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Not the answer!
Submitted by editor on Tue, 20/10/2009 - 16:21
All-women short lists would be A solution, but not THE solution, to the shortage of women in Parliament.
Although Parliament would look more representative of the nation, it could be less representative in fact because constituency parties would have a restricted choice of candidates. Moreover, voters would have no more choice than they do now. Voters have no real choice in most seats because they are safe. At present, one person (usually a man) is foisted on them however they vote. Under David Cameron's proposal today, they would still have one person foisted on them but it might be a woman.
STV would let voters chose everywhere from which parties and which sex they wanted their MPs to come.
unresponsive house
The reasons for the gender inequality in the House of Commons are at least partly historical rooted in a time when fewer women worked and sexism was more widespread than it is today. Part of the reason the House of Commons has not caught up with society is because the first past the post voting system is very unresponsive to changes in society. Safe seats are one reason the system is unresponsive but wasted votes don't help either.
First past the post may not have created all of the problems we now see with the House of Commons but it certainly makes them all more difficult to fix.