Sir, – Anthea McTeirnan’s describes politics as the sharing out of a bag of sweets (Opinion, March 9th). The reverse sexism in the language she used in her article, where she referred to women as women and men as boys, has already been questioned by Dr Peter Culhane (Letters, March 14th). I would add that the picture she paints of politics as being about who gets what share of the spoils of office is not a very encouraging one if her objective is to achieve greater participation by women in politics.
Politics is much more than that and in fact most women and men involved in politics never seek political office, but rather they knock on doors, put up posters, and they take part in debates because they are passionate about politics. Politics is about women and men working in solidarity to make the world a better place.
Elections are not about seats being given to men or women but rather about human beings voting for other human beings and one person having to persuade another to vote for them based on their ideas, their record, their character.
Gender quotas are an anathema to this democratic process. The real issue is that not enough women are choosing to get involved in politics and the question is how to encourage them more.
Most importantly, politics is about ideas, and the choice between ideas about how to make people’s lives better; and it is this much more interesting picture of politics that needs to be promoted by those that wish to encourage more women to get involved. – Yours, etc,