Harman tells a true tale about the gender gap

When Harriet Harman stood up and proposed that party rules should be changed so that half of the shadow cabinet are women, you could hear the cries of “political correctness gone mad” ringing throughout the country.

Few people seem even vaguely willing to entertain the notion that quotas might actually be a viable option for addressing the disturbing lack of gender parity in high level employment. Opposition to positive discrimination seems to rest upon the idea that we live and work in a meritocracy; that the best person for any given job will get it. We need not look further than our current cabinet to see that this is not the case. The closest we meaningfully come to a meritocracy is that the best of an already existing elite of middle aged, middle class white men get the top jobs.

The most common concern seems to be that ‘worse’ women will be getting jobs over ‘better qualified’ men. This response in itself sums up the fundamentally sexist mindsets that still pervade society, including those who are responsible for women’s advancement in the workplace.

Talking about equality in the workplace as a problem is seen as a somewhat quaint throwback to the women libbers of the 1970s. Since the ground-breaking legislation of 1975 to prevent sex discrimination in the workplace the position of women is nearly unrecognisable, more are entering the workforce today than ever before. However, research repeatedly proves that women still face huge amounts of inequality, especially at managerial levels. Simply throwing legislation at the problem won’t make it go away. The issue seems now to be not the law, but a perception gap between men and women. While both sexes tend to agree that there should be equality further up the corporate ladder, a far larger percentage of men believe that women share equal opportunity to be promoted to leadership and governance positions. The problem is perhaps not active sexism, therefore, but country-wide ignorance. Perhaps the shadow cabinet is indeed the best place for this kind of education and consciousness raising to be affected.

Harman’s suggestion would offer a very public way for women to prove themselves to a country and to business leaders who are, as we have seen, unwilling to give them a chance. They would not be vulnerable to the same kind of pressures and vilification that would come with parachuting them straight into Downing Street where their actions would be scrutinised in an unfair and unhelpful way. Should they prove themselves undeserving of such a position they would not retain it should Labour get back into power, just like anyone else. If we are artificially increasing the amount of women in government it is only for a relatively short period of time. As other countries who have adopted the model prove, this changes attitudes and gender parity at a more grassroots level as women see that efforts to break into a male dominated arena can be successful.

While there seems to be something fundamentally problematic about having a 50 percent female cabinet when women make up a far smaller proportion of MPs overall, some manner of quotas would be no doubt justified by their ends. An ‘artificial’ boost in the proportion of women would allow for a more ‘natural’ equality relatively quickly. It would most likely cease to be a point of contention shortly after the event; the self-righteous Daily Mail indignation at Labour’s all-female shortlists dissipated quickly when it became apparent that giving women a leg up into government wasn’t going to plunge the country into turmoil.

Business leaders should take note: gender parity at the top of many organisations is something that has to be addressed. The glass ceiling may have moved up but it’s still very much there. Not everyone underneath it is simply waiting; Warwick Feministas are taking grassroots consciousness raising into their own hands. Look for out for their activities, talks and workshops in week ten and check out the Facebook page to get involved.