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John Maynard Keynes
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Signed, sealed, delivered |
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Kinga Dunin
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21.10.2009 |
Signed, sealed, delivered: The Polish Women’s Congress has passed its main resolution calling for the introduction of sex parity into electoral lists. I’d like to stress that we’re only talking about the male-female parity of candidates, not sex parity in governmental office, because there’s been much misunderstanding on this point. The resolution has led to the creation of the Popular Movement for the Change of the Electoral Process. The Movement needs to collect 100,000 signatures within ninety days for the resolution to proceed to the next stage. All the arguments for and against must have surely been exhausted, but I’d like to belabour here the main point of contention which asserts that women have equal rights within the electoral process, but are unwilling to avail themselves of that right. Are they ‘unwilling’ or ‘unable?’
Any ‘rights’ historically favouring one social group are by definition unequal and should be amended. But what if women are genuinely ‘unwilling?’ This possibility would in turn imply a fundamental difference between the sexes, indicating that women have different aspirations, value systems and modus operandi. Ergo, if one half of a democratic population radically differs from the other, then this difference must be meaningfully represented in the name of democracy and proportional representation.
So let’s examine women’s access to the political process. In order to do that we must either bury ourselves in dusty scholarly analyses, or alternatively reach for Manuela Gretkowska’s book ‘The Female Citizen,’ which chronicles the Women’s Party’s inception and electoral campaign. Why did this enterprise end in failure? The somewhat simplistic answer would be: ‘Because the electorate found the Party’s manifesto unattractive. All party manifestos are launched onto the electoral market and the voter picks and chooses. This particular manifesto failed to strike a chord and that’s the end of it. An unshakeable argument, if all the electoral market stalls were of similar size and sited at equally attractive locations. But wait a minute: the Women’s Party’s budget was 30k, while the other parties’ advertising expenditure ran into dozens of millions. Some parties have unlimited access to the media and billboards aplenty, while others don’t. Maybe the Women’s Party’s failure was of its own making, but the disproportionality of exposure would have been – at least partially – addressed by a sex parity law.
Women also suffer from lack of political experience and consequently their candidates would do well to beware displays of male gallantry. There’s no time for niceties in the cut and thrust of politics, no matter what pledges of male goodwill a female politician may receive.
Here’s one scenario outlined in the book: Manuela, the number one fan of the gorgeous Tusk – who comes across as oh-so-charismatic-and-sensitive – gets invited to a meeting with Tusk’s PO (Civic Platform) Party. She has an idea that hard-nosed horse trading is coming her way, but still finds it hard to ditch her rose-tinted spectacles.
I imagine the meeting with Tusk - AKA the Alpha Male - running along predictable lines; because silverback apes, having grown manes of personal ambition, must and will fight it out for dominance. The smaller, meeker female is apt to signal submission, which might be rewarded by tree-branch sharing with the male Alpha. But first of all she’ll have to encounter Schetyna - a smooth operator clad in bespoke suits as shiny as fish scales, whose sybaritic lifestyle makes up for whatever setbacks may befall him in the treacherous political waters.
And so Schetyna promises Manuela a coalition and a possibility of the Women’s Party being given a leg-up by the PO, but this is followed by a phone call from Tusk a week later: Sorry, the Central Committee says no…The implication being: I was all for it, but my chaps…you know what it’s like…Actually, the tacit hint is not so much my ‘chaps,’ but ‘my girls,’ even though ‘the girls’ are in the minority in his administration. The blow is softened by an invitation to another meeting: a trendy restaurant; a private room. Then a new promise: Of course we can cooperate with each other. We’ll help you consolidate your electoral base. What’s in it for them? Schetyna and Tusk explain that they’d like to reach out to the leftist vote. Thus the Women’s Party gets buoyed by a renewed hope of putting up candidates in all electoral districts.
With time running out, Manuela notes in her diary: ‘…Ania’s on the phone, telling me that she’s been asking Schetyna why there had not been any contact from the PO’s side. There’s a moment’s silence and then Schetyna tells her that……..there have been no guarantees. Broken promises have cost us a week of delays. We’ve been duped – I inanely comment. I have been naive enough to rely on a bloke and a rival to boot! I, who have been up in arms about the betrayal of women by both the Left and the Right! I’m furious that I’ve allowed myself to be taken for a ride, but the facts speak for themselves. I’d only like to add that next time I’ll insist on legal guarantees as opposed to Tusk’s silver-tongued promises. At least they would be grounded in reality.’
Transl. Malgosia Skawinski
Na podobny temat
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Serwis piracki
 Oświadczenie Improwizowanego Kongresu Wolnego Internetu w sprawie obywatelskiej debaty z udziałem Prezesa Rady Ministrów Pana Donalda Tuska dotyczącej wolności i praw w internecie. Krytyka Polityczna solidaryzuje się ze stanowiskiem wyrażonym w oświadczeniu i również nie pojawi się na debacie u premiera.
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Pani Kingo studiowałam na warszawskie...
...to się viking chyba wreszcie poczu...