{"id":731,"date":"2019-05-06T22:14:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/?p=731"},"modified":"2021-07-27T16:34:11","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T06:34:11","slug":"men-improved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/men-improved\/","title":{"rendered":"Men, Improved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[First published in Quadrant Online as Gender Quotas, Merit and Faux Equality<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the outbreak of #metoo hashtagging in the Federal\nparliamentary Liberal Party, Peta Credlin (among others) has been promoting targets<\/em> for Liberal women in\nParliament.  Simultaneously, she decries quotas<\/em> as promoted by, for example, the\nLabor Party.  Women, she says, don\u2019t want\na handicapping system for men; women want to win entirely on their own merits;\nwomen don\u2019t want to walk into the party room aware that there were better\ncandidates whose shoes they are not quite filling; etc, etc, etc.  Women who are like Peta only want to get into\nParliament by their own honest and honourable efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the difference between a quota<\/em> and a target<\/em>? A\ntarget has a handbrake.  That\u2019s it.  The rationale of each is identical.  It starts with the  unchallengeable premiss: the country must\nhave equal numbers of women in the Federal Parliament (and just about\neverywhere else, to boot.)  A target is\ndesigned to achieve the same result, but more slowly, and with a little bit of\nwiggle room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the aim is the same, what\u2019s the logic of claiming that\ntargets are better?  Your guess is as\ngood as this one of mine.  A quota forces\nthe pace, and the women who are injected into Parliament suffer all of the\ndetriments to self-esteem that Ms Credlin has sketched out (although they seem\nto manage it bravely.)  A target, on the\nother hand, can be accompanied by a development program, which will bolster the\nskills, the confidence, and the network of the participating women.  By the time the target dates roll around,\nthey won\u2019t be needed, because the women will be competing on an equal footing\nwith the men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know whether the thinking about targets actually\nascends to the level of some such theory \u2013 any such theory \u2013 but looming behind\nthis<\/em> theory is an out-of-focus vision\nof the restored state of nature, with the elimination of all the handicaps that\nhave been clamped onto women like so many electronic ankle bracelets to confine\nthem to house arrest.  In that wonderful\nday to come, women will realise their full potential and compete, unimpeded and\nuninhibited, with men.  And if restored\nwomanhood finds that its natural level is to have greater representation than men,\nwell, let the lines fall in such pleasant places.  It\u2019s Rousseau in a pantsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether elaborated or fuzzy, conscious or unconscious, a\nsemi-androgynous utopianism underlies all thinking about \u201cequality\u201d: that women\nhave all of the aptitudes, interests and drive of men, alongside what might\nonce have been called \u201cfeminine\u201d traits. \nWomen lack nothing useful to men in the pursuit of careers, but they\nsoften the edges of aggression and \nmerciless competition, preferring a certain group consensus which, far\nfrom inhibiting, actually enhances the success of their enterprises.  Women are just men, improved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the femmunist parousia, when every tear is wiped away\nfrom every woman\u2019s eye, and women occupy at least half of the positions in\nevery career in every field, who will be responsible for the manufacture of new\nhumans?  How will these new humans be\nfed, watered and sheltered?  How will\nthey be raised to become ideological clones of their perfect mothers; each\nperfectly un-straight, perfectly un-white-privileged, and, for the boys at\nleast, perfectly non-toxically un-male?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a ridiculous notion, and everybody knows it\u2019s a\nridiculous notion, yet no-one dares to connect the dots.  While the species remains viable, women will never<\/em> be equally represented in the\nworkforce, thanks be to God.  All of the\nhigh-profile women who agitate for \u201cequality\u201d understand this biological and\nmathematical inequality.  What, then, are\nthey agitating for?  Far from being a cry\nfor equality, their demand is for systematic, legislated inequality<\/em>, of which they are the beneficiaries.  For if, among those who pursue their careers\nwith uninterrupted vigour, the ratio of men to women is, say, four to one, then\nthe demand for equal representation at each level of management amounts to a\ndemand that women be privileged<\/em> for\npromotion in the ratio of four to one. \nFour times as many men as women will compete for every job, yet every\nsecond job must be given to a woman. \n\nYou\nmay argue about the ratio, but short of the abandonment of the very notion of\nraising a family, it will never be one to one. \nFemmunism, like its grotesque progenitor, will remain Orwellian.  War is\nPeace, Freedom is Slavery, Inequality is Equality<\/em>.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[First published in Quadrant Online as Gender Quotas, Merit and Faux Equality.] Since the outbreak of #metoo hashtagging in the Federal parliamentary Liberal Party, Peta Credlin (among others) has been promoting targets for Liberal women in Parliament.  Simultaneously, she decries quotas as promoted by, for example, the Labor Party.  Women, she says, don\u2019t want a … Continue reading “Men, Improved”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,57,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-quadrant","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-bN","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/men-are-mortal%ef%bb%bf\/","url_meta":{"origin":731,"position":0},"title":"Men Are Mortal\ufeff","author":"admin","date":"Mon 6th May '19","format":false,"excerpt":"[First published in Quadrant Online as \u2018Slut-Shamed\u2019 Victimhood\u2019s Loose Logic] Men are mortal. ScoMo is a man. Therefore, ScoMo is mortal. Is there anything wrong with this argument?\u00a0 A stickler for logical forms would insist that the first premiss should be All men are mortal.\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 But if you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1005,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2021\/04\/the-urgent-need-for-quotas\/","url_meta":{"origin":731,"position":1},"title":"The Urgent Need For Quotas","author":"admin","date":"Wed 7th Apr '21","format":false,"excerpt":"Published at Catallaxy Files on 30\/03\/2021 I was always opposed to the idea of quotas for women in Parliament. I operated under the delusion, not so much that selection on merit was a better idea, but that selection on merit could actually occur. Given the selection processes for the major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catallaxy Files"","block_context":{"text":"Catallaxy Files","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/publications\/catallaxy-files\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1236,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/09\/secret-womens-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":731,"position":2},"title":"Secret Women’s Business","author":"Me","date":"Tue 3rd Sep '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published in Quadrant as Secret Western Women's Business on 29\/08\/2024 (now behind a paywall.) The article does not include the Victorian education graphs, but does include many mother and child art works. Back in March, Janet Albrechtsen wrote a subversive article in The Australian, as is her wont. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Feminimalism"","block_context":{"text":"Feminimalism","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/feminimalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Male-and-female-students-reading.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Male-and-female-students-reading.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Male-and-female-students-reading.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Male-and-female-students-reading.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Male-and-female-students-reading.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":855,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2020\/03\/the-burden-of-proof-and-the-pell-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":731,"position":3},"title":"The Burden of Proof and the Pell Case","author":"admin","date":"Sat 7th Mar '20","format":false,"excerpt":"[Originally published by Quadrant Online on 30th December 2019. Published in Quadrant Magazine March 2020.] The conviction of the guilty is just; it is the unremarkable business of a just criminal jurisprudence; but the conviction of the innocent strikes at the heart of Justice. If it happens through error or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/belief\/faith\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":733,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/video-secrets\/","url_meta":{"origin":731,"position":4},"title":"Video Secrets","author":"admin","date":"Tue 7th May '19","format":false,"excerpt":"[An edited version of this article was published in Quadrant Online as Bile! 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Two related private member\u2019s bills are currently before the Queensland Parliament. 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