No leadership from the United States

There are currently 28 women who are heads of state around the world. Three of them are by virtue of royalty but it still counts. For a country that claims to be the most powerful and a leader in the world, the United States is found wanting in the area of female leaders.

Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann, the only woman bidding for the position of Commander-in-Chief, just pulled out of the U.S. presidential campaign. She seemed to have gained a following with high poll numbers but soon fell out of favor with Republican voters. The U.S. media makes or breaks many of these candidates. It is interesting that in a country where there is much ado about equal opportunity, there seems to be a skewed bias in favor of male leaders. President Obama, a newbie in politics, was elected and favored over the seasoned Hillary Clinton.


There are many women's political groups that promote and endorse women candidates. However, I did not see or hear any of these groups speak out in favor of Michele Bachmann. Are women their own worst enemies? Why was there no push to get the first U.S. female president?

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Liberia

The first female president in the Continent of Africa is President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia. She was elected in the 2005 elections and took office in January 2006. Sirleaf was successfully re-elected in 2011 for a second term. Her rise to this position was made possible by the mass action of women in Liberia. Sirleaf had tried to run for president in 1997 but was not successful. The women of Liberia had had enough of the mismanagement of the country by men and decided to propel in a woman. Women made the difference. The power of women's voices put Sirleaf on the top seat.

PM Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland

Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir of Iceland is not only Iceland's first female Prime Minister, she is also the world's first openly lesbian head of government. She came to power when the women of Iceland decided that the men had made a mockery of their country running it into bankruptcy. Jóhanna is a seasoned politician. In the 1990s she lost a bid to head the party and in frustration she lifted her fist and declared "Minn timi mun koma!" ("My time will come!"). The phrase has now become a popular Icelandic expression. She was also listed among the 100 Most Powerful Women in the world, by Forbes in 2009.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania

Dalia Grybauskaitė is the first female president of Lithuania. She won the presidential elections in 2009 in a landslide. President Grybauskaitė is often referred to as "Iron Lady" or "Steel Magnolia" because of her outspoken speech and her black belt in Karate. She is multi-lingual; fluent in English, French, Russian and Polish. President Grybauskaitė is unmarried and has no children  (the suffix-aitė on her surname is for unmarried Lithuanian women). 

Samoa and Tokelau end year early

On Thursday, December 29, 2011, the Islands of Samoa and Tokelau will swap the International Dateline and move into Saturday, December 31, 2011.

The nation of Samoa will flash past Friday and herald Saturday with bells and celebration. 

This westward jump in time will also shift the economic balance of the 21st century. This shift is meant to align Samoa with its Asia-Pacific trading partners. This will move the islands' work days further from the United States, which had a commanding influence in Samoa's economy in the past.

This giant-step version of daylight saving time will mean some people will miss a day of work on Friday. The government of Samoa has decreed that those who miss a day of work on Friday will be paid all the same. Those who had dental or a doctor's appointment on Friday will, apparently, be accommodated on Saturday. However, if your birthday or anniversary was on Friday, you either celebrate it in a flash or forfeit it for the good of the nation.

Tokelau dancers

Tokelau is a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean that consists of three tropical coral atolls. It has a population of about 1,500.

The Samoan Islands is an archipelago in central South Pacific covering 1,170 square miles. It forms part of Polynesia and the wider region of Oceania. It has a population of approximately 250,000.

Samoa has been out of alignment with its neighbors since 1892, when American traders persuaded it to shift from the western side to the eastern side of the dateline. This was to facilitate business with the West Coast of the United States. That shift, 119 years ago, took place on the American Independence Day, so the Samoans could celebrate July 4 twice.

Samoan traditional attire

However, in recent years, New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly valuable trade partners with Samoa as they provide access to new trading relations in Asia particularly China and Singapore. “In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we’re losing out on two working days a week,” Mr. Tuila’epa said. “While it’s Friday here, it’s Saturday in New Zealand, and when we’re at church on Sunday, they’re already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane.” “Today,” the statement said bluntly, “we do a lot more business with New Zealand and Australia, China and Pacific Rim countries such as Singapore.”

Thursday, 11:59 p.m., it will be December 29. At the stroke of midnight Samoa and Tokelau will hop the dateline and at 12:01 a.m. it will be Saturday, December 31. The new time zone will put Samoa 3 hours ahead of eastern Australia rather than 21 hours behind it, and 22 hours ahead of California, instead of 2 hours behind it.

What a way to end the year! On a high and forward note!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! to all my readers.

Is the Egyptian woman worthy

Egyptian woman protesting in Cairo

On April 28, 2011, I blogged about the Egyptian women demonstrating in Tahrir Square and the prominence of a potential first Egyptian female president, Buthayna Kamal.  The hopeful question was whether this new wind of political change would also blow in social change as concerns women in this society.

