Look, if you’re feeling self-satisfied because you preselected on merit, and not using quotas, try this simple method of checking the success of your merit-based processes.
First, check your assumptions. Have you assumed women have as much merit as men? If no, perhaps revisit your assumptions.
If you assume that women have as much merit as men, then that implies that if your preselections were conducted according to merit exclusively, around half the people preselected would be women.
That would hold true both for the total number of seats, and for the number of seats you’re likely to win.
If you accept that women are as meritorious as men, yet your analysis shows preselection of women in a significantly lower proportion than 50% of seats, and 50% of winnable seats, that implies that merit was not the exclusive basis for selection.
Perhaps there were additional considerations?
Incumbency might have been a consideration. Incumbency is distinct from merit, but of course they are not mutually exclusive.
If incumbency is a factor in preselections, whether explicitly or not, you’re already not preselecting on merit alone.
If incumbency is a factor in preselections, whether explicitly or not, you’re already not preselecting on merit alone.
Perhaps there are other factors influencing preselection outcomes, in addition to merit and incumbency.
One way to control for those other non-merit factors, to help preselection outcomes genuinely start to reflect merit, would be to say that equal representation is an indicator of merit selection, not something that undermines merit selection.
Looked at in this way, quotas would operate to promote merit.
And with quotas in place, it is remarkable how infrequently they have to actually be used. Once set, benchmarks tend to start being met, especially if there are consequences for falling short.
It is amazing how many women of merit can be found to stand against each other in preselections, once benchmarking, via quotas, is in place.
