Woman Prime Minister Research Articles

Putting Women in the House: The Foundation and Development of the 300 Group to get more Women into British Politics

Very occasionally a movement is born which is so timely and relevant it is clear that it will make an enduring impression on our attitudes and institutions. In the autumn of 1980, just over a year after the General Election which brought to power the first British woman Prime Minister, the 300 Group was formed to encourage, in all possible ways, the increased participation of women in electoral politics. The name was intended to suggest that since there are 635 M.P.s in the British House of Commons and women are half the electorate, there should in justice be roughly 300 women in the House. The election in 1979 of Mrs. Thatcher and a Cabinet bereft but for herself of women ministers, served to high‐light the position of women at Westminster. Figures which hitherto had apparently only interested a few academics — on the numbers of women candidates and of women representatives over time — suddenly became common knowledge and no newspaper or magazine at the time was complete without its piece on the women — or lack of women — in politics. The figures are indeed compelling. In spite of the woman at the top, the General Election of 1979 in Britain produced only nineteen women out of the 635 members of Parliament — that is, slightly under 3%. This was in fact the worst result for women for nearly thirty years, but in the intervening time, the heights they had reached were hardly giddy. Never had a 5% representation been achieved and during the whole of the 50's, 60's and early 70's the figure stayed mainly around 3–4%. This grim situation was compounded by the fact that for the last five elections, the number of women standing as candidates had gone up each time, yet with no equivalent increase in the numbers of women elected but rather a clear fall in the 1979 total (2.9%) over that of October, 1974 (4.3%).

The Nationalist Revolution in Ceylon

T HIE EMERGENCE of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike as Ceylon's first and the world's only woman Prime Minister confirms the fact that this little island nation is in the full tide of a nationalist revolution with a socialist leaning. The resurgent forces which were aroused by the late Mr. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the most dynamic and socially conscious political leader in Ceylon's history, and which swept him into power in i956, asserted themselves again in the general elections in July i960. With a heavy rural vote the democratic socialist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (S.L.F.P.), under the leadership of Mr. Bandaranaike's wife, captured 75 out of the i5i elected seats in Parliament. With six nominated MPs and six new recruits from the ranks of the uncomnnitted, Mrs. Bandaranaike has an absolute majority in Parliament and faces the country with even greater confidence than her late husband did in i956. Thus she now has an opportunity to provide Ceylon with a reasonably stable government which it has lacked for so long and to give a new constructive meaning to independence and nationalism. The outcome of Mrs. Bandaranaike's experiment cannot yet be foreseen; predictions range from the most gloomy to the most optimistic but it seems certain that the efforts of the new Government will be watched with great interest at home and abroad. If Ceylon under the new regime fails to find some means of dealing with its great political and human problems in a genuinely democratic way, it will mean yet another setback for parliamentary processes and freedom in Asia. In the past few years has suffered severe blows in the very heartland of Asian nationalism in Southeast Asia and various forms of authoritarianism have superseded democratic regimes in most of the newly independent countries. It is not surprising, therefore, that the establishment of a mild military dictatorship in Pakistan, a caretaker military government in Burma and of a guided democracy in Indonesia has made freedomloving people turn anxious eyes on Ceylon and India. While India has steadfastly held to the path of democratic development and achieved notable progress, in Ceylon there have been some dangerous signs of political instability and racial tensions, labour unrest and economic stagnation. The imposition of emergency rule twice in the last two years (1958-ig9g) was perhaps symptomatic of these trends. Yet the recent unrest and upheavals are only outward manifestations of Ceylon's resurgent nationalism. In few other countries in Asia are conditions more favourable to a flourishing democratic system than in Ceylon. Ceylon