The reason why we want more women in parliament and in cabinet is nothing whatever to do with the rights of women; it's to do with the rights of us all to have proper government. If Woman's voice is not heard at the Highest Councils in the land we all suffer.

I think this is a hugely important point deserving of wider application. I want more women in my mathematical workplace, and it's worth asking on what basis. And it's not beco's there-not-being-enuff-women-in-university-mathematics violates rights of women; which women? All women? Or the women who could make it there but for some reason don't? I don't think that's the point at all. One banal point is that workplaces with a gender balance are more fun, but surely more to the point is that if we exclude women then we are perforce restricting ourselves to a smaller pool of talent, and then we are all worse off. Isn't that enuff of an argument?

I think this is incredibly important. It means one can mount an independent case for many of the demands of the feminists, a case that doesn't make any appeal to talk about rights, and it—arguably—goes to the heart of the real reason why we agree with them.

I am very wary of rights-talk, for at least two reasons. One is that it's very hard to make it rigorous; (exactly whose rights are being violated when something we don't like is happening?—see above) and another is that i associate rights-talk with some nasty right-wing agendas, often coming from You-Know-Where.

Return to Thomas Forster's home page