Let Women Rule!
By Swanee Hunt in Foreign Affairs.
Women have made significant strides in most societies over the last century, but the trend line has not been straight. In recent interviews with hundreds of female leaders in over 30 countries, I have discovered that where women have taken leadership roles, it has been as social reformers and entrepreneurs, not as politicians or government officials. This is unfortunate, because the world needs women’s perspectives and particular talents in top positions. In 1998, Francis Fukuyama wrote in Foreign Affairs that women’s political leadership would bring about a more cooperative and less conflict-prone world (“Women and the Evolution of World Politics,” September/October 1998). That promise has yet to be fulfilled.
Granted, a few women are breaking through traditional barriers and becoming presidents, prime ministers, cabinet members, and legislators. But even as the media spotlight falls on the 11 female heads of government around the world, another significant fact goes unreported: most of the best and the brightest women eschew politics. Women are much more likely to wield influence from a nongovernmental organization (NGO) than from public office.
Women are still severely underrepresented in governments worldwide. A recent World Economic Forum report covering 115 countries notes that women have closed over 90 percent of the gender gap in education and in health but only 15 percent of it when it comes to political empowerment at the highest levels. Although 97 countries have some sort of gender quota system for government positions, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an organization that fosters exchange among parliaments, women fill only 17 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide and 14 percent of ministerial-level positions — and most of those are related to family, youth, the disabled, and the elderly. At NGOs, the story is very different: women are consistently overrepresented at the top levels.
To read the full published article go to Swanee Hunt, Let Women Rule!
Swanee Hunt’s mission is to achieve gender parity, especially as a means to end war and rebuild societies, as well as to alleviate poverty and other human suffering. She is the founding director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she also teaches “Inclusive Security”, exploring why women are systematically excluded from peace processes and the policy steps needed to rectify the problem. She has taught at Harvard College and lectured at the business school, law school, and elsewhere across the campus.
It has become such common stratagem for the urban radical feminists to use the rural women as proxies for their ill intentions. With half billion men and half billion women in our country, we can find whatever story we may seek. Using these corner case stories, the feministi are degrading entire country and culture as nothing but mysogynistic male perversion. How far from truth it is! I am appalled and annoyed with constant stream of negative stories about women’s status in India, particularly in international media. These unscrupulous feminists have no morals. They will sell anything, including themselves to chase the charity funds. For them women’s suffering is the trump card, a way to cushy lives and status. They will pounce on anyone questioning the truth of their assertions, like a cheeta guarding rotten carcasses. Shame on them!