council of Ministers should form a more or less cohesive body.
Now if the political makeup of the Assembly meant that taking this on board meant that the only candidates willing to stand were opposed to the whole direction of the Council of Ministers, that kind of ideological straightjacket would surely be detrimental to democracy. Notice that it is, after all, not mandatory to be Assistant Chief Minister, and Senator Valois relinquished that post – it is not that there would not be enough women, it is a question of also being willing to take on that responsibility.
In these cases, we have to look more carefully at the obstacles for women becoming Assistant Chief Ministers, and also the nature of the post. With any position, the Chief Minister, as with any job, should be able to appoint whosoever they consider to be best suited for the role and responsibility, and that should be the key consideration rather than gender (or any other marker of diversity).
In general, where we are looking at the removal of blatantly discriminatory practices (which can ignore obstacles) which is different from the kind discrimination which tries to fix numbers in the Assembly. As soon as we look at affirmatory discrimination such as attempts to fix ratios, we are running into problems. Should there be a Minister appointed who has a disability of some kind in order to ensure that diversity is also reflected in the States Chamber?
As someone who needs two hearing aids to understand speech, I was appalled by the refusal of some candidates to use microphones in the last hustings in 2018, and the choice of venues with no hearing loop system in place. Would someone deaf in the Council of Ministers help the cause of deaf people in the Island?
Given the sorry state of play - the loss of the only social worker with level 3 British Sign Language - it could be said that there is a marginalisation of the deaf community as small and relatively unimportant. But surely what is needed are politicians who are better informed and educated about the deaf community (of which there are probably only about 5 in the States) rather than better representation by the community.
When we look at affirmative discrimination, it is worth looking at an instructive case in the USA. This was a 1996 court case of a white woman named Cheryl Hopwood who was denied admission to a Texas law school, even though she had higher grades and test scores than some of the minority applicants who were admitted. Hopwood took her case to court, arguing the school’s affirmative action program violated her rights. She was not being treated equally because of a numbers game which was biased against her. In trying to create diversity to better reflect society, the admissions practice was actually discriminatory.
What I think we must distinguish between is fair opportunity to all citizens - removing obstacles which can prevent that from being fair, from discrimination which sets forth preferential treatment to groups who have been underrepresented. If we muddle the two, we will end up in a mess.
But diversity in itself is not a compelling justification for the use of structural preferences of this kind.
A lot of confusion stems from ideas of discrimination. Where someone is discriminated against standing because of various factors common to that sector of the population, there should be mechanisms to rectify this imbalance outside and before they stand, and after they stand, to ensure that the demands of being an elected member do not prove a burden. (On passing, I'd note that a wheelchair user might find considerable difficulty to access the States Chamber).
An older example is the payment of States members. Before that was introduced, the ability of anyone to stand for election was severely curtailed so that the makeup of the Chamber tended to come from those with sufficient independent means to stand. In that instance, positive discrimination came from remunerating members so that no one, however talented, could be disbarred from standing because of lack of financial means.
Another example from recent news also provides an illustration of positive discrimination. New mothers who work for Jersey States will get paid breastfeeding breaks, starting in September. The Social Security Minister wants all employers to provide facilities and time for breastfeeding or expressing milk. Now the same should be true of women in the States, should they also have young children. This is discriminating in such a way as to provide a fair and equitable playing field. It is removing obstacles from standing to the States and participating in the Assembly.
In this respect, it is a good suggestion of the report that “A room where priority is given for breastfeeding mothers should be made available in the States Building when it is next required.”
Another note by the report, although this is not strictly gender related (and I can say that as a single-parent who sometimes had to juggle work and looking after children) is also sensible: “Sitting hours are generally family-friendly but late sittings can be agreed without notice, which causes problems for Members and staff with childcare responsibilities. The audit group considers that the Assembly should decide by lunchtime whether or not to sit beyond 5.30pm, to provide time for Members with parental and other caring responsibilities to make plans so that they can stay late. If necessary, this could involve changing Standing Orders.”
But there are other suggestions which come back to the kind of forcing matters to reflect diversity rather than positive discrimination against obstacles.
“The audit group considered that it should be mandatory for the Chief Minister to have at least one male and one female Assistant Chief Minister.”
At present, the Assembly largely consists of independent members, although there is a rough political spectrum which might be charted out. But it is assumed that the political position of the Council of Ministers should form a more or less cohesive body.
Now if the political makeup of the Assembly meant that taking this on board meant that the only candidates willing to stand were opposed to the whole direction of the Council of Ministers, that kind of ideological straightjacket would surely be detrimental to democracy. Notice that it is, after all, not mandatory to be Assistant Chief Minister, and Senator Valois relinquished that post – it is not that there would not be enough women, it is a question of also being willing to take on that responsibility.
In these cases, we have to look more carefully at the obstacles for women becoming Assistant Chief Ministers, and also the nature of the post. With any position, the Chief Minister, as with any job, should be able to appoint whosoever they consider to be best suited for the role and responsibility, and that should be the key consideration rather than gender (or any other marker of diversity).
In general, where we are looking at the removal of blatantly discriminatory practices (which can ignore obstacles) which is different from the kind discrimination which tries to fix numbers in the Assembly. As soon as we look at affirmatory discrimination such as attempts to fix ratios, we are running into problems. Should there be a Minister appointed who has a disability of some kind in order to ensure that diversity is also reflected in the States Chamber?
As someone who needs two hearing aids to understand speech, I was appalled by the refusal of some candidates to use microphones in the last hustings in 2018, and the choice of venues with no hearing loop system in place. Would someone deaf in the Council of Ministers help the cause of deaf people in the Island?
Given the sorry state of play - the loss of the only social worker with level 3 British Sign Language - it could be said that there is a marginalisation of the deaf community as small and relatively unimportant. But surely what is needed are politicians who are better informed and educated about the deaf community (of which there are probably only about 5 in the States) rather than better representation by the community.
When we look at affirmative discrimination, it is worth looking at an instructive case in the USA. This was a 1996 court case of a white woman named Cheryl Hopwood who was denied admission to a Texas law school, even though she had higher grades and test scores than some of the minority applicants who were admitted. Hopwood took her case to court, arguing the school’s affirmative action program violated her rights. She was not being treated equally because of a numbers game which was biased against her. In trying to create diversity to better reflect society, the admissions practice was actually discriminatory.
What I think we must distinguish between is fair opportunity to all citizens - removing obstacles which can prevent that from being fair, from discrimination which sets forth preferential treatment to groups who have been underrepresented. If we muddle the two, we will end up in a mess.
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