In Quebec politicians are celebrating the 75th anniversary of (provincial) universal suffrage. As could have been expected, many women complain that "they" are not represented well enough because the Council of Ministers doesn't have "enough" women.

While this may be factually true, I have to ask: does it matter? Does a politician's sex really matter when it comes to respect constitutions, charters and laws that apply equally to everyone?

Just last year, one of the parties was headed by a woman - she was at the head of a minority government for 18 months - and many people believed she was defeated because of her sex. Many people had similar thoughts when a previous head of the same party, who was openly homosexual, lost the election. Couldn't it just be that they were simply terrible politicians with terrible policies?

It gets even uglier in the U.S. Since 2008, it seems that one can not critic the president without being labelled racist. While I have to recognize that there is racism in some of the critics - although he's only 50 percent black - most of them just criticize his terrible policies that have paralyzed the economy, shredded the constitution even more and increased the power of the state. Where is the anti-way crowd? Obama is just as much of an imperialist hawk as Bush.

And now, people believe "we" are ready for Hillary Clinton because we need a female president. What are her accomplishments, exactly? What has she done to uphold the constitution and protect our rights? Has she done anything productive in her life, excluding motherhood? If sex is to be a determinant for presidency, then I would much rather see Carla Fiorina - she has done something productive at Hewell Packard.

So. when it comes to politics, do you pay attention to arbitrary physical traits like sex, race or sexual orientation? If so (if not), why?

I generally dislike politics; it's really not something I know a lot about, or really care about. 

Though my opinion on this is that it's silly to say "we NEED a woman president", or that the reason someone lost was solely because of their sex, or orientation or whatever. Sure it could be because of discrimination, and I'm sure that does happen, but you can't blame everything on that. 


There's always two sides to the problem: the people who actually are racist/homophobic/sexist, and those who think that EVERYTHING has to do with discrimination. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

janus : Honestly we've gotten far enough in society where I don't think the gender of a candidate matters in most developed countries. Now it's a different story if you're talking about religious beliefs or sexual orientation. I think there are plenty of people who wouldn't vote for someone who is homosexual or an atheist simply because they distrust them based on that, I mean especially considering how there is a study that actually shows that atheists are more distrusted in than rapists under certain circumstances (in the us at least) and there are still people who think homosexuality is something that should be "cured". So to answer your question, yes many people probably wouldn't vote for a candidate simply because of that regardless of their policies.

Light Knight : I think that past discrimination is what makes "the necessity" for arbitrary characteristics all the more ridiculous. Do we need to catch up or something.

Also I believe the "truth" lies closer to people seeing discrimination everywhere. Jim Crow is long-gone and political discrimination is not what it used to be. Even some people are starting to question "positive" discrimination; hell some Canadian commentators are starting to regret Trudeau's multiculturalism as was shown with that fight to keep a woman form being veiled in a citizenship ceremony.

Zlinqx : I was asking for people's personal opinion. But you are right: people, for whatever reason, reject their fellow human beings for arbitrary reasons.

However, just like a publisher rejecting an author's book, I wouldn't consider it discrimination as long as it does not endanger a person's life. I personally am rather... careful around conservatives because I never know how they will react on certain points. But I don't outright hate them because of it or avoid them altogether, especially if I'm working with them.

janus : Forgot to mention that even though I thought I did but yeah I don't really care about what the personal beliefs of a politician is. As long as I agree with their policies I would vote for them.

Either way yeah, you can't really say it's discrimination. People have an opinion, you can't punish them for not voting for somebody even if that reason may seem stupid and has nothing to do with the actual policies of that party, that's just outright anti democratic. You'd be better of trying to show them why doing so is stupid then.

Zlinqx : Indeed, that's the only thing we can do in a democratic society - Ayn Rand puts it nicely in her non-fiction books. Free speech means you can say whatever you want, but it doesn't grant you a microphone or a printing press.

That's what I'm trying to do with Honey to change his opinions, with mitigated success

Personally I have never cared much about the sex of the candidate. We had parliament election here recently, I voted for a guy. A year a go we had elections for European union parliament and I voted for a woman. I have always voted for somebody who I think is best for the job. We have also had one female president and yes, I voted her too once though I voted for another woman first. (Here there are two rounds in presidential elections. If one candidate doesn't get more than 50% of the votes, round two is for the two candidates who got most of the votes.)

But hey, as a mankind we are men and women 50/50. So on some logic the people who represent us should be too, right? Why it doesn't go like that well... I suppose there are some theories we might think of...

Brigand : Let's be careful with wanting "absolute" representation of everyone. Don't forget that interest also has a lot to do with the jobs people occupy. There is always a push for female to go in "non traditional" jobs... but never for men, although I occasionally hear complaints that they don't go into teaching enough.

The same thing goes for politics. To quote a meme: 80 percent of women control the house's budget while about 30 percent of politicians are female. Free markets do a better job for women

janus :

Maybe this is a cultural thing or a language thing but to be honest, I have no idea what the heck you are talking about.

Brigand : You started talking about (but didn't seem to want) 50/50 representation in politics. I just said that it's a matter of choice nowadays because no citizen has any restriction (sex-wise at least) for whatever job they want.

janus :

Read my post again. I never said no such thing.

People don't know how to localize much more than a year old it seems.

"You don't like Obama, Oh, I see how racist you are."

It's embarrassing that adults would even say that. Race is the last thing on my mind when politics come up.

The only way ancestry would mean anything to me, is if I went about it this way:

1. I wanted to know more about how they were raised.

2. People of certain cultural ancestry are raised commonly in certain ways.

Stereotype are stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. I'm not going to let that dictate the truth for me, but they do give you a small possibility to start with.

janus :

Ya I pay attention to it. Not that it really determines who I support, but I'm not blind.

And women have, in Canada and the US, voted less than men, ran for office less than men, and voted for male candidates over female candidates. I simply think that good women politicians are rare. I'm sure there would be more if there wasn't pressure otherwise (which I don't deny exists) but I do think that it wouldn't add up to 50% of politicians would then be female.

Txgangsta: to me good politicians are rare, regardless of sex. However, I just look in Quebec and women like Pauline Marois (who headed the provincial separatist party last year) absolutely wrecked the province with their policies, probably more than any single male politicians. And I don't know if her sex has anything to do with it, but Kathleen Wynne in Ontario isn't doing a much better job.

Sword legion : They are partly right; the problem is generalization to EVERY critic of Obama.

And yes, how one is educated influence's one's opinions. But we're humans and therefore subject to change. Economists like Thomas SOlwell and Walter Williams(?) show that it's possible NOT to worship the God State