Taking gender equality seriously

There is an immediate and correct way to ensure that females are better represented in our society, as premier-in-waiting Lawrence Gonzi urged in his meeting (on Tuesday) with the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality for Men and Women (NCPEM).

It lies in Dr Gonzi's own hands. He can propose and strive to persuade the Cabinet to nominate a lady for Parliament's approval to make her President once Professor Guido de Marco's term ends on April 3.

No matter who the nominee would be, provided she was worthy of the position by being a broad reflection of our society, it would be the decision that struck most. It remains a reality that gender equality is far from complete.

Equal pay for equal work, yes. Equal opportunity to enough ongoing jobs and appointments, not quite.

The name itself of the Commission that called on Dr Gonzi on Women's Day on Tuesday needs revising. It should project recognition that there remains inequality between males and females, necessitating positive action to promote gender equality, essentially by reducing such inequality until it ceases to exist.

Positive action whenever possible should bring that about, not enunciation of intent and setting up of more commissions. Question is, what sort of action?

Some give an early reply - positive discrimination. The MLP, at the behest of its leader, has implemented that mechanism. A given percentage of delegates elected to the party general conferences, which set policy and elect the party officials and leadership, have to be women.

Not everyone agrees with such a course of action. Lawrence Gonzi, for one.

He registered that in the clearest of terms in his comments on Tuesday to the NCPEMW (horrible acronym, that). Declaring he did not believe in quotas for women, he went on to assert he considered them "a certificate of failure". He justified his position with very weak logic: "We have to emphasise women's abilities first, before reserving posts for them..." he opined.

To establish gender quotas or to reserve posts for females may confirm an objective fault among the electorate, and those who make private and public appointments. Such measures, nevertheless, do not presume a premise that the abilities of females are not emphasised. Surely, women do so themselves without in any way falling guilty to immodesty

Nor does positive discrimination in favour of females take place independently of recognition of their abilities. It is exercised precisely because those who put it forward are aware of such abilities.

My own also against quotas for females, as set for the MLP general conferences. In such a context the appropriate approach, I feel, would be to persist in emphasising that the party, when it was revived in the early Forties, was a major dynamic for females not to continue to be denied the right to vote, of equal pay for equal work, of appointment on grounds of merit, not differentiating because of inherent factors such as gender.

A Labour government included the first female minister and went on to appoint a lady President of the Republic, as well as a female Speaker.

It smashed the thick ice of tradition, and, if today it has been equalled by the Nationalists in female representation in the House of Representatives, it too boasts three lady MPs who possess formidable qualities and abilities.

A party with such a heritage and human resources should not need formalistic quotas to bring about more equality of competition and representation. But then parties sail by their own wind and according to the design of their particular gods.

Also, democratic decisions do not necessarily attract universal concurrence.

Where the Malta Labour Party, on its part, has succumbed to logical inconsistency lies in the selection of candidates for the upcoming elections to the European Parliament in June.

The general conference goes by the party statute, which is its own creation through the fact that, whoever proposes - and that tends to be the national executive, though not invariably so - it is the general conference that ultimately decides.

It is its right to accept that candidates for a general election have to reach a 60 per cent delegates' approval threshold, but that those who wish to become members of the European Parliament must touch 70 per cent. It was also up to the general conference to give the required 70 per cent endorsement to four out of ten nominees, and not to include one woman among them.

Oddness developed when insistence from on high led to a proposal to seek the agreement of the annual general conference to raise the June candidates to eight.

Having moved so strongly to overturn/revise - for a valid reason - a hallowed decision by the general conference, it would not have been inappropriate to go on to propose a mechanism to select at least one female candidate, making the selection through an appropriate and transparent conference mechanism.

The lack of initiative to that end from the Labour leadership grows less easy to follow, given that the Labour leader immediately went on to promote and press for pre-noting female quotas outside the party structures to address the prevailing "deficit of female participation".

Politics in Malta can be a rather funny and intriguing game.

Politics and social development are all about change. That does not happen automatically to applause and shouts of Eureka! Ripening of need exerts pressure to change, but does not make a single apple fall on some famous Newtonian head to reveal a law of social and political gravity.

