Is The World Ready For Another Woman Leader?
I have nothing against women leaders, but there appears to be a trend that exists among them all. We will take a look into the past and see what a woman in power has done. I will only focus on the 20th century to present (that’s from 1900 - present for all of the brain challenged people out there), not that Nefertiti and Cleopatra are any less important, but not here.
We will take a stroll back in time starting from the 1960’s where the first modern woman came to power. I am only going to talk about Presidents and Prime Ministers, those people who were elected and voted in. It gets into a whole new can of worms if we start talking about people like Imelda Marcos.
INDIRA GANDHI
We are starting in 1966 with Indira Gandhi. She ruled India from 1966 to 1977 and 1980 to 1984. Some Indians called her the “Respected Mother”, while others called her “Dumb Doll”. There were several agreements made during those early years. One was with Pakistan and the other was with Russia. This led to the youngest nation to have successfully detonated a nuclear bomb.
Things started looking good for Mrs. Gandhi and the country was moving forward. She was trying to feed the poor and keep things stable in India. Then the ugly old saying starts creeping in, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Things started taking a turn for the worse.
Being accused of leaning towards authoritarianism the first order of business was changing the Constitution. In 1975 the high court ruled her election invalid and she was removed from Parliament. She appealed, of course, and this caused large rallies and strikes from people who wanted her out. So what does she do?
STATE OF EMERGENCY from 1975 to 1977 which led to the arrest of her opposition leaders. Within a few months the entire country was under direct dictatorial rule from Delhi. During the 19 months of total rule the government arrested and tortured thousands and forcibly removed ghetto people from their homes. On rumors of a coup from the air force she was forced to hold elections in 1977 that she lost.
She was later arrested on charges that would not hold up in court. This gave her sympathy from people who thought of her as a tyrant. Things never really got back in order and this ended with her assassination in 1984 by two of her body guards.
GOLDA MIER
Next we move on to 1969 with Mrs. Mier where she served as prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She came out of retirement to take the job after the sudden death of Levi Eshkol. She started meeting with world leaders to promote peace for Israel and eventually agreed to withdraw to “secure and recognized boundaries”.
After the tragedy of the 1972 Olympics she sent the Mossad to kill the guys who took part in the massacre. You may remember the movie “Munich” which is loosely based on those events.
Next we have the Yom Kippur war that many thought Israel was not prepared for. Some say Israel’s confidence after defeating the Arabs was clouded and a little cocky. But, with the help of the US they won the war.
With her seemingly dislike for Arabs and Palestinians she is still loved by many. She once said about Palestinians “There are no Palestinians”. Not what I would want to hear from a world leader, but I don’t live in Israel.
Plagued by in-fighting and Israel’s lack of preparedness for the war she eventually resigned in 1974. She died in 1978.
MARGARET THATCHER
Being known as “The Iron Lady” she served as the UK’s Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. It is still an on-going debate if her policies helped or hurt the UK in those years. She seemed hell bent on doing things her way and not really listening to advice from advisors.
One of the first things she did was to increase interest rates on an already struggling economy. Value added tax was raised to 15% which caused short term inflation. Who benefitted from this increase? Not the manufacturing industry or small businesses. The UK saw an unemployment rate climb to over 2 million people and eventually hit 3.6 million.
Next she wanted less state intervention and started selling off state owned companies. Her cuts in higher education spending led Oxford University to not offer her an honorary degree. This degree has been given to every Prime Minister who attended Oxford in the past.
Then the highly popular “Poll Tax” was introduced. This would make everyone pay the same amount of tax. In 1989 the economy suffered its highest interest rates and she blamed someone else. Well, that’s not good enough so she started after the trade unions, which eventually destroyed the mining industry.
We can’t forget about the African controversy, the Brighton bombing (which was an assassination attempt) and her relationship with the Labor Party. These actions combined with her destruction of the economy, her views on homosexuality and tax rates, led to her being ousted in 1990.
VIGDIS FINNBOGADOTTIR
Who? Never heard of her myself until I started doing this. She was elected in 1980 and served until 1996 as Iceland’s head of state. This position and title is really only for show. She did not have any influence on Iceland’s policies; instead she spent her time promoting Iceland and its entire splendor.
This position differs from a Prime Minister or President, but she was an elected woman leader and had to be mentioned.
MARY EUGENIA CHARLES
The first and only woman elected as Prime Minister in the Dominica and held the position from 1980 to 1995. Her biggest stances were on anti-corruption and individual freedoms. She also supported the Grenada invasion and was seen with Reagan on TV.
Her colleagues called her a brilliant lawyer and savvy politician. She is known to support economic reforms, improve the lives of its citizens and keep Dominica as natural as possible. During her time in office there were no casinos, night clubs or duty free shops, because she wanted to preserve Dominica’s natural ecology and national identity.
