80% of men are work-centred
Men are dominant in the labour market, politics and other competitive activities, because they are prepared to prioritise their jobs over lifestyle choices. In consequence they are more likely to survive, and become high achievers.
20% of women are work-centred
Women remain a minority, despite their influx into higher education and professional and managerial occupations. Such women are focused on competitive activities in the public sphere, in careers, sport, politics, or the arts. Family life is fitted around their work, and many remain childless by choice, even when married. Qualifications and training are obtained as a career investment.
In order to be assured of good governance the gender make up of the Scottish Government should be 24 male and 6 female. It is 18 female and 12 male. The imbalance needs to be corrected.
caltonjock 
In a fair world, Scotland would have high quality politicians.
I don’t see any high quality ministers in the SNP cabinet.
The entire system needs redone. No longer a mini-westminster administered by the British civil service in Edinburgh.
Unaccountable mediocrities answerable only to Whitehall, lobbyists and donors.
The party list system compounds the existing problems within system.
No independent scrutiny, no revising chamber, no citizen input.
Remake Holyrood!
Take back OUR power over OUR parliament!
Then arise and become an Independent Democratic Republic!
😉
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Perhaps if every Independence-minded Scotswoman were to make the ‘lifestyle choice’ of an indefinite ‘strike’ from all unpaid or low paid caring and domestic work, until Independence, the country would be ungovernable and our collective aim achieved promptly.
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That is exactly the problem. Many young girls excl academically up to and including the higher level grade. Beyond that career opportunities are limited to shop, clerical, and low grade administration work and University places are scarce. Many young women enter into long term relationships too soon and start families. Careers are put on the back burner for many years since many woman are unwilling to sacrifice their time away from their children. Only a small percentage of woman make it to management level and remain competitive. Sturgeon increased the number of women in government from the smaller base I referred to before and many of them were promoted well beyond their experience and capabilities. The outcome was predictable. Incomptent governance on a massive scale. The financial performance of Sturgeon and Swinney’s goverment’s is woeful with many billions of £ being written off over the past decade. Membership of any government should be on merit not by gender quota.
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Except that first part isn’t true!
Women are in fact, in Scotland, the UK and throughout Europe FAILING to enter long-term relationships, waiting later than ever, and increasingly TOO late, to have children.
Then, are having too FEW children. In Scotland, for every 1,000 deaths, there are only 806 births. Our demographics are changing TWENTY-THREE TIMES faster than England’s as a result.
Of those young families we DO have, 40,000 working-age Scots move South to England every year, whild 70,000 English pensioners move North. Work that out over even one decade…
Women aren’t beginning a family until their mid or late thirties. The healthiest age for childbearing is throughout the twenties. Births to mothers over 35 are high-risk. Female fertility drops to 30% by age 30, relative to what it was at 18. Over 40 many will need fertility treatment to conceive at all.
To maintain a sustainable population, women must, on average have 2.1 children. That hasn’t been the case for 50 years, and is currently about 1.35 to 1.4. (Check these figures from National Records of Scotland).
Women are waiting later due to: buying into the career idea; lack of flexible working needed to do both; lack of maturity among men their age willing to commit including either sharing childcare or reliably standing by them so they can stay at home; wages and housing such that both parents NEED to work fulltime.
The whole Developed World is caught between biological differences between men and women which mean that yes, women often do instinctively want to commit time and energy to rearing their own children (remember, destructive personality disorders connect to emotional neglect before age 3-6). And that women physiologically have to have children quite young. While the economic system is basically a male-centred system, with a few ‘maternity leaves’ bolted on. Education and training continuing until 25 sometimes, where their grandparents’ ended a decade younger.
Yet simply telling women to drop out won’t work either. The financial system doesn’t pay a wage for child rearing. So women fall into poverty. Careers fall behind after the gap. Employment works in male, 24 hour cycles. Women’s bodies, energy, need for rest all work in 28 day cycles. Perimenopause and menopause, while trying to work fulltime, then cause another round of fighting your own body, burnout, chronic illness. Much of which is avoidable under different conditions.
Where you’re correct, is Sturgeon promoted for wrong reasons, quotas and groupies, not merit.
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Thank you for adding a female perspective to my reply. As ever my reasoning was influenced by my experiences and flawed male logic. Clearly Scotland faces a bleak future if the population drift of our young people to England and the reverse trend of England’s older people to Scotland remain negative factors. Attitudes need to change within society which encourage young women to start their families early, take time out to raise their children then pick up their careers again supported financially and in other aspects of employment, by the state for an extended period. In the absence of these measures thepopulation will continue to hemorrhage.
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Thanks. Regarding the selection from a smaller pool, I’ve seen both bad and good examples when people are selected from an underrepresented category.
The bad examples, as you say, are when a quota is simply to be filled, standards are lowered and competition non-existent.
The good examples, are when the very forces which make the category underrepresented in the first place have eliminated all but the best and most committed before you start.
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