In a sane world, as you and I both know, you'd have a system where everyone has an equal chance at applying for and getting positions of such importance as matches their capabilities. The best situation would be that everyone is educated to see beyond arbitrary differences and, thus, their own biases. This means a better education system. Even if you can't have that (and, for some reason, it seems we can't), you can at least have a system whereby the personal details of the applicant are hidden (except for, say, their criminal record). The interviews could be conducted in writing (electronic messaging?), with no face-to-face interview until the end-stage "will you fit in to the team?" informal chat.
The leader of Welsh political party Plaid Cymru has (at least, according to BBC News - I couldn't find it in the Times or Guardian) said that legislation might be needed to get more women elected. Did you guess that the leader of Plaid Cymru was a woman? Good guess.
The article alleges that she said:
measures to select female candidates in her own party "are not always at their strongest".Sorry, isn't this piece of convoluted politico-babble the same as implying that her party members are sexist (despite them voting her in to the top position)? Isn't this a serious allegation, for which either they should be taken to court, or she should be sued for splashing about unfounded, slanderous accusations? That's like me calling you a paedophile, based on only seeing you with loads of crying children and no other adults. Surely, in order to say such a thing, she'd have to show hard evidence that there's an unfair bias: For all she knows, it might simply be the case that men are generally better at the job than women. (Judging by her rantings, she's not doing anything to help her case.) Otherwise, surely it's best to stop spouting bigoted cliches, apologise and give up her important post, for which she has failed to act in a responsible, professional manner.
This paragraph is hilarious, albeit in a depressing way:
She said: "Within Plaid Cymru, we have a strong internal democracy which reflects how much we rely on the party membership as a grassroots body.And, of course, a strong democracy can be strengthened... by forcing a biased selection criterion towards a specific arbitrary group. Yep, sounds like democracy to me alright
I suppose there is another way of looking at it: She heads a party that supposedly represents the interests and views of the public. Given how incredibly moronic The Public is, perhaps you could say she's doing her job superbly. Additionally, in a way, I'd agree with her saying that measures to select female candidates are not always at their strongest: By the looks of it, she's one too many for a start.
Why focus on just women? There are many minorities - African truck drivers, for example. Why not have a law giving them preference? What about black people in general? The inhabitants of Saffron Waldon? And I don't see many transvestites in parliament. What about them? Sounds like someone's willingly ignoring inconvenient truths.
This article is equally dubious. It's about supposed male bias in choosing acceptable subjects for Wikipedia articles. The example given is that one about Kate Middleton's wedding dress was largely rejected by editors, while some articles about obscure distributions of the Linux operating system were given the go-ahead. It fails to note that Kate Middleton's wedding dress really is a nonsense thing to have an article about, while obscure Linux distributions are very useful for those people who need to know. It's also interesting to note the implication that computer-related subjects are male subjects. By implying that women are not interested in Linux distributions and the like, they're effectively admitting that women are not interested in computing. So what's all this crap about "there aren't enough women in computing"? I would say that that's a compelling reason not to waste time and money on trying to crowbar them into something they don't want to do.
To single out a group of people for its own sake, while ignoring the others whose plight might be just as bad, is at best unfair and at worst dangerously bigoted and gratuitously hateful. Unfortunately, they're allowed to get away with this by women (who of course have a vested, and therefore equally bigoted interest) and by men unnecessarily nervous about the shames of the past in a similar way that the Germans are of the Nazis. And for this reason, such women (and also men, less directly, by aiding such travesties through inaction) are amongst the worst offenders, as I've discussed before. But in the same way that the Germans have changed greatly, and so they don't deserve to be bullied for it, the male-sexism of the past doesn't imply that female-sexism of the present should get its turn.
As a good friend said, a false attempt to force something is an abuse. The crime is also calling it the truth.
