On March 29

On this day in ...
... 1993, Catherine Callbeck (left) became the 1st woman in Canada to lead a political party to general election victory, when the Liberal Party of Prince Edward Island, which she'd led since becoming the province's Premier that January, won in provincial balloting. Born in the same province in 1939, Callbeck had taught business school before being elected a legislator in 1974. Battles with public employees would make Callbeck's premiership an unpopular one, and she would resign in 1996. She's been a member of Canada's Senate since 1997.

(Prior March 29 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On January 19

On this day in ...
... 1966 (45 years ago today), the daughter of India's 1st prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, became the 1st woman to serve as Prime Minister of India. She was 48-year-old Indira Gandhi, whom the ruling Congress Party had "chosen at the end of a bitter leadership battle." Gandhi promised to

'strive to create what my father used to call a climate of peace.'

Yet as we've posted, her tenure -- from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1980 to 1984 -- would be marred by the violent struggle that led to the founding of Bangladesh, to conviction on corruption charges followed by a national state of emergency, to the storming of a temple held by Sikh militants, and finally to her assassination by her own Sikh bodyguards.


(Prior January 19 posts are here, here, and here.)

On December 20

On this day in ...
... 1924, Judy LaMarsh was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. She served in the Canadian Women's Army Corps during World War II, earned her law degree from Osgoode Hall at the University of Toronto, and joined her father's law practice at Niagara Falls. In 1960 she was elected to Canada's House of Commons. Eventually she became the 2d woman to serve as a Cabinet Minister. "[C]ontroversial," LaMarsh was Minister of Health and Welfare when a national pension plan was introduced. LaMarsh set up the country's Royal Commission on the Status of Women, on which we've posted. In 1967, while Secretary of State, she presided over Canada's Centennial celebrations. (credit for portrait of Secretary LaMarsh in maple-leaf-festooned gown she wore during the Centennial year) After retiring from politics, she wrote Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (1969). LaMarsh died of cancer in 1980, at age 55.


(Prior December 20 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question? (Laughter.) (Applause.)
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not. (Applause.)

-- Interview with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday, at KTR Studio (above) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Full transcript and photo credit here.

Newest woman head of state

Brazilians have just elected their 1st woman President.
An economist and former Cabinet minister, Dilma Rousseff (right), won a runoff election by a margin of 55.2% to 44.8%.
Key to the political newcomer's victory, according to Reuters: the endorsement of outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, known as "Lula," coupled with a promise to continue Lula's

policies that have lifted millions from poverty and made Brazil one of the world's hottest economies.

Rousseff replaces Slovakian Prime Minister Iveta Radičová as the newest woman national leader; as posted, in July Radičová seized that mantle from Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

(Not) facing the nation

IntLawGrrls formed in 2007 partly out of concern about the narrow range of what passes for wide-ranging public discourse.

Examples:

►A congressional hearing on the question of what to do about Guantánamo featured a panel purportedly representing the spectrum of answers. A photo in the next day's paper told a different story. Every witness had once worked in the U.S. Executive Branch and lived on the East Coast. All but one were of European ancestry, and only one could lay claim to any expertise in human rights law. None was a woman. (The picture in mind appeared in late 2006, if memory serves. But it's replicated weekly on Capitol Hill. (credit for 2009 photo of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iran))

►Op-ed pages of major newspapers feature men in proportions far greater than that of men among the U.S. population. This phenomenon spluttered onto news pages in 2005, when the University of Southern California law professor at right, Susan Estrich, complained, and an op-ed editor pushed back. Disparity in the sex of cybercommentators, then and now, appears even greater.

IntLawGrrls endeavors to help change things, by: offering a virtual-world space for commentary by women; pointing out women's accomplishments through items like our expert series; and improving real-world public discourse through events like our "Women and International Criminal Law" roundtable to be held this October 29.

Now comes a new study charting that in the world of Sunday morning talk shows -- reputedly a world to which official Washington pays close attention -- disproportions are, well, off the chart.

The evidence is presented forcefully in "Guess Who Won't Be Coming to the Studio: An Unknown Congress," published in the Summer 2010 edition of the law journal Green Bag. The author is Alex B. Mitchell (left), a 3d-year law student at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia.

