SOME THINGS ARE BETTER THAN BEFORE! WHY/HOW?—YOU CONSIDER! -- Part I

Societies change. Then people change. Roles/statuses change!

Nelson Mandela—Imprisoned for 27 years; former President of South Africa: Nobel Peace prize recipient; recently removed from the USA “terrorist” list! (HR 5690)

Women gain official leadership—Many women in diverse nations and all continents have gained official leadership positions. Lynda Lovejoy, first woman candidate for presidency of the Navaho Nation, Arizona. Nilda Garre, attorney, named as first woman Minister of Defense, Argentina. Julia Gillard, first woman Prime Minister in Australia. Michelle Bachelet, first woman President of Chile. Haya Rashed al-Khalifa, Bahraini attorney, elected President of the UN General Assembly. Angela Merkel became the first woman Chancellor of Germany. Four women were candidates to the Kuwaiti parliament. for the first time women were allowed to vote. A woman serves as acting President, since the fleeing of the prior President of Kyrgyzstan. Cristina Fernanda de Kirchner serves as President of Argentina, after her husband. Dora Lakoyannis, former mayor of Athens, is the first woman appointed as Foreign Minister for Greece. Liberian President is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Portia Simpson Miller has been the first woman Foreign Minister for Jamaica. Dalia Grybauskaite was elected last year as Lithuanian’s first woman President. Helen Clark was recently the first woman Prime Minister of New Zealand; Megawati Silarmoputro is President of Indonesia. Gloria Macapagal Arrove is President of the Philippines (though not the first one). In Rwanda now women hold 48 percent of the legislative seats: a woman heads the Supreme Court, and; half of the judges and college students are women. Joyce Bamford-Addo, retired Supreme Court Justice, was unanimously elected Speaker of Ghana’s parliament. Yulia Tumoshenko almost won the Presidency of Ukraine (2006) in a contested result, having been former Prime Minister and was instrumental in the “Orange Revolution.” Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate, joined protesters in declining to vote in the Iran 2004 elections, as a human rights lawyer. In 2002 hundreds of Nigerian women took control over four Chevron-Texaco oil facilities in the Delta. Amnesty International gave its highest honor in 2009 to Myanmar’s long-detained democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi—Ambassador of Conscience Award—in Dublin before 80,000 cheering supporters at a concert. Laura Chinchilla was recently elected President of Costa Rica.

Of course, there have been Golda Meir (Israel), Indira Gandhi (India), Margaret Thatcher (Britain) and other women prime leaders since World War II. The roles of women make them less prone to violence in most societies and are perhaps more often sensitive to human life. However, Indira Gandhi, Thatcher, and Meir were well able to conduct wars (Kashmir, Falkland Islands, or Palestine). So, we cannot assume that women leaders may be stronger leaders for peace.

As “democracy” arises, more women are joining the political process. But, the USA is “way behind” many other nations. Ranked for women’s involvement in legislatures and government, the USA is 61^st. Rwanda was first, followed by Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark. Iraq (with new “national assembly”—not yet very functional) was 15^th. In Saudi Arabia women can’t vote or hold office. We in the USA came close in 2008 to electing a woman President, and in 2010, close in Minnesota to electing its first woman governor. We have had three women USA Secretaries of State in a row, and now a woman is our Ambassador to the United Nations. We have 17 women in the Senate where we have no “quotas” in Congress for proportionate roles for women. With confirmation of Elena Kagan, on August 5, 2010, as a Justice of the US Supreme Court, this brings the total to three women Court judges, the first in US history. (Still not Half the Sky!)

A few variations—

Danica Patrick became in 2008 the first woman winner in Indy Car history, Japan 300.

Ada Yonath became the 2009 Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry.

Elinor Ostrom in 2009 became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Economics.

Sharon Lubinski, last year became the first openly gay US marshal, former police officer in Minneapolis.