So when do you stop "doctoring" the system?

For example, you've put limits requiring parties to put up a certain percentage of females for office, what happens if the voters still don't elect men and women in the same proportions (which is apparently what is happening in Belgium). Do you just take the next step and say the winner isn't necessarily the winner if they're the wrong gender?

And why stop why gender? Why not do the same with social class, race, sexual orientation, national origin, etc?

If they don't get elected, you at least know you made the utopia possible. Women get undermined all the time in politics. This is a fix for a flawed system. Women are important in politics, we need them to be as close to 50% as possible to make the right decisions. If you don't even have the choice to elect 35% women in office, something is seriously wrong.

Why stop with gender though? As under-represented as women are, homosexuals/bisexuals, poor people and non-whites are even more under-represented. If you're going to doctor the system then there isn't any good reason to just do it for gender.

There's several reasons, some quite obvious. We are either men or women. We are not either black or white. We are human, sub-cathegory man/woman, regardless of where we come from. More than 50% of all humans are women, yet so few are in the government... Gender and "race" isn't related.

The fact is, if a democracy should be doctored to represent its people (a concept of which I'm skeptical), then it should represent its people on all important factors, not just the easy ones.

So you claim that in order for a democracy to be valid it's crucial to have lots of women in office (and let's be realistic, a lot of these women are coming from the same white wealthy backgrounds the current male politicians are coming from), but if there are few or no lower-class non-whites in office, that's no problem?

Very lame and frankly offensive, to claim that it's crucial to doctor the system, but only to help out the most powerful special interest.

Because I think you know very well that if they did take this concept to the ultimate conclusion and started putting aside spots for poor non-whites (maybe even, gasp, Muslim immigrants!), the entire concept would become very unpopular very quickly.

Being a woman isn't a "special interest", now is it? If you discovered 70% of the people in congress had the same last name, wouldn't that seem a bit strange to you? Aren't you even a bit curious to know how it is that less than 30% of the people in office are women? Aren't women interested in politics?

I'm assuming you speak of america, when you say "...a lot of these women are coming from the same white wealthy backgrounds the current male politicians are coming from", because it doesn't work that way in many other countries. Social structures are much harder to get to. One way is communism, but it doesn't seem we humans are well equipped to deal with that.

Ultimately, I hope we could just forget about the race issue. But sure, I would like the entire population to be represented. Wouldn't you?

No, in my experience women aren't as interested in politics as men. Not just running for office, but even talking about politics. I don't know how much is cultural and how much is biological (a mixture I suspect) but it seems pretty clear cut.

You've yet to make a coherent or convincing argument why we should doctor the system in a way that only benefits one particular group, when there are many groups that are underrepresented. Frankly that strikes me as less fair than the current system.

nothing sounds more educated than "in my experience, this big diverse group of people are like this..."

barf-o-rama

"women aren't as interested in politics as men"

I think you're wrong, but I can't prove that.

I'm not here to convince you of anything, I'm simply conversing.
Our current system? What's that? Well, it seems it's a system that favors men, doesn't it? It seems it's a system that opresses minorities. I can't find anything fair about it, and, I'm sorry to say, I won't be the one solving this problem today.

In the United States virtually anyone born here can run for virtually any public office (certain age restrictions apply to some offices). Women can run for these offices -- we have what are called primary elections. Unfortunately, most people (male of female) don't vote in them. When no one participates, things fall apart.

Statistical information about which genders and ethnic groups run for which offices is readily available.

Yeah, but I believe it runs deeper than that. How come women won't run, or doesn't get elected? Why is male default? There is something wrong with the figures, and I won't buy it's because of lack of interrest from women. There is something stopping them.
I think we need female problem solving, as well as male, so when it comes to power I think we should really make an effort to even things out.

This is a serious question: who is 'we' ?

Just people in general. Like us. I could have said "they" too, but it would sound less like I meant it... :-)

I just think it's stupid to assume a system is working just fine, when figures show otherwise. It's a bit laissez faire, isn't it?

My problem with this whole discussion is the imprecision and unwarranted assumptions made about what each participant is saying. :)

I'm uncomfortable with any system that aims to 'regulate' self-determination. Can you explain exactly what it is that prevents American women from voting and/or running for office? The population is split almost evenly between genders. Both genders have the right to vote. So, why are we looking for outside mechanisms to 'fix' the imbalance of elected officials when the mechanism already exists. It's built into the existing political process.

Unfortunately, most people don't bother to vote. Most people don't bother to participate in local politics. But, most people feel entirely comfortable complaining about the outcome of their non-participation.

First of all, I'm not an american, so I don't know all there is to know about your political system. I know very few vote, and that's a problem of course, but it can hardly explain the lack of women (which was originally about Belgium, if I'm not mistaken).

I can't explain, that's the problem, and I don't think you can either. Politics is all about fixing things that won't run smoothly without intervention, don't you agree? I don't think the 'universal' right to vote has much to do with how the office is set up, since most people doesn't vote on individuals. You accept the list that has been made by the party, since it would be a fulltime job to investigate every last one of them. Politics is also a lot about bargains, and I do think women somehow are being excluded here. Men are default, and a woman is only chosen if there's any gain, if you know what I mean.

I'm not sure a "ratio-rule" is the way to go, and it's clearly hard to enforce, but what to do? If I would assume women aren't less into politics, aren't uneducated and has the ability to think abstractly, what's keeping them out? What can be made to get them in? I do not know. *I* just think it's a shame (that should have gone away a long time ago), and we can't consider women equal if most of the people in power are men.