Gender Balanced Legislative Assemblies
and
Mixed Territorial Representation
Importance: High
Return on Societal Investment: Very High
Cost: Virtually no government operational management increases expected. However, in some societies some adaptation will be required to reach the work-family equilibrium.
Ease of implementation: Very easy
Applicability: Cities, Countries, States, Provinces, etc.
Change resistance: Will vary from society to society
Cause of resistance: Wanting to vote for the best person. Its impact on political parties. Afraid that it will lead to creating quotas for minorities, etc.
Introduction
Whichever city, state, province or nation you live on our global village, the population will always be composed1 of 50% women and 50% men, give or take a few decimal points.
Although it is difficult to establish precisely, it is still safe to say that 50% of all the various social tensions, frictions and conflicts present in a society comes from the fact that women have individual, social and societal needs that are different from the needs of men because of the anatomical differences between a female body and a male body.
Viewed separately, the impact the male body has on a man is drastically different than the impact the female body has on a woman. The healthy body of a man does not affect his daily activities while the healthy body of a woman does affect her daily activities.
Furthermore, the female body imposes a role on women that the male body does not impose on men. This imposition has even a higher impact on her daily activities and increases her individual, social and societal needs.
Viewed socially, the physical strength of both bodies being different, many women around the world are trapped in situations that they do not want to be in and can’t get out increasing again their individual, social and societal needs.
While it is true that men and women have different anatomical needs and abilities, at the societal level women and men are equally capable of contributing to the development of a balanced society each bringing their own knowledge and experience has to how these differences affect them.
However, in many cultures around the world, societal conventions (arbitrarily imposed by those who wield anatomical power, i.e. men) have resulted in women being artificially underrepresented, or completely absent in political and economic power structures.
Unbalanced Gender Legislative Assembly
Unfortunately, although women are the ones that suffer greatly from these anatomical differences, they are underrepresented in the vast majority of the legislative assemblies around the world, if not all.
Hence, to create and maintained balanced societies, legislative assemblies should have the same number of men and women around the table where the decisions are made. The Societalogy Institute2 named this practice: Gender Balanced Legislative Assemblies.
Having the same number of men and women around the table will reduce the various gender base social tensions, frictions and conflicts.
First it would increase the level of knowledge and expertise available on women’s issues. Programs, laws and regulations would be more complete and would have a better impact on women per se but also societies as a whole.
Second, No decisions would be imposed on a group because they are underrepresented .
Third, The overall issues affection women would receive the same time as issues brought up by men.
These Gender Balanced Legislative Assemblies should be implemented in every society including those where women have made some gains. Gains can be swept aside instantly or gradually, since the present electoral processes do not guarantee that the gains will be there after the next election.
Why not race? Age? Sexual orientation?
To understand why this practice does not include race, age or sexual orientation, please view this page.
Presenting the Mixed Territorial Representation Voting System
To achieve a gender balance in our legislative assemblies the Societalogy Institute2 has designed the Mixed Territorial Representation voting system (MTR).
The Mixed Territorial Representation is only a minor change for electors. However because MTR rectifies a design flaw in our democratic process that affects one of the two majority genders, the outcome will have a major impact in reducing, solving or managing the various social tensions, frictions and conflicts that arise from the incompatibility of gender needs, be they individual, social or collective.
The MTR will achieve this by assuring that the electoral outcomes will always produce a parity between the two majority genders, thus reducing to the minimum the possibility of discrimination based on an under-representation of a majority gender in our legislative assemblies.
The MTR Explained
The Mixed Territorial Representation creates a possibility for electors to vote for one man and one woman (Dual Electoral Representation) and reduces by half the number of electoral districts (Twinning and merging electoral territories) so that the cost of managing our legislative assemblies does not increase.
Dual Electoral Representation
For the voters the Mixed Territorial Representation voting system (MTR) does not change anything except for the fact that they vote for two representatives.
Dual representation is an electoral process where electors choose the best man and choose the best woman that will represent them at their local, state or national legislative assembly.
Voting for two representatives is thus a minor change as all electors have to do is to vote for one extra representative. However, this small change assures that the legislative assembly is composed of an equal number of men and women which has a major impact on preventing discrimination as well as increase the quality and depth of the decisions.
Electors are free to vote for one man and one woman since the voting system is intended this way, but a voter could decide to use half is right and only vote for a man or only vote for a woman.
Twinning and merging electoral territories
In order not to double the operational co
sts brought forward by the fact that electors are now represented by one man and one woman, electoral territories are twinned and merged, thus reducing the number of electoral districts by half, while keeping the same number of representatives.
For example, a city could have 18 districts represented by only one representative for a total of 18 representatives before the implementation of the MTR but at the end, there would be 9 districts where electors would be represented by one man and one woman for a total of 18 representatives. (See below for three examples.)
What if scenarios
If you want to see what if scenarios for local, provincial and national legislative assembly, please follow this link.
To learn or implement the practices
To participate in the dialogue on the strength and weaknesses of this approach or on how we can implement it, follow this link. ((Coming soon)
1 – The real ratio is about 49.25% give or take a few decimal points for each sex because there is around 1.5% of the population that has either: both sexes, two penises or two uteri.
2 – From the research of Denis Pageau