BENAZIR BHUTTO
Elected two times as Pakistan’s Prime Minister after her party won the election, from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996. She became the youngest and first woman to be elected in a Muslim-majority country.
She started out with reforms to nationalize and modernize Pakistan. Many saw this as Westernization. Her government was abolished in 1990 on charges of corruption, but she was never tried. Her party won elections again in 1993, but more corruption charges were filed and in 1996 she was dismissed.
Do you see a pattern with her in office? During her campaign she promised reforms for woman, but none of these were ever fulfilled. The corruption charges have been her biggest issue, which includes money laundering, and her failure to fulfill any women’s rights policies.
With assets worth 740 million pounds, a 4 million pound mansion in England and a 2.5 million dollar house for her husband’s family (which had modest means before they married) in Normandy, it causes one to wonder.
If we take a trip to Switzerland, Poland, France and Western Asia, each of these countries have handed over documents about financial dealings with the Bhutto family. She was put in exile and only recently allowed to return to Pakistan where she was killed by a suicide bomber.
GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND
Norway Prime Minister from February to October 1981. That was her first stint as PM and she went on to rule again from 1986 to 1989 and from 1990 to 1996. Not much to talk about, this is Norway after all.
She is mostly known for the amount of women serving in cabinet positions (8 out of 18 were female) during her PM ship. She is also famous for her positions on public health, environment and development and was elected to the position of Director-general of the W.H.O. in 1998.
She didn’t cause many problems and seems to be an OK woman. Her only controversy was in 2002 where she received an operation and charged it to Norwegian public expenditures. Since she had changed residents to France she was not entitled to Norwegian social security and eventually decided to pay for the operation herself.
VIOLETA BARRIOS de CHAMORRO
Elected as Nicaraguan President from 1990 to 1997 and the second woman in the Northern Hemisphere to hold that spot. She is known for bringing peace to her country after 10 years of fighting. She also abolished mandatory military service, reduced the army by 75% and burned thousands of weapons.
Her policy, in office, was a program of national reconciliation, end the US-backed contra war and free the military from Sandinista control. It appears she did all of that and more. The major upset about her was the keeping of General Ortega as head of the military. He is a strong Sandinista supporter, the very outfit she defeated. Her government never had control of the military or police and that could have been a big issue.
Some of her own children spoke out against their mother and there are claims she is unprepared to be President. Her economic reforms seem to have been the focus of the opposition party. I wonder if they opposed the “Occupational Conversion Plan”. This plan reduced public employees from 75,000 to 50,000 and provided loans to help them start small businesses.
Anyway, finding information about her economic reforms has proven difficult. The piata law, which she tried to veto, was her biggest defeat and one that would leave her unable to reform Nicaragua’s economy.
She didn’t seem to do a bad job, but the lack of power and control made it difficult to get the job done.
MARY ROBINSON
Elected as President of Ireland in 1990 and served until 1997 with an approval rating of 93%, which is a spectacular number. She accomplished a lot during her term in office and was praised by Lenihan as “being a better President than he ever was”.
Her accomplishments included the decriminalizing of homosexuality and to liberalize the law on available contraceptives. She eventually went on to become the High Commissioner on Human Rights at the UN.
It appears that this woman is on another level of leadership.
MARY McALEESE
We are sticking with the Ireland theme and including their current President, whom was elected in 1997. Ireland must have a thing about women Presidents. Both of Ireland’s women Presidents seem to have remarkable careers and popularity.
Mary is not without some critics. One of which said she was “a tribal time bomb”. She has proven many people wrong and that is evident of her second Presidential victory that went unopposed. Again, Ireland has found a niche with woman Presidents and it seems to be working in their favor.
HELEN CLARK
The 37th Prime Minister of New Zealand and ranked the 38th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. She is calling for New Zealand to become a republic, which has her critics in an uproar. She is not the first person to suggest this and it seems New Zealand will be on the road to republic town.
Her changes to the welfare system, which included a child tax credit, and raised the minimum wage 6 times, have surely made her popular. No interest student loans and 14 days paid maternity leave are some other important factors in her popularity. With the economic growth of New Zealand and its stable government, I can see her staying around for many years.
TARJA KAARINA HALONEN
Last but not least we are off to Finland with this President serving her second term. She is not without her critics, most notably is her appointment of woman to high office over more qualified men. There is not much to say about Finland or its politics, but she is semi popular with her narrow victory.
Dubbed the “Conan O’Brian look alike” she may be on her last leg and will not win next time.
SUMMARY
That’s my take on women in power during my life time. It seems the smaller the country the better the woman President has been. Based on this small history lesson you will have to decide if America or the World is ready for a female President.