Gender quotas are a smokescreen that hold women back - Roberta Metsola

Gender quotas are merely a smokescreen which fail to tackle the core problem behind poor female representation in Malta, Roberta Metsola said.

The Nationalist Party MEP said that quotas would be a form of regression, which end up holding women back and create barriers for them in the future.

“Gender quotas simply paper over the cracks, give a false sense of security and do nothing to tackle the underlying problem with female representation in Malta and Gozo,” Metsola said, at a Women’s Day event at Verdala Palace on Friday.

While there has been much discussion about gender quotas in politics and in decision-making positions, the notion of having such measures in place does not further the cause of women’s representation, she emphasised.

“The danger is that they’re used as a smokescreen and that they hide the underlying issue. They do nothing to create a real level playing field”, she highlighted.

Metsola went on to call for a fundamental change in culture and in society’s way of thinking about womens' roles, which would include a significantly greater push from political parties for females to come forth as candidates, and for the private sector to put more effort into giving them the same chances

“What we need is a real paradigm shift in thinking and in culture. We need political parties to do more, much more, to encourage female candidates put themselves forward, and we need companies to do more to ensure women are given all the same opportunities. But our representatives in politics and in the boardroom must be chosen on the basis of votes and merit, not gender,” she underlined, “We cannot and should not escape from that principle.”

“Only then can we all be able to see, what should be self-evident, that a woman’s place is truly wherever she wants it to be,” Metsola added.