Except for the brief period Dame Dr. Doris Johnson served in an early Cabinet of Sir Lynden Pindling, not a single other woman sat in the Cabinet of The Bahamas during the PLP's initial quarter of a century rule.

 For many women, Johnson's appointment was but a token reward to the suffragette movement which was critical to the PLP winning office in 1967. Clearly, the male leadership in the party did not intend for all the talk of equality to go too far.

The PLP refused to run a woman in a winnable seat until 1987, five years after being embarrassed by the FNM successfully running Janet Bostwick for the House of Assembly.

 It still shocks and amazes that the party which relentlessly touts and mythologizes its record of racial equality has such an egregious record on core issues of gender equality.

The name for all of this is sexism. This mindset was displayed at the Constitutional Conference in London in 1972 when the PLP rejected the FNM's proposal to give Bahamian women full equality with men, including in certain matters relating to citizenship. The PLP has yet to right this historic wrong despite numerous opportunities over four decades.

Still, we have made progress in addressing sexism in Bahamian politics. The FNM led the way by running many more women for the House, and by including women in the Cabinet, including in high-ranking portfolios.

 Condescending

 Yet there are those in both major political parties who still cling to sexist views, and there remain in the society many with a condescending attitude towards women, many expressions of which are commonplace yet not even regarded as patronizing.

 It is important where a party stands on policy issues in general that affect women, as well as policies specifically addressing women's equality. Still, this is not sufficient. It is also essential to have women in positions of power and influence at the highest levels of an organization.

 Political parties take their cues from the culture. One of the remaining bastions of entrenched sexism is religion. Because the image of God is overwhelmingly masculine, patriarchal thinking dominates, from who leads a church to who is allowed to preach.

Curiously, many men who abhor racism are sanguine and nostalgic about unjust arrangements which forbid the ordination of women as ministers and priests.

So too, many women have appropriated the theological assertion that women lack in their physical person and being the innate ability to image and represent in ordained ministry a God featured overwhelmingly as a patriarch.

 Theological and religious thinking rendering women mostly as male appendages and subordinates influence social norms and attitudes.

 The corollaries of such thinking are seen in all manner of sexist policy positions, including opposition to both legislation on marital rape and making women fully constitutionally equal to men.

Despite obvious socio-economic changes with women increasingly the primary breadwinner or a major source of family income, many male employers continued for years to pay male employees more, with the often false justification that men were the main wage earners.

 We have a come a long way in the economic empowerment and professional advancement of women. Women populate the highest ranks of the public service, and are attaining more high school diplomas and tertiary degrees than men.

Imbalance

 The glaring imbalance in female versus male achievement in some areas of national life - especially in education - is deeply problematic. Still, amidst progress, inequality persists in other areas. Sadly, the barricades to full equality for women are often manned and defended by women.

Many women still prefer a male candidate for the House. Moreover, while many men and women may vote for a female candidate, they would feel uncomfortable with a woman leading a major party, and potentially becoming prime minister.

Why is it so difficult to get more females to run for the House especially given the economic, educational and social advancement of women in the private and public sectors? It is not that as party leaders Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie did not try to recruit more female candidates.

While many male candidate wannabes with less than stellar credentials, in terms of character and/or competence, are eager to run for the House, many accomplished women are reticent about entering frontline politics.

Many of them cite: family concerns, the fear of their foibles and personal lives becoming fodder for ridicule, and whether other women will support them. Surprisingly, quite a number of professional women are insecure about their abilities and skills when it comes to politics.

 Rarely do such concerns deter even the most unqualified of men, all of which speaks to how often women internalize negative attitudes about their power and ability, which, over a lifetime, they have often been told are less than that of a man.

 A woman does not require testicles to have the necessary fortitude to achieve great things, something that the suffragettes demonstrated in their struggle for the vote for women.

 Here were mostly housewives, straw vendors, mothers and women without much formal education, whose example from a half century ago is the key today to the further political advancement of Bahamian women.

The goals are clear: By an identifiable date, greater parity in the number of men and women in the House of Assembly and in the Cabinet; further, women in both major parties who are capable of serving as prime minister.

 Many of the suffragettes did not trust the male powerbrokers to advance their cause beyond the vote. They were often justified in their suspicions. Just as in yesteryear, power is rarely given. It must be taken. Women must take the lead in advancing the cause of equality.

 And, just as the suffragettes demonstrated courage and conviction, often cooperating across party lines, women today will have to organize, educate and advocate for change.

 Mutuality

 The ambition is that of the suffragettes: Greater equality and a better life for all Bahamians. The path of equality is always arduous. The idea is not for women to supplant men, but mutuality, where success is determined by one's gifts and work ethic, not one's gender.

Achieving parity does not mean sacrificing quality. There are as many qualified women able to serve in the Cabinet as there are men. Likewise, there are as many males capable of academic success as there are females. Both of these ambitions are critical to national development.

 The greater ambition for the women's movement today is not women attaining higher office. Even greater, is an agenda for national development in areas ranging from arresting crime to broad-scale educational reform.

There are men and women who will oppose women at the highest levels of elected office. Their numbers are diminishing; the demographics are not in their favor.

 Women constitute a larger voting bloc than men. Approximately 40 percent of Bahamians are 33 years of age or younger. They are more tolerant, and less tolerant of intolerance including sexism and homophobia.

 Among this cohort is a new generation of women who constitute a major potential force for change. They will downplay or ignore party colors to help elect the first female prime minister. Depending on who this individual is, they will be joined by other women, who will cross party lines.

For the major parties, the clear demonstration of a commitment to gender equality from policy, to style of leadership and language, to many more women on the frontlines, is not only the right thing to do, it is a matter of political survival and electoral success as many in the old boys' club of the U.S. Republican Party have yet to fully comprehend.

o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian