Sir, – David Beatty (March 27th), in replying to my letter, manages to undermine both his own argument and that of Una Mullally. He cites “larger societal factors” as being a problem with regard to women’s participation in politics. He might well be right, but quotas won’t change this.
Our parish pump political system is built on gladhanding and backslapping and rewards politicians who are good at same. Many women, and many men, feel this sort of politics to be offputting. The answer is to change the system. With gender quotas all we will get is more female parish-pumpers and a parish pump politician in a skirt is still a parish pump politician.
Mr Beatty’s “gender role” talk is typical cappuccino liberal waffle. Even in Scandinavia the majority of engineers are men and most teachers are women. In a documentary made for Norwegian television it was found that despite 30 years of social engineering the percentages of women in engineering (a minority) and nursing (a majority) had not changed.
Finally, Mr Beatty talks of women’s interests. What are these interests? How are they different from men’s? I am willing to venture that when women enter the polling booth they think of their jobs, their families, their communities and maybe their country, and they vote for the candidate that will best represent them. Whether that candidate is male or female is irrelevant. Yours, etc,
Yours sincerely
PAUL WILLIAMS,
Circular Road,
Kilkee,
Co Clare