What if you think that, as a woman, she would understand your opinions on important issues better than a man would and so would do a better job representing you as a voter? Obviously it wouldn't be sufficient for her to be a woman (she would need to be a good candidate as well) but that strikes me as gender-based voting that isn't sexist. I personally prefer female doctors for that reason, too, because they have that bit of extra personal experience that a male doctor could never quite have.Eisenfaust said:sexism works the other way too... promote someone just because she's a woman, to get more women at higher levels, even if there's a more qualified man? sexist...
marvelling about the state of women as the governor general, the prime minister, and a handful of premiers of australia are women? not necessarily sexist, but not exactly doing much to eliminate the sexism... it shouldn't matter if they're women, so long as they can do the job... promote based on performance, not whether or not they dangle...
on the other hand, voting for someone BECAUSE they're a woman... sexist...
As for your point about not liking to count/track how many women are in positions of power: ignoring sexism (such as the gender imbalance in politics) really doesn't help eliminate it. I know people hate to have issues like sexism pointed out, but that's a much better strategy than sweeping it under the rug in a kind of half-assed "see no evil!" gambit. And it's more honest, too; plenty of those male politicians are there by the benefit of a little extra dangle, because even if we think we're being totally fair and equal we still vote with a lot of unconscious biases that favor male politicians. I certainly have unconscious biases, and I'm a raving feminist! (And if a staunch feminist occasionally stumbles over this stuff, surely you can't expect egalitarian voting behavior out of someone like Freechoice, who apparently just plain hates the sound of women's voices.