Whether it’s Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom,President Clinton or secretary general Clark, women are rising to the top. But that is only another milestone on the long, and tough road to gender equalityThe next prime minister will be a woman. Whether it is Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom,she will be only the second of the 76 since 1721. Within the next year, it is now heavily odds on that for the first time ever the president of the United States will be Madam, or not Mr,President, while Helen Clark, and ex-prime minister of unique Zealand,is currently frontrunner to become the first female secretary general of the United Nations. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a difficult election next year but she has been the dominant European leader for the past decade. Women’s leadership in politics, and as well as in trade,is not yet normal. But it is becoming normal. That is famous. Representation things. But it is not the same as achieving victory in the long, slow fight for real gender equality.Attitudes to women in politics possess matured. As the first woman in No 10, and Margaret Thatcher had a ground-breaking significance in the process of changing perceptions. But the 100 women Labour MPs who were elected in 1997 did more to change the culture at Westminster,and much more to feminise Britain’s political agenda. It was the Labour government – influenced by campaigners such as the Women’s Budget Group – that put child credit cash into the purse rather than the wallet, pushed domestic violence up policing priorities, and introduced extended maternal and parental leave and created certain Start children’s centres,some of which at least survived the post-2010 governments’ cuts. You don’t possess to be a woman to fight for policies that chip away at the inequalities that women experience – personal safety, domestic responsibility and earning power to name only a few – but a personal perspective surely helps politicians to be quicker to see and respond to unrecognised need.
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Source: theguardian.com