As Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was being sworn in as Africa’s first woman president in Liberia last week, another lady Michelle Bachelet was being declared president in far away Chile in South America. She has pledged to make half her cabinet women.
In Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel boosted her approval ratings in her first two months in office, climbing to first place in a list of top politicians, as confidence in the economy grew, while in Finland Tarja Halonen was rewarded for “her common touch and promise to preserve the welfare state.“ Finns voted recently to give Halonen her second term as the country’s first woman president.
Winds of welcome change are sweeping across political capitals as more and more members of the “gentler sex“ compete with men in the rough and tumble of the political world.
Although Sirleaf, Bachelet, Merkel and Halonen are not the first ones to have the honor of occupying the highest seats of power, the fact remains women are increasingly beginning to nudge out men from their political seats.
Move over lads, the ladies are here!!
Women succeeded in assuming top official posts, including presidency and premiership, for the first time after the end of the Second World War. Indeed, reaching the political heights through a democratic process of election has not always been an easy task.
If the opposition pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi were released from house arrest and free elections held in Myanmar, one can bet on the last kyat that she would be voted the country’s leader. And if the exiled Benazir Bhutto, who became the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country in 1988, were allowed to return to Pakistan, she is quite certain to make a political comeback.
If Sonia Gandhi had so desired she could have been India’s prime minister, but perhaps the fact that she was of foreign genealogy pricked her conscience and she prudently made way for a person of Indian origin.
The head of government in Bangladesh, over the past decade and a half has almost always alternated between two leading women (prime ministers)--Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Begum Khaleda Zia.
The latter is in power since October 2001, while the former sits in the opposition waiting to sweep in when her time comes.
In the Philippines, incumbent Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been prominently in power for two terms.
In Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri ruled from 1999-2004 as president. In Sri Lanka, Srimavo Bhadaranaike became the first woman in the world to become prime minister in 1959. She dominated Sri Lankan politics till 2000 when ill health forced her to retire. Her daughter Chandrika Kumaratunga who was president for 11 years from 1994 stepped down last year after leaving behind a legacy of a powerful executive presidency.
The late Indira Gandhi of India, also one of the earliest women prime ministers, was seen as an extraordinary “statesman“ and exceptionally skilled in politics, just as iron lady Margaret Thatcher of Britain, who brought her Conservative Party to the pinnacle of power during her 11 years in office from 1979. In Britain, the conservative royalty too is contributing to women’s political development. The septuagenarian Queen Elizabeth II is reluctant to relinquish the throne and is hanging on tight to the royal reins while son Prince Charles has long entered the prime of his life. In the modern era, the queen will not make a royal sacrifice, even for her male heir.
Men have ascended the imperial throne for centuries in Japan. But maintaining “the purity of the imperial Y chromosome“ may soon have to be amended to make way for the “royal X chromosome,“ given the “male crisis“ facing the Chrysanthemum Throne. It is said that as neither of the present emperor’s two sons is likely to produce a male heir, a government panel had recommended that the American-imposed Imperial Household law of 1947 be revised “to allow a female line“ to one of the world’s oldest hereditary monarchies.
In China, where women are reportedly classified with ethnic minorities and intellectuals and groups for whom quotas have been established for lower-level positions, the appointment of Wu Yi in 2003 as vice-president was a significant development and unprecedented move by the male-dominated Communist Party.
Mary Robinson was president of Ireland for seven years before she served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 1997 for five years.
In 1981, Gro Harlem Bruntland of Norway, a physician and scientist became the world’s youngest woman prime minister at the age of 41. On two other occasions also, between 1986 and 1996, she served as head of government. Later, she was appointed director-general of the WHO.
Ironically, the United States of America, which often claims to be the world’s greatest democracy, has yet to produce a female chief executive. Despite two centuries and a quarter of independence, no woman has occupied the Oval Office.
Incidentally, in one of the exquisite corridors of Capitol Hill, in Washington D.C., lies a huge marble block on which three figurines of the earliest female political pioneers of America have been sculpted. The fourth and last place remains uncarved to this day, reserved for the first woman president of the US. The day may come when a Hillary Clinton or Condi Rice might become elevated to that status. Or may not....
As more and more women storm the citadels of political power in global capitals and world bodies, dominated since time immemorial by men, the latter should start pondering over what is causing this tectonic shift in the political plates.
Many might agree that women politicians are bringing along with them a whiff of clean air, common sense and honesty to the corrupted world of power politics. As a rule, women are seen as being more sincere, dedicated and conscientious. They don’t flex their muscles like egoistic male politicians who like to rule by the “Might is Right“ slogan. Perhaps with more women leaders, the world might become a little more peaceful since their priorities usually are healthcare, education and social welfare rather than arms and the alcohol industry.