Votes for women.

An interesting day today in Westminster.  We had two women stating the reason for them to be allowed to where they would like to be was because they were women.   

We had Ms Swinson with her increasingly shrill voice and, how shall we put it, impassioned face, demanding that because she is a woman she should be in the one TV debate that has been announced.  Listen to her outside St Stephens Entrance, that really was the order in which she set it.   Yes, almost as an afterthought she said it was because she was leading the only party committed to overturning the wishes of 17,410,742 people, that she should have equal footing.   

The other was Ms Harman who was seeking to be become Speaker in the House of Commons.  Her main reason for thinking she should assume the chair?  She is a woman and it is time that a woman should be in the chair.  Not that she is the best skilled and competent.  She’s a woman.  You can listen to her speach at 15:02 on the Parliament TV website.

So there we have it, we should not appoint people by the level of their ability but because they’re a woman.  Now, when giving people opportunity not because of their ability but because of the colour of a person’s skin in South Africa in the olden days, we called that apartheid.   

What should we call what Ms Swinson and Ms Harman are seeking to do?