Mitchell analyzed who appeared as guests in 2008-2009 on CBS' "Face the Nation," NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," "Fox News Sunday," and CNN's "State of the Union." All his findings are well worth pondering with regard to representation not only on talk shows but also in the halls of Congress. Here're his key bottom lines:

► Minorities: More than a third of Americans -- 36.9% of the population -- belong to this category. Among them, of course, is President Barack Obama. Yet their representation in Congress is less than half the overall number -- 14.6%. And their representation on the talk shows? A near-infinitesimal 2.5%.

► Women: More than half of Americans -- 50.8% of the population -- are female. Among them, of course, are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, women who stand 3d and 5th, respectively, in the line of presidential succession. Yet women's representation in Congress is less than a third the overall number -- 16.9%. And women's representation on the talk shows? 13.5%, two-thirds smaller than their representation among all Americans.

Further skewing matters are a few other facts that Mitchell unearthed.

At a time when 58.6% of all members of Congress were Democrats (credit for 2008 photo of "freshmen" members of Congress), 49.8% of all talk-show guests were Republicans. Whereas Senators made up fewer than 20% of the Congress, more than 80% of all talk-show guests came from that upper chamber. And though fewer than 10% of all members of Congress fit into the category that Mitchell defined as "white, male U.S. Senators in office 6+ years," more than 60% of all talk-show guests fit in this category.

Bottom line on this set of facts:

► During the period studied, only 1 woman ranked among the top 10 repeat Congressional guests on these shows. Today's puzzler: Can you name her? (Answer below.)

The implications of Mitchell's research could fill volumes. Mitchell put it succinctly:

Explanations aside, the empirical effect of predominantly interviewing one demographic ... is that the wealth of diversity of ideas that make up our nation is stifled.

'Nuff said.

Appearance puzzler answered

Answer to today's puzzler, tucked into our lead story on the underrepresentation of minorities and women among persons invited to speak on Sunday morning talk shows:
The only woman among the top 10 Congressional repeat guests is Dianne Feinstein (right) of California.
Feinstein shares many characteristics with the others on the list -- and with the vast majority of all guests on these reputedly important television programs, as the study by Alex B. Mitchell, described in the above post, details. (credit for 2008 photo of Feinstein appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation")
Feinstein is a U.S. Senator rather than a Representative. She is white, and she has held office since 1992, well over the 6-year point that Mitchell uses to mark seniority. A few characteristics set her apart, however: she is a Democrat, and a woman.

On September 21

On this day in ...
... 1955 (55 years ago today), Gladys Teresa Notario Cortaza (left) was born. (photo credit) She earned university degrees in business administration. In 1985, during the 35-year dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner, she was a clandestine founder of the Partido Humanista Paraguayo. She ran for a seat in the legislature on the party's ticket in 1989, a month after Stroessner was forced out of office. Then, in 2003, she became the 1st woman to run for President of Paraguay. Notario garnered fewer than 1,200 votes -- 0.08% of all ballots cast.

(Prior September 21 posts are here, here, and here.)

On August 12

On this day in ...
... 30 B.C. (2,040 years ago today), the last head of the Ptolemaic dynasty that had ruled Egypt for the previous 2 decades, 30-something Cleopatra VII, died. Tradition -- reinforced by Shakespeare -- holds that she committed suicide by placing an asp to her breast. Recent research, however, suggests that she died from poison. Popular culture holds that her distress over the death of Roman lover Mark Anthony drove her to this measure -- but this BBC account suggests added, political reasons for her demise. (prior post) The site says of Cleopatra:

Whether she was as beautiful as was claimed, she was a highly intelligent woman and an astute politician, who brought prosperity and peace to a country that was bankrupt and split by civil war.

(Prior August 12 posts are here, here, and here.)

Slovakia's new leader

Slovakia's the newest country to be led by a woman, following yesterday's swearing-in of Iveta Radičová (left) as Prime Minister. Radičová's the 1st woman to hold that position in Slovakia, which joined the United Nations in 1993 following an amicable split with the Czech Republic.

Radičová, born 53 years ago in Bratislava, served as Minister for Labor, Social Affairs and Family from 2005 to 2006. She leads a 4-party center-right coalition, which takes over from the previous center-left government.

