Theresa May takes over today as prime minister of the United Kingdom. She succeeds David Cameron who resigned after the citizens of the UK voted to leave the European Union in a close vote - 52 percent to 48 percent on June 23. Cameron led the campaign to remain.
May will be the second woman to lead the country. Margaret Thatcher, also a Tory, was prime minister from 1979 to 1990.
May's opponent, Andrea Leadsom, another woman, dropped out of the race, leading to her ascension. On the other side of the political divide in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled Labour leader, is being challenged by Angela Eagle, an openly gay woman.
Female leadership of countries is common these days. In our hemisphere some of the places that have been headed by women include Canada, Jamaica, Trinidad, Dominica, Chile and Argentina. Germany, the largest economy in Europe, too is led by a woman, Angela Merkel. Australia has had a woman as its leader, Julia Gillard. Even Pakistan, a Muslim country not known for being progressive, has had a woman prime minister, the late Benazir Bhutto.
In The Bahamas we are not progressive when it comes to women's rights. The first woman elected to Parliament was Janet Bostwick in 1982 for the Free National Movement (FNM). Women were only given substantive posts in Cabinet after the FNM won the 1992 general election. We as a people voted to deny women equal rights in the passage of citizenship to their children in two constitutional referenda - 2002 and 2016. It is not a crime in The Bahamas for a husband who is still with his wife to rape her.
There were many reasons why the last referendum failed, including the deep unpopularity of Prime Minister Perry Christie and fears that approval of the fourth question would lead to same-sex marriage. Those reasons, though, were accompanied by the simple truth that many of us, men and women, do not think women are equal to men.
Loretta Butler-Turner will have to reckon with this as she pursues the leadership of the FNM. Some will not consider her just because she is a woman. She is the first woman to make a serious bid to be leader of one of the major political parties.
It is important for those who believe that girls and women have the same dignity as boys and men to continue to speak up. New attitudes will only emerge, change will only happen if the regressive views of the past are confronted and defeated. We prevent ourselves from reaching our fullest potential as a people if we deny women access to certain posts in the business world or in public life.
Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner to be the next president of the United States. If she wins the empire to our north and our old colonial master will be led by women. Hopefully seeing this will drag some who are backward on women's rights into the 21st century.
We must not just accept the status quo as acceptable. It is disgraceful that marital rape is still permissible; that women can't pass on their citizenship like men. Our democracy is incomplete as long as we uphold unfair and offensive treatment of Bahamian women. Fairness and justice must come.
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