On March 17

On this day in ...
... 1969 (40 years ago today), a native of Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire, who had already served as Minister of Labour and Foreign Minister, Golda Meir, was elected Prime Minister of Israel. Meir (far right) held the position till 1974, and remains the only woman so to serve, although the outgoing Foreign Minister and Kadima Party leader at center right, Tzipi Livni, would like to become the 2d.
... 1959 (50 years ago today), amid an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet, the Dalai Lama escaped the capital city Lhasa along with 20 others. Their whereabouts would remain unknown for the more than 2 weeks it took them to traverse the Himalayas (below left) and seek refuge in India. (photo credit) The New York Times reported that just last Tuesday the Dalai Lama, now 73 and still in exile a half-century after the failed uprising,

delivered one of his harshest attacks on the Chinese government in recent times ... saying that the Chinese Communist Party had transformed Tibet into a 'hell on earth' and that the Chinese authorities regarded Tibetans as 'criminals deserving to be put to death.'
'Today, the religion, culture, language and identity, which successive generations of Tibetans have considered more precious than their lives, are nearing extinction.'

(Prior March 17 posts are here and here.)

On May 3

On this day in ...
... 1898 (110 years ago today), Golda Mabovitch was born in Kiev, in what was then the Russian Empire and is now Ukraine. She immigrated to the United States in 1906, joining her father, a carpenter, who had made the move 3 years earlier. She lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, until 1921, when she, her husband, and her sister went to Palestine, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. After the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the woman eventually known as Golda Meir (the last name means "illuminate") entered governmental service. Among the offices she held: Member of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, 1st Israeli Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Israel's 1st woman Foreign Minister (the only other woman, Tzipi Livni, now holds the post), and, from 1969 to 1974, Israel's only woman Prime Minister. Meir (above left) died from cancer in Jerusalem in 1978.
... 1808 (200 years ago today), near Príncipe Pío hill in Madrid, troops loyal to an appointee of France's Napoleon, who'd entered Spain and deposed the king the year before, summarily executed Spaniards who'd staged an uprising the day before. The painter Francisco Goya depicted the moment in the painting at right, entitled Los Fusilamientos del 3 de Mayo, or The Shootings of May 3rd. It was commissioned in 1814, to encourage Spaniards to resist "the forces of Napoleon."

Does sex matter?

'Way back on February 12 Chris Brummer asked at blackprof.com (our newest "connections" link) "Is there such a thing as an 'African-American' foreign policy position?" News this week prompts a question in the same vein:
Is there such a thing as a 'woman's' policy position?
Arguments in the affirmative are well known. There's Carole Gilligan's A Different Voice, as well as the widespread though less erudite sense that women are better listeners, more caring, more nurturing. The notion seems consistent with the "Refugee Roulette" findings that, as Lakshmi Bai wrote, women immigration judges granted asylum 44% more often than men. And yet a look at individual women who've led their countries reveals many counterexamples -- "Iron Ladies" like Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, who, for good or ill, pursued policies as tough as those of any tough man.
Swanee Hunt (right) has answer to this enigma. A former U.S. ambassador to Austria now at the Kennedy School, Hunt urges readers of the May/June Foreign Affairs to "Let Women Rule." Though contending that women do govern differently, her essay acknowledges the "'masculinity'" of some past women leaders. What's needed to "change norms," Hunt argues, is a cohort, a "critical mass of female leaders" -- "approximately 30 percent of officeholders have to be female to for a significant effect to be felt on policy."
Surely there's comfort in numbers. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg admits to being "'lonely'" since Sandra Day O'Connor retired last year, and Ginsburg's oral dissents in cases that've cut back on women's rights underscore the new singularity of her voice.
But will reaching 30% make policy different? What do you think?