Livni's victory is a big crack in the glass ceiling

[question everything]

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 07:08 19/09/2008
ANALYSIS / Livni's victory is a big crack in the glass ceiling
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent

If Tzipi Livni forms a cabinet, Israel will be the only country in the world with women heading all three branches of government - the executive, legislature and judiciary.

However, feminists agree this would be a historic accident, as both Livni and Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik were elected despite, not because, they are women. Neither did the election of Justice Dorit Beinisch as Supreme Court president have anything to do with her views on women's issues. "This is amazing, especially because women's representation in Israeli politics is meager and dwindling," says MK Gideon Saar (Likud), who served as chairman of the Knesset's Committee on the Status of Women. Israel is graded 82nd in the world in women's political representation - 15 percent of Knesset members are women, and only 1 percent of local government heads.

In contrast, women's representation in the world is rising. In Scandinavia women's places in parliament are reserved; a considerable percentage of France, Spain and Italy's cabinet members are women, and a woman was almost nominated to represent her party in the U.S. presidential election. Another woman is running for vice president.

Livni has distanced herself from gender issues in her public work. Feminist journalist Anat Saragosti sees Livni as an outdated model of feminism. "She's stuck somewhere in the '70s, when prevalent opinion called for equality between men and women, arguing there was no difference between them and that women could do whatever men can. This attitude ignores the discrimination of women as a group, merely for being women," she says.

(snip)

Livni has no feminist agenda and like other women who made it prides herself on doing it by herself. However, she was elected to the Knesset because Likud reserved high slots on its electoral list for women... But the importance of Livni's election is not to be measured in its feminist extent, says Michaeli. "In Israel there is no women's leadership model. Leadership equals being male. Livni provides another model, which is neither male nor female." She commends Livni for not using her security record to ward off the generals' attacks and for seeing peace, not war, as the only chance for Israel's survival.

(snip)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1022577.html

[MissMarple]

1. Good for her. So many people need a reality check. "Women's" issues are actually human issues.

It is impossible to separate them, however hard the patriarchy tries. eom

[question everything]

2. When Hillary gave her concession speech, some commentators said

that perhaps she should have emphasized her being the woman candidate more - as she did in that speech. I don't think so. I think it would have backfired. She ran as a candidate who happened to be a woman, just as Obama runs as a candidate who happens to be black.