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Harriet Harman's suggestion that men were to blame for the banking crisis – and much else – finds little sympathy with Claire Fox. I may be betraying the sisterhood, but I do wish [Labour's deputy leader] Harriet Harman would shut up. Her latest pseudo-feminist musings blame male bankers for the world financial crash. She told TV's GMTV that ‘if it had been Lehmann Sisters instead of Lehmann Brothers, there might not have been so much difficulty'. If anything is likely to confirm the sexist caricature of the airhead with no head for business, it's when the country's most powerful female politician tries to explain away the global economic crisis on gender differences, and blame a far-reaching, complex, systemic meltdown as the fault of boys and their testosterone. Ms Harman, who is also leader of the House of Commons, complained that, although ‘women make up half the workforce of insurance companies and banks', not enough are given a say on in the top positions, on boards, as CEOs. This debate has a resonance for those who run the public sector, as figures reveal women are under-represented in senior positions in the sector. Only 29.3% of local authority councillors in England are women, and of these, only 15.7% are leaders and 20.1% deputy leaders. Only one of the country's directly-elected mayors is a woman. Earlier this year, a Cabinet Office report concluded that public sector management profiles remained ‘stale, pale and male'. But let's not be disingenuous here. Long gone are the days when women were institutionally discriminated against in the political or employment spheres. If anything, all the political parties are practically begging women to sign up as candidates. In the workplace, while explicit quota systems are not in place, the opportunities for women to break through glass ceilings in the public sector are plentiful. So, why might women eschew the local government sphere? When she was communities secretary, Hazel Blears explained this gender gap by arguing that many women were ‘put off by the structure and culture of local democracy'. But before council leaders and chief executives start tampering with culture and structure, perhaps a truer understanding might be that women are put off by a political elite which comprise role models such as Ms ‘resign on the eve of the election' Blears. Where are the towering political figures of principle or ideals likely to inspire bright young things of either sex? Anyway, how much of an ambition is it to try and encourage a new generation of women to enter mainstream politics, just when it has never been more discredited or hollowed out? Offering young women the chance to seize power in local government is a pretty feeble deal at just the moment when councils themselves complain of lacking real power and independence? Instead of arguing for the relative equality for women to equally participate in mediocre and toothless institutions, maybe we should concentrate on qualitatively improving these institutions for all. More insidious is the essentialism which underlies this debate. By claiming that women would do a better job of running either banks or political institutions, Ms Harman stresses their difference from men, rather than an aspiration for social equality. And what are these differences? While explicit biological determinism is not fashionable, far too much is made of innate qualities. Commentators commending Ms Harman's approach have noted that women are naturally less aggressive and arrogant, less gung-ho when it comes to risk-taking, more emotionally literate, more collaborative, less greedy, more caring and careful. These new, feminised values sound suspiciously like the very wifely values traditionally attributed to women as an excuse for excluding them from ‘the man's world'. It is exactly the prejudice that categorised certain employment as women's jobs – such as nursing, and primary school teaching – were said to be suited to their essentially- nurturing temperaments. More broadly, do we really want to make a virtue of passivity, humility, self-denial, low aspirations, lack of ambition and risk-aversion for anyone, let alone women? Is gender really of such import when it comes to politics? The last time Sister Harman indulged in a diatribe about banking, it was to sanctimoniously attack [disgraced ex-Royal Bank of Scotland boss] Fred Goodwin's pension. She punitively declared that his contract ‘might be enforceable in a court of law, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion, and that is where the Government steps in'. Was the equalities minister's total disregard for employment contracts and contempt for the rule of law motivated by her gender or New Labour opportunism and populist banker-bashing? Was she threatening Sir Fred as a woman, or as a senior minister exhibiting this government's casual, persistent and bullying interference in spheres beyond its jurisdiction? The answer – sisters – has to be – it's the politics stupid. Claire Fox is director of the Institute of Ideas

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Could sisters do it all better?

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