Quote:
Originally Posted by driveway
It's not about advocating, it's about hearing the voice. Based on the different experiences that people of different races and genders have due to the way our society is structured, they are likely to have different opinions or viewpoints than the majority.
Providing opportunity for those voices to be heard is the goal, not 'advocating' for solutions to specific 'issues.'
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Then we're agreed that it's nothing like the representation by region that cabinets have traditionally been built around.
As for how our society is structured, for decades now the liberal project has involved breaking down those structures, not reinforcing them, to the point where Canadians in 2015 live in a society where they are less constrained by traditional roles and prejudices than virtually any society in the history of our species. Surely it's worthwhile to examine and recognize how me made such remarkable progress. And such an examination will conclude that it was by de-emphasizing gender and racial identities, not by institutionalizing them.
I reject the notion that there is substantial differences between the life experiences of citizens based on gender and race alone. Our representatives in parliament are for the most part drawn from the wealthiest and best-educated 10-20 per cent of Canadians. Affluence and education blur differences. An affluent and educated white women, an affluent and educated Asian man, and an affluent and educated white man have had very similar life experiences. These three people are much more alike in experience and outlook than any of them is like a Canadian (of any race or gender) who earns less than $30,000 and is a manual laborer.
That is a meaningful difference in life experience.
I think in concrete, utilitarian terms. In order for me to see the value in this, someone will have to fill in the blanks in this sentence. "In a parliament with more [gender/race] in it, we'll see more legislation that aims to [increase/decrease] the incidence of [issue]."
If Trudeau wants to employ gender parity to address an imbalance that is having a measurable and worsening effect on Canadians, then he needs to look no further than his former field of teaching, where it can't have escaped his notice that less than a third of his colleagues were male, where boys are doing worse than girls at every stage, and where those gaps are widening. Or he could address the disastrous and disproportionate effect the collapse of marriage as an institution has had on the poor and uneducated.