Nanny state meets the matriarchy

If the Coalition parties have a women problem, then the Greens, ALP, Independents, Jacqui Lambie Network, Australia's Voice, Centre Alliance, and the Country Liberal Party all have a man problem.

Perhaps Sussan Ley could have pointed this out to her inquisitors at the Press Club? If we are going to vote on the gender composition grounds of each party, then why would men, a minority, but close to 50% of the population, vote for anyone other than the Coalition?

And doesn't this lead inexorably to a draw? The left wants to avoid a culture war, so it says, but wouldn't this institutionalise a gender war with the victor being picked by a few "sex traitors" on either side?

But then, if sex composition is the determinative issue, women ought to bypass the ALP for the Greens, Teals and a slew of minor parties. They don't, for the simple reason that there are a lot of other considerations than sex.

If sex were the only consideration, then we could make a case that being female should be detrimental to a career in public office on the basis of the performance of those parties dominated by women.

Despite their female dominance, the Greens exhibit an ideological rigidity and policy recklessness that undermines the claim that more women necessarily leads to better governance.

The Teals are the most unbalanced by sex, and the most unbalanced. While campaigning for transparency and honesty in government they are a Trojan horse for commercial rent-seeking interests in the "renewables" industry.

Anthony Albanese and the ALP are the least competent federal government in memory. It seems a gender bias also manifests in milquetoast males and mediocre to disastrous leadership.

Of course, the people that advance these arguments based on sex don't really believe them. If they did, then 56% of the ALP ministry would be female. The actual figure is 55% boys in the total ministry - the inverse - although women do have a slight majority in the cabinet at 52%.

This seems a tacit admission that, based on the PM's HR decisions, the quota system has, on average, produced a less qualified type of female, despite the fact that he would leaning over backwards to put women in his ministry.

And why shouldn't we put a proper intersectionality lens on this? Last time I looked Aborigines were actually overrepresented in parliament, and from memory, they were more female than male.