PMO claims revolution with 2/3 women on Channel 2 board
Swid, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein and others have pushed for greater representation of women in public offices.
By YONAH JEREMY BOBWoman talks on the phone (Illustrative photo)(photo credit: INGIMAGE / ASAP)
The Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women announced late Wednesday that it had won what it called a revolution in women’s representation on public bodies, with the approval of a new board for Channel 2, twothirds of whose members will be women.The approval came after the authority’s director, Vered Swid, wrote a letter campaigning on the issue to another government official with influence over the appointments who had been considering a smaller number of women on the board. The authority functions in the Prime Minister’s Office.Swid, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein and others have pushed for greater representation of women in public offices, reflecting relevant recent laws and policies on the issue.But on this particular issue, Swid made the push herself.The official she wrote to, retired judge Shalom Brenner, chairman of the Authority for Reviewing Appointments for Government Companies, had previously written to Communications Minister Gilad Erdan to block some of the appointments, saying that it was unfair that such a large majority of the board would be women at the male candidates’ expense.Swid’s counter-letter gave two reasons to maintain the appointments.First, she pointed out that the vast majority of the viable candidates who had passed the vetting process were women, meaning that a large-majority female board merely reflected the qualified candidate pool.Next, she explained that her goal is not merely token representation of women at the various levels of public service, but eventually having women in the highest offices, including possibly IDF chief of staff or Israel Police inspector-general, as well as women in equal or sometimes majority numbers in public service.Her view is that without at least some public bodies being majority women, there is no other way to “fix the historical injustice” and the inertia of the present holding back women’s equality.Brenner, at least in this case, accepted her arguments, dropped his objections, and a board with a two-thirds majority of women was approved for supervising Channel 2.
