According to Michaeli, if Netanyahu puts together a government of 61 mandates, it would include just 9 women - the lowest number of women in a Knesset in many years. Michaeli says this points to "the side of Netanyahu" rejecting the basic principle of gender equality. Michaeli claims that the Labor party is the only party in Knesset that has implemented equal representation of men and women.
This has been spoken about before but the Haredi parties have always found a way to avert it as they are staunchly opposed to including women on their party lists. Even if they would be granted some sort of religious exemption, such a law would help boost female representation among the other parties that already have women included but very few.
The big question, if no religious exemption would be granted, is how UTJ and would deal with such a law. appealing to the Supreme Court is obviously the main first step, but this question is supposing they do that and the Supreme Court upholds the requirement (which itself is not a sure thing).
I see three possibilities, and feel free to add your own, the funnier the better.
1. they comply and add women equally to the men on the list. Not likely to happen, but if forced to, perhaps
2. they comply and add women, but doing so by stacking the list with 60 men in the first 60 slots and then 60 women in the next 60 slots, to fill out the party list of 120 potential MKs. This would be cute, and for them this too would also be a precedent and a massive change, even though they are all in unrealistic spots. What would be even funnier is if the public were to massively vote for UTJ just to get some of the women in slots 60+ into Knesset as UTJ representatives.
3. half the men on the UTJ declare themselves as identifying as women. This could work, but I doubt UTJ would do that, even in jest.
I think it might be worth massively voting for Labor right now just to see what happens with this...
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Maybe let the voters decide for whom to vote? Kind of radical idea, I know.
ReplyDeletemost parties dont have primaries so the voter doesnt have a say in who gets to run. the voters only get to vote for a party and the situation with women candidates is a fait accompli they generally have no say in
DeleteThose who pull the strings over there are too sane for number 3 to even been raised in jest
ReplyDeleteCan the same be said about you guys?
maybe there is a reason that Labor and Meretz are barely passing the electoral threshold.
ReplyDeleteto be fair, Meretz and Labor are each one party running on its own. UTJ is two parties running together, so are comfy at about 7. If UTJ split and ran each as an individual party, as they almost did this time,, they would both probably not hit the threshold, and if they would it would be just barely, so in that regard there is not much of a difference.
Delete#3 is especially clever and funny. Thanks!
ReplyDeletePerversion usually is
DeleteThe best defense is laughter.
Delete