WHEN WOMEN RULE THE WORLD:

HEADS WITH HEARTS

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

American novelist Anne Roiphe wrote the following dialogue in her book “Up the Sand Box”, way back in 1970. “What the world needs,” he said, “is not a Joan of Arc, the kind of woman who allows herself to be burned on the cross. That's just a bourgeois invention meant to frighten little girls into staying home. What we require is a real female military social leader.”

“But that” -- I smiled at him -- “is just impossible. Women are tied to husband and children... a sword or a gun in their hands is a joke or a mistake...Occasionally, it's true, a woman can become a volcano, but that's about it.”

Yes, perhaps, in Roiphe's America in the 1970s the highest limits a woman could reach would have been to erupt like a volcano every now and then. Not so in the East.

Inner strength vs outer strength

Three decades before Roiphe wrote “Up the Sand Box”, Mahatma Gandhi saw women as the future leaders of human evolution. He believed only women can bring compassion and morality into public life. “To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman”, said this sage of India. “If by strength is meant brute strength, then indeed is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not greater intuition, is she not more self-sacrificing, has she not greater courage? Without woman, man could not be.”

Political dynamo

By 1960 his words had turned real. When her Prime Minister husband was assassinated in 1959 Sirimavo Bandaranaike was transformed from shy housewife into a political dynamo. She campaigned for her husband's party in the 1960 elections, became its leader and was elected the first woman head of government on July 20, 1960, six years before Indira Gandhi became India's first woman prime minister. Her election was so unusual that newspapers weren't sure what to call her. “There will be need for a new word.

Presumably, we shall have to call her a Stateswoman,” London's Evening News wrote in July 21 1960. “This is the suffragette's dream come true. In Sept. 1961 at the Neutral Summit Talks in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, she made history by being the first national leader to say she was speaking “as a woman and a mother.”

She was followed by Indira Gandhi and the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. Sonia Gandhi, herself a forceful political figure in India today recalls accompanying her husband, Rajiv Gandhi to several Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM) when Margaret Thatcher was holding the reigns of Britain in her hands. “ I remember some of the colorful episodes that took place behind the scenes,” said Sonia Gandhi in the speech she made at the Commonwealth Meeting in 2011. “To give you just one example, at the 1985 CHOGM in the Bahamas, the issue of sanctions against South Africa dominated the discussions.

Margaret Thatcher stood out in solitary opposition to the rest of the Commonwealth's call for sanctions against the apartheid regime.

At the weekend retreat, Shridath Ramphal put together a three-member team to talk informally to Mrs. Thatcher and persuade her to relent. They were Rajiv Gandhi, Brian Mulroney of Canada and Robert Hawke of Australia, selected by him apparently as much for their looks as their political weight.” “In private, he jokingly told them: ? She will not be able to resist the three best-looking men of the Conference. The Iron Lady was unmoved and the handsome threesome failed either to charm or to persuade her. Thus was the stage set for the most heated political confrontation in the Commonwealth's history.”

Best qualified leaders

The end of 2012 saw the global leadership of woman stretching far and wide, from the most prosperous of nations to smaller, aid-supported countries. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina; Aung San Suu Kyi, the general secretary of the National League of Democracy in Burma; Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia, Yingluck Shinawatra, prime minister of Thailand; Joyce Banda, President of Malawi and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia; all prove that women are fast becoming the best qualified leaders of the world. For the second year running, three of the top five women on the FORBES list of the world's 100 most powerful women were politicians. In the list as a whole, 19 politicians held court, including eight heads of state.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Sonia Gandhi

Angela Merkel

Hilary Clinton

Holding the place of No. 2 on the list for the second year was the former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As the world ambassador of the largest single economy on earth, Clinton had advanced U.S. interests and policies overseas while pushing women's issues, development and education to the top of the foreign policy agenda.

In an article in the Forbes magazine Greta Van Susteren, a fellow Power Woman and friend of Clinton is recorded as saying Hilary Clinton's notoriety on the international stage is unparalleled, and makes her different from any of her predecessors.

“[Clinton] might as well be the President of the United States,” she said. “The whole world knows her.

Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff was the third most powerful woman in the world in 2012 according to the Forbes list, from her perch atop the world's eighth biggest economy. Specially so as Brazli will host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics- with Rousseff at the helm of the country.

Also in the top ten most powerful women in 2012, are Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Indian National Congress Party, and Janet Napolitano, the first female head of the Department of Homeland Security and the woman responsible for keeping America's borders (air, land, sea and cyber) well-defended.

But the topmost niche on the list is held by the lady “who holds the world in her hands.” Lauded as the most powerful woman in Europe during the past five years, Angela Merkel,the first ever female German Chancellor, is seen as a political record breaker, who is credited with competently steering Germany out of the recession.

How did she climb the political ladder no woman had stepped on, before her in Germany? Who was the driving force behind her political ambitions? Days after she became Germany's first woman leader, one of the biggest papers in Germany, Bild-Zeitung, questioned, “Where is Merkel's man?” But her husband, Joachim Sauer, one of Germany's most eminent quantum chemists had decided his place was not in the spotlight.

In fact, he has kept a low profile ever since, famously refusing to attend her inauguration as Chancellor because he was working at his laboratory at the Humboldt University in Berlin. “He has, however, been a strong support to her during a leadership that has lasted longer than many expected,” observes The Times’ former German correspondent, Anne McElvoy.

