Now girls rule--literally!--in British monarchy--that is, if 16 national parliaments concur

The 16 Commonwealth nations have just voted to change the rules for royal succession; so if all goes according to plan, after Prince William, Britain's hereditary monarch will become the next queen or king strictly on the basis of birth order, not gender.  http://t.co/VD6qv8v
Buckingham Palace has always refrained from commenting on this political issue, saying it’s a matter for the British and Commonwealth governments to decide.  Rather, it was Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, who successfully urged leaders of the 15 other Commonwealth nations to agree today that Britain’s royal family should scrap the antiquated system of succession by male primogeniture (after the Belgian, Dutch, Swedish, and Norwegian monarchies have already canned it.)
But before this overdue reform can actually go into effect, it must also be approved by the national legislatures of all 16 Commonwealth countries—and the slowness and complexity of this process has been enough of an obstacle to prevent such reforms in the past.  Additionally, I have to wonder how many of the 16 Commonwealth legislatures have a fair proportion of female members, who will be inclined to push for female heirs taking precedence over their younger brothers and other girl-friendly legislation.  (Please see page 34 of my March-2011 column in PrintAction for a more detailed discussion of why having proportional representation of females in government definitely matters.)
https://www.box.net/shared/gy0bmq180s
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/royal-succession-reform_n_1007210.html

This week Canada elected a record number of women--but still not enough

In response to my 19-April-2011 post observing how women in politics operate differently than men, Jodi Krohn, CEO of Premier Press in Portland, Oregon, and one of my fellow members of the Girls Who Print Discussion Group on LinkedIn, wrote back:  “Co-operation, politics without personal attacks, understanding that there are multiple perspectives and finding a healthy balance, would be very refreshing.”

Makes you think, doesn't it? I recall that certain North American native tribes left the decision to wage war up to their Clan Mothers, who had the most to lose (i.e., their children) and were the least warlike faction of their society. Could we actually remake our whole political system along similar, more co-operative, nurturing, female lines--instead of the competitive, combative, male-dominated system we've got?

Speaking of male-dominated politics, by now most people know that Canada’s federal election on Monday 2 May 2011 promoted the national Conservative Party from a minority to a majority government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  But another, less publicized result of the election is that more women than ever before have been elected to Canada’s Parliament.  A record 76 women will now sit in our country’s House of Commons—or about 25 percent of the total 308 seats—a count slightly up from the approximately 22 percent of seats held by females in Canada’s last federal parliament.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/MSNHome/20110503/projected-female-mps-41st-parliament-110503/

Not that Canada can start congratulating itself for being egalitarian just yet.  While the record high number of female Members of Parliament is nothing to sneeze at, it’s also nothing to be especially proud of---since the country still ranks 52nd in the world when it comes to proportional female representation in political office.  We are also falling further behind as other nations take more aggressive measures to correct their political gender imbalances. 

Also take note that another telling revelation of how far we’ve supposedly progressed will be coming up shortly:  Let’s see how many females Mr. Harper will include in his new Cabinet ... .

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/voters-send-a-record-76-women-to-parliament-most-of-them-ndp/article2009244/?from=sec368

Why girls on the ballot are better

One of my goals for my March column in PrintAction was to raise awareness that Canada lacks the advantages it could gain from proportional representation of women in politics.  Note that the Toronto Star’s Katie Daubs has recently climbed on the same bandwagon.  Her April-17th article on Canada’s upcoming federal election observes that Halton Riding’s Conservative, Liberal, NDP, and Green Party candidates are all female and that the benefits of this all-girl ballot include greater co-operation among them, more policy discussion, and fewer personal attacks.

https://www.box.net/shared/gy0bmq180s

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/976140--halton-riding-for-once-gender-imbalance-is-a-welcome-sign?bn=1