Harriet Harman’s Comments are an an affront to politics, not to men.

The media and the blogosphere have been wrrring and grrring over Harriet Harman’s call for new rules to ensure that both Labour’s Leader and Deputy Leader cannot both be men.

Harman’s whole approach to the question of Labour’s leadership is, in my opinion, completely wrong headed. I say this not because I am a white male with a spurious sense of victimhood, but rather because I am somebody who  believes passionately in politics.

In justifying her demand for new party rules Harman argued that “Men cannot be left to run things on their own”, and that “a balanced team of men and women makes better decisions”.  Though there may be some truth in these assertions, such arguments are more appropriate to a human resources department than to the question of who should lead a political party. In making personal characteristics, and ‘decision making capabilities’ central to the question of who should lead labour – even to the point of subverting the will of the party’s membership – Harman depoliticises a deeply political matter.

So far the terms of the debate seem to have gone pretty much unchallenged. Penny Red – half critiquing, half apologising for Harmans comments – appears to have bought into Harman’s managerial vision of politics. Though making some good political arguments for Harman’s proposals, she nonetheless argues that a gender balanced leadership promotes “productivity and efficiency” and quotes Yvonne Roberts in saying:

“The idea that the individuals running an organisation ought to reflect the market that the organisation is trying to serve is increasingly common practice (ie it generates profits) in the commercial world – so why is it deemed such a revolutionary concept in politics?”

Such a view presents politics as a business and political leaders as captains of industry. The problem of course is that the are completely different fields of human activity. In business it is, within reason, relatively self-evident what constitutes a positive outcome and what constitutes a negative outcome. In politics the answers to these questions are crucially dependent on one’s philosophical and ideological standpoint. Would it be ‘good idea’ to redistribute wealth? Would such redistribution be a good idea even if limited gdp growth by say 1%? You catch my drift. Consider whether you would rather have a very competent tory running the country or a somewhat less competent left-winger. I make no apology for choosing the latter.

Surely, for better of for worse, the political will of the membership should be the ultimate factor in determining who runs the Labour party. It would certainly be good if this lead to a socially representative leaderhip being elected, just as it would be good if the Labour party hadn’t elected people like Blair and Harman to lead it. Yet neither of these problems should be resolved by hemming in the membership with rules and regs.

If Harman thinks that a gender-balanced leadership is good for Labour then she should make that argument the next time these positions are up for election – probably 2010. Those who vote will have an opportunity both to judge these arguments and to consider the importance of a gender balanced leadership relative to other factors – i.e. which prospective leaders they agree with. Now obviously in many cases a ‘laissez fair’ approach is insufficient and affirmative action is necessary. Yet if my info is correct, two out of the three previous dep. leadership elections have been won by women.

Finally – and to digress just a little – Harriet Harman’s keen interest in ensuring that the leader or deputy leader of Labour is a woman is not entirely disconnected from her obsession with making sure that more women become executive directors and top city bankers. Taken together such initiatives smack of womens liberation by proxy. Such an approach implies that by reconfiguring the elite, that by  enabling a small number of  female managing directors to become female  CEOs, the other 30 million women in Britain will somehow be carried along. What we need is a truly democratic gender politics. Yet with tremndous arrogance, Harman – and her friends within society’s magic circle – equate their own opportunities for personal advancement with the fate of womankind.

To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net