WOMEN LEADERS IN PARLIAMENT
Of course, this list is not exhaustive since the type of impediments varies from country to country. Let us face it: when the first women took their place in Parliament amongst their male colleagues, it was with the concurrence of some, if not all, of the men present.
In perusing the biographies of these parliamentary pioneers, a school of thought seems to emerge that these women asked for no quarter, no concessions, no consideration of their gender. They were just determined to prove, and did in fact prove, that they were as good as, if not better than, their male counterparts at running their countries. Indeed women leaders such as my own country’s Dame
Mary Eugenia Charles, Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, Golda Meir of Israel, Indira Gandhi of India and Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom come to mind. There is no doubt that these formidable women made their mark on the political landscape way beyond their own country so that other women all over the world who were secretly nurturing political ambitions began to feel brave enough to venture forward albeit tentatively at first. Women within political parties began claiming their right to be more than just foot soldiers.
Opportunities knock In the Caribbean in the 1970s, as in many countries all over the world,
women were now being given opportunities in education, business and in politics. The liberation process was taking off in earnest. The sound of shattering glass ceilings was sweet music to the ears of the stakeholders on what was then termed the women’s liberation movement. But the groundswell did not always translate into leadership roles for women.
A typical example is what we observed at the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies in Barbados in contrast with what was happening in judicial circles. Whereas in the 1960s , 1970s and up to the early 1980s very few women opted to study law, by the mid 1980s women were catching up and
The Parliamentarian | 2013: Issue Two | 115
The CWP Chairperson (second right) pictured with fellow delegates and resource persons at the meeting in New York.
© All Photographs John Oko Nyaku
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