In the months after the revolution that got Hosni Mubarak out of power and in particular the last few days have shown that attitudes towards women has not changed. This is very disappointing. Women were in the frontline fighting for justice and political change alongside the men. They are worthy of not just recognition but respect.

Women raised their voices calling for change!

When women raised their voices calling for change they were serious. They were not asking or requesting change they demanded change in the political arena. Today they are demanding change in the social behavior that is biased against women. In response the military government is all talk but no action. Last week military generals silently watched their soldiers lead assaults on female protestors.

Mona Seif, a 25-year old activist was punched, slapped and kicked by army soldiers as they dragged her inside the Cabinet Building while at the same time hitting her with wooden batons. The reason she received this shocking and appalling violence was because she had refused to leave the areas until the soldiers released a child she was protecting amid the violence. A young obtuse soldier in charge of the detention room continuously cursed at the female detainees, some old enough to be his mother. He had no ounce of respect for these women and had no problem slapping a woman, 60 years of age, who spoke up and reprimanded his behavior.

Today she demonstrates as a girl-child tomorrow she is brutally beaten as a woman.

This behavior stems from the Egyptian culture, according to Nehad Abolkomsan, a lawyer and director of the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights. "People think it's acceptable to do anything to a women if she goes out of line by their standards."

This deliberate humiliation and degradation of Egyptian women is a disgrace and dishonors the revolution. Women marched for change. Young girls watched their mothers, sisters and aunts stand up for what is right and just.  For the sake of this young girls, women will continue to demonstrate and raise their voices.

Egyptian women are worthy of respect and honor from their men. The wind of political change is blowing in social change. Men wake up... women are here to stay!

Girl babies don't count - Gendercide Part II

Xinran Xue, a Chinese writer, described a gruesome visit to a peasant family in the Shandong province. The peasant's wife gave birth to baby girl in the home and to Xinran's horror the baby was thrown in a slop pail like roadside dirt by the midwife. The mother was crying as the husband was cursing her out. Xinran tried to save the baby but was stopped by the two police men who had accompanied her. "Don't move," they said. "You can't save it, it's too late." An older woman in the home justified what had happened explained that the baby was not a child. "It's a girl baby, and we can't keep it. Around these parts, you can't get by without a son. Girl babies don't count."

Genocide in China is usually seen as a consequence of the one-child policy or as a product of poverty or ignorance. But it has become clear that there is more to it than these assumed factors. Research shows that between 1990 and 2005 there was surplus of bachelors, known in China as guanggun (bare branches). This increase was not linked to the one child policy. It was a direct result of the war against baby girls.

Like India, China's gender ratio is totally skewed. According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), the ratio in 2011 is 123 boy per 100 girls. These rates are biologically impossible without human intervention.  Nick Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, describes it as "the fateful collision between overweening son preference, the use of rapidly spreading prenatal sex-determination technology and declining fertility.

Other countries that show a skewed sex-ratio included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus and Bosnia. The surprising thing is seeing countries as rich and well educated as South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore with high sex-ratio slanted towards males.

 In South Korea, the surplus of bachelors has sucked in brides from abroad. In 2008, 11% of marriages were "mixed" mostly between a Korean man and a foreign woman. South Koreans are known to be hostile to children of mixed marriages and this new trend of importing brides is causing tensions in this homogenous society. This trend is being seen particularly in the rural areas and the government predicts that half the children from these areas will be mixed by 2020. The population of mixed children has grown enough to have produced a new word: "Kosians" the short form of Korean-Asians.



Sources: The Economist

Obliteration of girls in India - Gendercide Part I

As a follow-up to my previous blog Because I am a girl,  let us pause and focus on India and its well kept secret - female infanticide.

The Republic of India is located in South Asia and it is geographically the seventh largest country with the second highest population (1.2 billion) in the world.

Indira Gandhi

"India, is a country of paradoxes," says Dr. Marie-Mignon Mascarehans, founder of CREST, an Indian non-profit organization. She laments that even though the country has produced a Cambridge educated Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, 40-50 percent of rural women are illiterate.

What we hear about this country is that it is among the fastest growing economies in the world, with a 7.5% GDP growth rate. It is one of the G-20 major economies and one of the five members of the international political organization known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Yet in this upcoming nation nearly 50 million girls are missing from its population. The average ratio of boys to girls is 6 to1. Discrimination against girls begins before they are born simply because they are considered an economic liability to the family.

In India, the man is considered the bread winner in the family and the fact that a woman can play the same role is still very alien. So even among middle and upper class families, the girl child is considered of no value. Within the realm of religious dogma, in the event of the death of a parent, the spirit of the dead person will not move on to the next life until the son has lit the funeral fire.