She seizes the mantle of newest woman leader from Julia Gillard, who, as posted, became Australia's PM last month.

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

She genuinely sees her party as a vehicle for good and her pragmatism is not the least bit cynical. She is the most powerful woman in the country, the most fearless person on Capitol Hill and on track to be one of the most productive speakers in history.

-- New York Times columnist Gail Collins, extolling achievements of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Pelosi, a Baltimore-born San Francisco Democrat, became Speaker in January 2007, the 1st woman ever to hold that congressional leadership position. (credit for 2009 photo)

Gender equality & the G-20bis

This year's official photo from the G-20 summit, held this past weekend in Toronto, Canada, looks pretty much like last year's from London, England: there's German Chancellor Angela Merkel in orange, Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in white, and standing 2 rows behind her, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, till tomorrow the President of the Philippines. Et alia. Another G-20 country now also has a woman leader, but Julia Gillard, Prime Minister only since Friday, sent Australia's Treasurer, Wayne Swan (top middle).

Newest woman head of government

About 3 hours ago Julia Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister of Australia, the 1st woman to hold that position. "Gillard was greeted with a kiss by her partner Tim Mathieson as she entered the room for the swearing-in." She took the oath from the country's 1st woman Governor-General, Quentin Bryce.
Gillard (left) had been Deputy Prime Minister since 2007 (prior IntLawGrrls post). On September 29, 1961, she was born into a working-class family in Wales. The family immigrated when she was 4. Gillard earned her law degree from the University of Melbourne, and practiced law before becoming Chief of Staff to the opposition leader in Parliament in 1995. Three years later, she herself was elected, and has served in Parliament ever since. (credit for photo by Rebecca Hallas)
Gillard's selection Wednesday as the new Prime Minister brought tears to the eyes of her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, who lost a struggle to retain leadership of the Labor Party to which both belong. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that "Mr Rudd had decided to fight to the death after refusing to step aside last night for Ms Gillard."
A partial list of women heads of government or state to which Gillard now belongs:

Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Doris Leuthard of Switzerland, Pratibha Patil of India, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and Kyrgyzstan's interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva.

Can you name others?

On April 26

On this day in ...
... 1922, Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé (left) was born in Prud'homme, Saskatchewan, Canada. After attending university in Ottawa and Paris, she became a journalist, then, on the urging of her husband, entered politics and was elected to Canada's Parliament. (credit for portrait circa 1989-90) In 1972 she became the 1st woman living in Québéc to serve in the federal Cabinet, 1st as Minister for Science and Technology, then Minister of the Environment, and finally Minister of Communications. "[S]he was the first woman elected as Speaker of the House of Commons, she opened the first daycare on Parliament Hill, and she was the first woman to serve as Governor General" of Canada. (That last post is currently held, as we've posted, by another woman, Haiti-born Canadian Michaëlle Jean.) A "staunch advocate of issues surrounding youth and world peace," and a promoter of those issues in Canada and in the United Nations, Sauvé, who died in 1993, incorporated the dove of peace into her official coat-of-arms.


(Prior April 26 posts are here, here, and here)

On April 4

On this day in ...
... 1887, Argonia, Kansas, a "little Quaker village, with a population of less than five hundred," became the community in the United States that 1st elected a woman as mayor. Elected was Susanna Madora Salter (left), then 27, the daughter of the town's 1st mayor, and the wife of its city clerk. The convoluted process by which she was elected is detailed here. In the single year that she served before declining to seek re-election, Salter became world famous -- so much so that when she was introduced to Susan B. Anthony at a women's suffrage meeting, the latter "slapped her on the shoulder and exclaimed":

'Why, you look just like any other woman, don't you?'

Salter died in 1961, 2 weeks shy of her 101st birthday.


(Prior April 4 posts are here, here, and here)

Do We Need a Reservation?

