Alan Duncan is wrong about ‘token women’

It takes a courageous individual to brave the threats to their person that public utterances on gender seem to attract these days. Undeterred, Alan Duncan is among them. (This is a man who once made a citizen’s arrest after protestors flung paint bombs at the Tory Party chair, after all). Last week the international development minister reportedly cautioned the prime minister against promoting ‘token women’ in his next cabinet reshuffle.

Duncan rests his argument, in part, on his experiences as the Conservative Party’s first openly gay MP, telling the Financial Times: ‘I never wanted to be a token gay and now things have progressed so there is no need for it. Nobody should want to be a token woman; it should all be based on merit.’ Setting aside the claim that gay people enjoy the same free and unfettered opportunities as straight ones, Duncan is wrong to liken his experiences as a gay man seeking advancement in British politics to those of women doing likewise.