Girl's value based on dowry

Dowry plays a significant role in the determining whether a girl lives or is killed during or after a pregnancy. The very survival of a woman in a matrimonial home is subject to how much dowry she is bringing in. Even her right to life revolves around the dowry.

These are the reasons why families chose not to have girls. Technology has made gender selection easier. There are ultra-sound centers all around India where the gender of a child is identified so that families can make the relevant decision to keep or get rid of a pregnancy. Sex-selection tests are done even by the elite and educated members of the community. Gender selection is illegal and considered a criminal offense in India but the government is complacent about enforcing the law.

Female infanticide is more common among those who can afford to get an ultra sound. The poor have to wait until the child is born and this makes it very difficult for the mother who is put under pressure by the family to kill her child. The husband and/or mother-in-law are known to kill their baby girl.

This annihilation of girls is causing a sex imbalance in the population. This will soon lead to a system of polyandry if this killings continue.

Women around the world need to rise up and speak against this atrocity. First Ladies of the world have a platform to move this agenda. The president of India is a woman (Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil) and the head of the ruling party in is a woman (Sonia Gandhi). Why are they not speaking to this issue? ARISE and ACT!




Wikipedia

Because I am a girl

In my previous blog series I focused on the power of a First Lady and highlighted the wasted opportunities by some of these First Wives. In this next set of blogs I want to share the reality of gender inequality. This is an issue First Ladies around the world should rally around considering some of these atrocities are happening in their own backyards.

We are thinkers from an early age

Gender inequality is not a new issue but it is taking a long time to get traction and attention around the world. The reality is that across the world, girls face double-barreled discrimination due to their gender and age placing them at the bottom of the social strata.

Research shows that girls are more likely to suffer from malnutrition,  forced early marriage, violence and/or intimidation, trafficking, sold or coerced into sex trade or become infected with HIV.

It is only the girl-child that is subject to infanticide while still in the womb.

Plan International, a UK based, children's development organization, began a campaign called "Because I am a girl" in 2007. The purpose of the campaign is to fight gender inequality, promote girls' rights and lift millions of girls out of poverty. In their quest, Plan is producing one girl report each year in the run up to 2015, the target year for the Millennium Development Goals. Each report provides tangible proof of the inequalities that still exist between boys and girls. Their latest success was the United Nations declaration October 11 as the Day of the Girl.

Here are the sobering facts from one of the reports:

• I have the same rights as my brothers, yet I am discriminated against even before I am born.
• I and 68,000 teenage girls will die from unsafe abortions this year.
• I and 62 million other girls are not in primary school.
• I and 2 million other girls will undergo female genital cutting this year.
• I and more than 100 million girls under 18, some as young as 12, are expected to marry over the next decade.

Below is a moving video based on the campaign.

The power of a First Lady - Zimbabwe Part III

Grace Mugabe’s contribution to the economic and financial decline of her country, during her tenure as First Lady, has taken various forms. She stole from the coffers of civil servants under the pay-for your house scheme in order to build her infamous “Gracelands” in Borrowdale, a wealthy suburb of Harare. The “Gracelands” is an extravagantly constructed palace that caused controversy in the country. The palace was later sold to the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. The second palace was completed in 2007 and was said to have been a gift to Robert Mugabe from ZANU-PF in gratitude for his political service. It was reported to have cost $26 million. She also built a lavish home for her parents in their hometown of Chivhu.

In 2002 Grace grabbed farm property previously owned by John and Eva Matthews, for herself and her family. She also owns property in Malaysia where the family frequently vacations. It is alleged that she intended to move to Malaysia with her children to escape the stress of leadership and to address fears of assassination. The Daily Telegraph called her “notorious at home for her profligacy” in the 2003 coverage of a shopping trip to Paris. She reportedly spent about $120,000 in the shopping spree. The EU has instituted sanctions banning Grace Mugabe and her husband from traveling to participating countries. The United States has instituted similar restrictions.

Besides her involvement in corruption scandals and her sinfully lavish and extravagant shopping, Grace also has her dirty linen washed in public. She has had three known extra-marital affairs as First Lady. The latest sexual scandal was with a close friend and ally of Robert Mugabe, Gideon Gono. Each man who has been accused of "consensually messing” with the First Lady has met a sudden fatal accident or fled the country.

Grace Mugabe has not only destroyed the lives of Zimbabweans but she has made it difficult for her own daughter to attend school overseas. Riots broke out at the University of Zimbabwe campus with student demonstrations outside the Embassy of China. They were demanding that Bona Mugabe should return home and study under the same pathetic conditions as her peers. The University of Hong Kong has distanced itself from this controversy although the situation has caused the family to seek help in keeping their daughter safe while in Hong Kong.

This is the legacy of Grace Mugabe.


Source: Wikipedia
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