I really like it that Tsipi Livni is presusumptively the next Israeli Prime Minister.
It’s not her politics that grab me, it’s that she’s my friend’s first cousin and she’s a woman.
Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, a former Mossad agent and an attorney, is not loved by everyone in Israel, which is to be expected.
But, what gives me goosebumps is the fact that her detractors don’t attack her for her gender but for her policies, precisely as it should be.
But, then again, the Israelis are old hands at gender eqiuty. Livni wouldn’t even be that county’s first woman prime minister. That honor went to Golda Meir way back in the 1970s.
Since there are and have been many women leading various nations, I guess Livni’s ascencion gives me such nachas, as they say in Yiddish, because I’m from the United States, where we’re a little behind the times when it comes to equal rights for women.
In case this is news to you as is was to me, there have been nearly 50 female heads of state in the 20th century. A list of women currently running countries include Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who is the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who is its president. Aun Sung Suu Kyi was elected Prime Minister of Myanmar but was not allowed to serve. Janet Jagan is President of Guyana, Sheikh Hasina Wasid is Prime Minister of Bangladesh and Jenny Shipley is Prime Minister of New Zealand. Jennifer Smith is Premier of Bermuda, Mary McAleese is President of Ireland and Ruth Dreifuss, whose family fled the Nazis in the 1940s, is President of Switzerland.
There have been others, too, includeing India’s Indira Gandhi and Isabel Martinez de Peron who was President of Argentina in the 1970s. Lidia Gueiler was President of Bolivia, Eugenia Charles was Prime Minister of Dominica and Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo was Prime Minister of Portugal. Also Corazon Aquino was President of the Philippines, Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister of Pakistan and Violeta Chamorro was President of Nicaragua. Khaleda Zia Rahman ran Bangladesh, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot presided over Haiti, Sylvie Kinigi was Burundi’s Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana was Prime Minister of Rwanda and Kahlifa ibn Sulman Al-Kahlifa was Prime Minister of Bahrain.
Taiwan, Guinea, Central African Republic, Slovenia, Tuvalu, Yugoslavia and Lithuania have all had women leaders — some more than once.
There was Golda Meir in Isreal, Margaret Thatcher in United Kingdom, Vigdis Finnbogadottir in Iceland and Maria Liberia-Peters in Netherland Antilles.
Mary Robinson ran Ireland in 1990, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland served several terms as Norway’s Prime Minister and Edith Cresson was Prime Minister of France in the 1990s.
A woman named Hanna Suchocka ran Poland in the 1990s, Tamsu Ciller was Prime Minister of Turkey, Patricia Busignani was Captain’s Regent of San Marino and Kim Campbell ran Canada, also in the 1990s.
Several women were appointed heads of governements as well, in places like Barbados, Grenada, Belize and New Zealand.
We’re just a little slow on the uptake here in some ways, I guess.
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