 |
| Official Photo of Michelle Bachelet via UN Women.org |
FEMALE leaders have a priceless, long-term positive impact on improving gender equality, with Australia experiencing ''a very special situation'', says the executive director of United Nations Women, Michelle Bachelet.
Ms Bachelet visited Canberra yesterday to ''commend and thank'' the government's leadership and commitment to improving the lives of women throughout the world.Ms Bachelet, whose family were political exiles in Australia in 1975, told the Herald: ''Seeing women in powerful positions, it opens the sky for young girls who thought they could never become a powerful person in the future.
''This country is living a very special situation. You have the first Prime Minister that is a woman, but also you have the Governor-General, the Attorney-General, you have a lot of important authorities that are women.
''I'm so convinced this will be a major step for what happens to girls and how they see their future in a different way to the way it was two decades ago.''On a day when the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, took a stand against ''a very sexist smear campaign'', Ms Bachelet, Chile's first female prime minister, was reluctant to comment on domestic politics.
But she did say the attacks were probably fuelled because Australia was dealing with something ''new'' and there was still a lot of male-dominated culture about how to assess leaders.She lamented the fact that only 31 countries, including Australia, had reached a goal of having 33 per cent female political representation. Rwanda, which has a quota system, has the highest percentage with 56 per cent.
Quotas can work, she said, but were best used as a temporary transitional tool to educate about the benefits of equality. ''Women can provide politics with leadership that can be relied on, as well as providing a different perspective,'' Ms Bachelet said.She is attending the Pacific Islands forum in the Cook Islands next week, which has a very low level of female politicians. Of the 10 countries without any female politicians, at least six were in the Pacific.
Ms Bachelet said women could be at the forefront of climate change action because it was they who made important decisions. ''What really determines whether a poor rural boy or girl will become a journalist, or a lawyer, is the education of the mother,'' she said.She said educated women made better decisions, which led to lower early marriage rates and lower HIV infections. ''We cannot think about improving rural women's lives unless we deal with family planning because we need them to have a comprehensive set of tools that will permit them to develop.''
The NIRWA Team