Change is induced and effected through action. Pope Paul John II has not been revolutionary with regard to the role of females in the Catholic Church. As a Reuters report put it in The Times on Tuesday, he has forcefully reaffirmed Catholic tradition on the role of women within the Church.

He has rejected the possibility of there being female Catholic priests. Pope John Paul II has even declared that the issue was definitely closed.

And yet the Pope has also moved somewhat with the times. The same Times report recorded, as did the international media, that he has appointed an American female law professor to chair the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

The Pope has also named the first female theologians as Vatican consultants. To date, noted Reuters, the main senior posts for women in the Church had been as heads of orders of nuns.

While that role remains important and demanding enough, the role of females in the Catholic Church is definitely changing and growing.

It has changed a lot in various sectors in Malta. Females occupy more visible and high posts in the private sector and the trade unions. By merit and to good effect.

In my professional capacity I sit on or consult for boards that include women directors whose width and depth of business acumen and vision is unsurpassable. I operate alongside female accountants, financial controllers and auditors who know their business to a T, plus some more. I have direct experience of female production and human resources mangers of the highest calibre.

And I sit across from female shop stewards who mingle an unwavering determination to serve the interest of their fellow union members with a sharp awareness of where the shifting line of common stakeholder interest lies. Some of the best journalists are females. Female pilots fly Air Malta planes in total gender equality in the cabin. Female police officers are on the increase.

In the broad public sector more women occupy high positions. And since 1996 under a Labour as well as a Nationalist government there have been a lady minister and two female parliamentary secretaries. Female lawyers proliferate. Several have become magistrates. And one, Ena Cremona, will soon serve on the European Court.

For all that, female participation has not grown nearly enough. That statement is not based on the relatively low female participation rate in the gainfully occupied population. In too many sectors there remains much more space to be filled with mixed appointments if the gender and skills structure of our society is to be adequately reflected.

The Council of Europe, for instance, to which Malta sends an all-male cast, has admonished us for it. The percentage of female MPs in our Parliament remains weak. Top jobs are filled by too few female figures.

As Dr Janet Mifsud agreed with Dr Gonzi on Women's Day, females should be appointed on merit, not because of quotas. And women who wished to and could contribute ought to have full opportunity to do so.

Malta would indeed lose out if it did not utilise the rich pool of female resources.

Gender sense is easy to declare. It is slightly more difficult to put it into practice. Which is why the presidency of the Republic offers an opportunity.

Who to nominate? Several names come to mind. If the choice is to be from the broader political spectrum, that is, looking beyond Cabinet experience, that of former Speaker Notary Miriam Spiteri Debono, who proved to be a worthy successor to Dr Gonzi in that position, stands out.

Considering her on her merits would coincide with the desire to recognise meaningfully the female profile, as well as to break out of the ancient partisan mould out of which came all our presidents (with the glittering exception of Sir Anthony Mamo), though each rose above their partisan past.

Can it come about? There is time. But, quite probably cynics and spinners would observe that there is talk that her own party may not give her a bye-election chance in the constituency where she has persevered for so long. Rumour buzzes that, should Joe Debono Grech be elected to the European Parliament in June, the MLP would exercise its right to co-opt, rather than let a bye-election take place.

Were that to happen and if it were not Dr Spiteri Debono who was co-opted, that would be one of the cruellest political scripts ever written.

Yet cynics and rumours have no place in my suggestion. It is based on one woman's merits and a coincidence with requirements of our times that could best show that our political class intends to start meaning what it says, and putting what it says to meaningful effect.

The Labour leader has said that the MLP would be making its own suggestions. These will probably look beyond the political field. One has to wait and see whether any woman will be indicated. While the initiative belongs to the government side it would be splendid if the political class can produce the maturity to nominate the president-to-be jointly.

If there were to be any possibility of that the political leaders would have to meet away from the glare of publicity and the temptation to manoeuvre and spin for partisan advantage. Is it possible? Surely. Likely? Not much. But then hope should spring eternal in the political breast as well.