An all-female cabinet?

[New Carthagea]

As long as they were best qualified for the job I wouldn’t care all that much

This.

[Albionist Great Britain]

An all-woman cabinet wouldn’t be any better than one staffed solely by men. It wouldn’t be any advancement for women’s rights, in my opinion, if anything it’ll only be a way for corpo-backed politicians to score style points with the spineless people who think such ideas are worth anything.

[Alternamerica]

An all-woman cabinet wouldn’t be any better than one staffed solely by men. It wouldn’t be any advancement for women’s rights, in my opinion, if anything it’ll only be a way for corpo-backed politicians to score style points with the spineless people who think such ideas are worth anything.

[Cues Boomer Feminists thinking Thatcher was good for Britain's working class]

[Cekoviu]

that'd be pretty based
wouldn't mind a full matriarchy either ngl

[Disgraces]

I don't see how that would help women's rights

[Major-Tom]

I prefer cabinets made of hardwood, really.

I...fuck off!

Anyways, if the females in the cabinet are all more qualified than the male options, sure, or perhaps if it's an all-female nation such as the Amazonian Planet in Futurama, sure. But, in the end, politicians creating their teams should strive for qualifications over quotas, while still recognizing the importance of a diverse cabinet/team to represent their constituents.

[Nuroblav]

I prefer cabinets made of hardwood, really.

So long as the hardwood's qualified, of course

[FutureAmerica]

A cabinet should always be based on the best qualified and not on race, sex or cronyism.

[Libertalonia]

how qualified are they?
If they are qualified then hooray, We have a pretty good cabinet.

[Page]

A cabinet should always be based on the best qualified and not on race, sex or cronyism.

It's often based on the first two and always based on the third.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

A cabinet should always be based on the best qualified and not on race, sex or cronyism.

Or wealth.

[Chan Island]

Qualified, intelligent and displaying values comparable to my own? I'll cheer. If not, no. Same as with an all-male one or mixed one.

[Cetacea]

Nothing would get done, there would be nothing but petty power dynamics, indecisiveness, bullying, sobbing and cat fights

[Nobel Hobos 2]

The idea that the leader/PM is necessarily the "most qualified" or even "best" person in parliament, flies in the face of the fact they get to be leader by climbing the slippery pole and shitting on everyone beneath them. Having the opportunity now to appoint a cabinet, it's the least he/she could do to make amends by appointing according to talent (not qualifications, those only ever come later, to the talented who also get opportunity). Deliberately avoiding the obvious choice of those they most trust: those will not be representative of the whole party caucus, nor the most talented, nor even necessarily the most experienced. They'll be the leader's henchmen, and seen as such, and from the backbench will be heard nothing but the sharpening of knives.

Explicitly discounting experience or qualifications, removes the sexist bias of past years (ie, the time in which that experience was gained by some but not others, men more than women). Some bias must remain I think: you can't appoint to the most difficult positions like Treasurer, someone with talent but insufficient experience, and nor will qualifications substitute for experience. Putting a fresh faced Economics graduate in charge of Treasury is a ludicrously awful idea, whether it's a man or a woman.

So that's my basic position that I'm prepared to defend. Choose by perceived talent not proven talent (success in the past) and the male/female ratio in your Cabinet should approximate that of your party caucus. Inexperienced members (who will largely be women) will have to start in minor cabinet positions where "learning on the job" won't endanger your whole government.

Ideally I would like to see cabinets with the gender balance of the voters: equal, or leaning slightly female. But trying to achieve that when the pool of talent available (the elected party caucus) is dominated by men, would surely involve giving cabinet positions to some women who are neither talented nor experienced in government. Not that I'm bothered that is unfair to men in the caucus: it's politics and if they expect to get treated fairly they walked into the wrong sideshow tent. No, my concern is that picking people with neither talent nor experience is likely to be disastrous for the party, losing them government.