On Tuesday, India's upper house of parliament passed the Women's Reservation Bill, which would amend the constitution in order to set aside a 33% quota for women in India's federal and state assemblies. This contentious bill, which was first introduced nearly fifteen years ago, still needs to pass the lower house of parliament and pass through 15 of 28 state assemblies in order to take effect.
Grumbles abound; some fear that these reserved positions will be allocated only to already privileged women, arguing that Muslim, Dalit, and otherwise disadvantaged women should have particular guarantees of representation. Supporters of the bill say that it will work to protect these disadvantaged groups, and in any case, moving beyond the current 11% representation of women in the lower house of parliament seems a great step forward. (In the U.S., women make up 16.8% of the House of Representatives, 17% of the Senate, and 24.4% of state legislatures.) Others express the concern that, added to the 22.5% of parliament that's already reserved for disadvantaged castes and tribes, this would leave 55% of the seats in India's legislature subject to quotas.
Some argue that the reservations simply won't advance women, as powerful men will just get their wives and daughters elected as proxies. This claim is belied by the 33% reservations for women that already exist at the panchayat, or local council level, to which a million women are elected every five years -- the largest participation of women in government in the world (in raw numbers, of course, not percentages; Rwanda, as we've posted, wins the latter prize, with women making up 56.3% of the lower house of parliament and 34.6% of the upper house). The Economist makes a more compelling argument against the bill's effectiveness, noting that it will cover a different tranche of seats in three successive parliamentary terms and will then expire. This fractured application and short lifespan will make it difficult for women and men alike to get re-elected, thereby eliminating incentives to work hard on behalf of their constituencies.
Despite the bill's flaws, we know that women will not get a seat at the table without a reservation. And in India, where women face harms ranging from sex-selective abortion to dowry death, the need for representation is urgent and vital. The maintenance of India's vibrant democracy demands no less. In the words of Sonia Gandhi as she faced down one of the bill's opponents, “Your wife has been chief minister. You have seven daughters. What’s their view on the bill?” 'Nuff said.

On February 21

On this day in ...
... 2000 (10 years ago today), Dr. Lynda M. Haverstock (right) became the 19th Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan. Born in 1948 in the community of Swift Current in that same province of Canada, Haverstock dropped out of high school, yet later earned both her doctorate in clinical psychology and her master's degree in education. "[H]ighly regarded for having established innovative programs for disabled students, chronically truant adolescents, and farm families in crisis," Haverstock became, in 1989, "the first woman to be elected leader of a political party in Saskatchewan when she became the leader of the Liberal Party." She "was immensely popular" in government, and served as Lieutenant Governor until 2006. (photo credit)


(Prior February 21 posts are here, here, and here)

On February 4

On this day in ...
... 1694, Natalia Naryshkina (right) died. In her 42 years of life she'd been the country's Tsarina, holding that title on becoming the 2d wife of the widowed Tsar in 1671 through till his death in 1676. For a brief period in 1682, she was Regent of Russia, her son, known as Peter I the Great, having become Tsar at age 10. Even after being deposed, she remained in the thick of competition for rule of imperial Russia.

(Prior February 4 posts are here and here.)

On December 24

On this day in ...

... 1991, Mary Elizabeth Kinnear died at age 93. She'd been born in Port Colborne, Wainfleet Township, Ontario, Canada, where she became active in Liberty Party politics and women's groups. Kinnear (left) did a variety of activities -- worked as a cement shipper, played hockey, and made her own clothes -- and urged women to establish bank account separate from those of their husbands. In 1967 she was appointed among the 1st women to serve in the Canadian Senate, a post she held till retiring on her 75th birthday in 1973.

(Prior December 24 posts are here and here.)

On December 12

On this day in ...
... 1949 (60 years ago today), London-born Nancy Hodges (right), who'd moved from England to Canada on account of her husband's poor health, was named Speaker of the British Columbia Provincial Legislature. Hodges' initial run for office, in 1937, had been unsuccessful; when out of office, she was a journalist, "a well-known clubwoman," serving as president of many women's groups, as well as a "women's rights advocate and British Columbia's leading woman Liberal." Elected in 1941, she earned the Speakership in 1949 by a speech that won the day for her candidate in a battle for British Columbia's Premiership.

At five feet ten inches tall, wearing the traditional British black silk Speaker's robes and tricorn hat, Hodges struck a dramatic figure. A skillful orator with a resounding voice ideal for keeping rowdy MLAs in line she was the first woman Speaker of the House in British Columbia or anywhere in the British Commonwealth.

(photo credit) In 1953 Hodges was appointed to Canada's Senate, among only 5 women then serving in that chamber. She served till retirement in 1965, and died 4 years later.

(Prior December 12 posts are here and here.)