Husband's role

Same is true of Sir Denis Thatcher. He too kept a low profile, refused press interviews, made only brief speeches, and saw his role as that of helping his wife to survive the stress of her job. When he did speak to the press, he called Margaret “The Boss”. She on the other hand, often acknowledged her husband's support. In her autobiography she wrote: “I could never have been Prime Minister for more than 11 years without Denis by my side.”

Back to Merkel. So, what's the secret of her success? Almost all political analysts agree she is, in many ways, the perfect leader for tough times. Even after a second election victory, her down-to-earth style has remained intact and she admits she still stockpiles food and cleaning products, a habit formed during her years living in communist East Germany. Visitors to her office can often find the most powerful woman in Europe serving them coffee or tea. “There is an intellectual self-confidence in her that is unshakeable,” says German commentator Hans-Ulrich Jörges. As political writer Sonia Purnell says, “While Thatcher always felt and sounded like a pioneer woman politician, Merkel has perhaps made the idea of a woman leading her country feel normal.”

As we move into 2013 the future looks better than never before for women leaders. As it was in the past, from Cleopatra of Egypt, to Empress Wu Zetian of China, to Queen Elizabeth I of England, women who climb to power continue to show an astonishingly high success rate. Surely their leadership prowess, at times, can put men's records to shame.

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Why giving MEN anonymity in rape cases is a bad idea

A senior lawyer has called for anonymity until conviction for men accused of sex crimes. This would make it even harder for victims to get justice

The chairwoman of the bar council, Maura McGowan QC, has called for anonymity until conviction for men accused of rape. Women (and victims are overwhelmingly women and children) who report rape are granted anonymity, so why not afford the same protection to those they accuse?

Rape remains uniquely stigmatising for the victim.’ Picture by Adrian Sherratt/Alamy

Because it is not the same. Rape remains uniquely stigmatising for the victim - in many countries rape is still treated as a stain on family honour, and some victims are even killed. While the anti-rape movement has improved public attitudes in Britain - and they are being further shaken right now in India and elsewhere - the conviction rate remains shamefully low. Only 6.5% of reported rapes end in a rape conviction.

Fair game

Although it is now acknowledged that rape is a particularly traumatic form of violence, in court a rape victim's character remains fair game for defence barristers. The victim has no one to defend her from the most intimate questioning; she is merely a witness for an often incompetent and indifferent Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). And while the law is supposed to protect her from irrelevant questioning on her sexual history, “belief in consent” is a permissible defence, and bias among judges is common.

he tragic suicide of Frances Andrade, who was sexually assaulted as a child, followed her aggressive questioning by defence barristers. That the judge found nothing wrong with Andrade's cross-examination illustrates just how brutal rape trials often are, and why so many victims are denied justice. Andrade was told not to seek counselling before the trial. Women have sometimes been warned against any contact with Women Against Rape, the advice and advocacy group I work for.

McGowan is quite wrong, meanwhile, to claim that men accused of rape are a special case because of the stigma they face. Accusations of terrorism, murder, and violence against children are no less grave, and the consequences for anyone unfairly accused no less traumatic. Ask Colin Stagg. If all defendants were given anonymity, open justice would end - and with it, our biggest protection against the abuse of power.

Difficulties

And yet anonymity for men accused of rape is an idea that keeps coming back. It was introduced into law by a Labour government in 1976, and repealed by the Tories in 1988. Police said then, and say now, that anonymity hampers investigations and prevents public appeals for victims of serial rapists to come forward. As McGowan concedes, the child victims of Jimmy Savile demonstrate the benefit of suspects being named - until Savile was named, many of his victims had told no one while others had been punished for speaking out. The same has been true in Rochdale, Carlisle, Reading, Oxford ...

Anonymity for defendants reared its head again when it became Lib Dem party policy in 2006, and in 2010 the coalition government proposed reintroducing it into law. Women were outraged, including women MPs of all parties, and the government had to withdraw. Their proposal, like McGowan's, and the vicious cross-examination in rape cases, all rely on the diehard myth that women often lie about rape. Home Office research estimates that only around 3% of rape allegations are false, yet the illusion persists that false allegations are widespread, and men the real victims.

In fact, it is extremely hard to report rape, and 85% of victims never do. Those who do report are often dismissed by police and prosecutors. Increasingly, victims tell us they were pressed to retract. Worse: any woman whose rapist is not convicted can be accused of making a false allegation and prosecuted, especially if she has reported rape in the past. Gail Sherwood and Layla Ibrahim were jailed after reporting rape by unknown strangers. Both say they were pressed to retract and prosecuted when they refused. We are campaigning to clear their names.

Two years ago the CPS was publicly shamed for prosecuting women in this way, when a wife was jailed for accusing her rapist husband and then withdrawing the allegation. They called it a “false retraction”. The director of public prosecutions responded by introducing guidelines for prosecutors, but at Women Against Rape we still get calls from victims who are suicidal because they are facing prosecution. Some are unwell after years of child rape, others tried to withdraw when they found hostile interrogation too much to bear.

As chair of the bar council, a body that claims to promote “fair access to justice for all”, McGowan would do better to concern herself with how many rapists get away with it.

- Guardian.co.uk