Parties wanting to some day have gender-balanced cabinets (including in the importance each position) without making bad selection decisions, need to take steps now to make their elected caucus look more like the voters who elect them. Racial balance too, that shouldn't be too hard to do at the same time. For a real challenge, parties could try putting up more working-class candidates and fewer lawyers ...

[Dumb Ideologies]

With no insult meant to any of the respondents on the thread, I can see ideology at work here leading to some peculiar responses.

Generally speaking, we can acknowledge that where there are no women at all in positions of power this speaks to some degree of a problem of social bias; even those who argue that there are statistical differences in men and women's capabilities for different things generally accept that there are overlapping curves and exceptional cases.

Why then are we so keen to respond that it would be fine if the cabinet were all women so long as they just happened to be the most competent? First of all, a democratic system in no way leads to the election of the most competent people from each area of life, lawyers for example are massively over represented compared to other types of professionals. But even within the pool that is available you've got to get quite a large number of people to fill a cabinet. It would be statistically very improbable for all the best people among them to be women so why are so many of us highlighting that very marginal case rather than pointing out that generally it would not be fine because available talent (in short supply!) is presumably being excluded? It seems odd that the replies are often "fine so long as they're the best" rather than "this is very likely to be excluding talent" - the two aren't necessarily contradictory statements but the former makes it sound much more likely that the best candidates are women than does the latter.

It seems to speak of a mentality where the advancement of women even past men is seen as an example of "equal opportunity" because it's overcorrecting for historic privileges for which today's men have little direct responsibility. Outside of internet hypotheticals, you see similar logic in real life with people rejoicing that girls are doing notably better than boys in most areas of education, rather than going "hang on, we never to improve boys education there is a gender bias at work here", as well as more generally in the dismissive attitude towards the very possibility of there being any "men's issues".

[Feline Goetland]

Consider the following scenario.
The president/prime minister of the country you live in (real life country) has appointed a all-female cabinet. What would be your opinion on this matter? Would it be unfair to do this, or a great advancement of women's rights?

My opinion

I think that the cabinet should strive for a male-female balance rather than an all=female cabinet.

I don’t support a all-female cabinet. However I believe the highest nominal leadership should be exclusively female to prevent megalomaniac men from doing something crazy just to prove that they are alpha. Furthermore cults of personality are less likely with female nominal leaders.

For example we can have constitutional monarchies where queen regnants always exist to prevent sociopathic men from attempting to claim to be executive president. Similarly we can have parliamentary systems where the presidency is exclusively female and the lady will represent the country without having much power.

P.S. Maybe it is even better for the executive leader to be a non-human animal?

[Solvokina]

Bloody stupid idea, only the most qualified in a cabinet/senate/parliament

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Bloody stupid idea, only the most qualified in a cabinet/senate/parliament

Were you thinking PhD's to run for office?

[New Carthagea]

An all-woman cabinet wouldn’t be any better than one staffed solely by men. It wouldn’t be any advancement for women’s rights, in my opinion, if anything it’ll only be a way for corpo-backed politicians to score style points with the spineless people who think such ideas are worth anything.

This.

[Nuroblav]

Were you thinking PhD's to run for office?

Technocracy here we come

[Solvokina]

Bloody stupid idea, only the most qualified in a cabinet/senate/parliament

Were you thinking PhD's to run for office?

Of course

[Trsmk2]

nice
An all-female cabinet?
yes！
Young、beautiful、dynamic young woman！
Who doesn't love？

Of course, a beauty pageant winner would be even better

[Feline Goetland]

I do think certain powerful positions such as Minister/Secretary of the Interior need to be kept female to prevent dictatorship. The defense minister / secretary should be female unless there is actually a major war. Most importantly the executive leadership needs to be female.

This can cut down on a lot of the abuses.

[Linkers Sha]

If the females officials are good at their position then fine if they are literally trash at their position then well i protest until they are removed or if not get removed by the people and replaced with a better one either peacefully or violently

[Neanderthaland]