Free The Natural Superiority of Women by Ashley Montagu Page A

day, too, will come"
And, indeed, it has. The world does move. In September of that very same year, 1953, the Eighth Assembly of the United Nations elected its first woman president, Vijaya Laksmi Pandit

     

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of India. In 1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike became prime minister of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), the first woman in the world to hold such office. In January 1966 Indira Gandhi was sworn in as prime minister of India. In March 1969 Golda Meir was elected prime minister of Israel. These notable pioneers have been followed by other women serving as president, prime minister, and other offices around the world. Benazir Bhutto, the prime minister of Pakistan in 1988-1990 and again in 1993-1996, was the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country. Among other notable women leaders has been Kim Campbell, elected prime minister of Canada in 1993, the first woman political ruler in North America. That same year Agathe Uwilingiyimana became the first woman to serve as prime minister of Rwanda, and the following year was assassinated while in office. In November 1990 Mary Robinson was the first woman elected president of Ireland, an office held by Mary McAleese since 1997; McAleese is the first woman president to have succeeded another one. In addition to Ireland, women currently hold the highest offices in Sri Lanka (president and prime minister), Bangladesh, Guyana, San Marino, and New Zealand, where Jenny Shipley is the first New Zealand woman to hold the office of prime minister.
So much for the highest offices of many lands. It is an important beginning, but a small one. When one has enumerated all the advances that have been made, the truth remains that women are grossly underrepresented in the houses of parliament and legislatures of all lands. This constitutes a great loss to humanity, for as Matthew Arnold said more than hundred years ago, "If ever the world sees a time when women shall come together purely and simply for the benefit and good of mankind, it will be a power such as the world has never known."
It is curious, is it not, that so many who really accept the reality of a queen as ruler still have some hesitation accepting the idea of a woman president? Queen Elizabeth I of England has been a heroine of the English-speaking world for five centuries, and Queen Elizabeth II of England has been one of the most popular figures of the English-speaking world. Margreth II of Denmark, the first Danish queen in five centuries, has ruled since 1972. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has been equally popular, as was her mother Queen Juliana and grandmother Queen Wilhelmina. Queen Jadwiga (1373-99) of Poland is remembered as

     

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one of its greatest rulers and one of the truly inspired peacemakers of history. In an age of bloodshed and cruelty, she consistently tried to settle internal and international conflicts and resist aggression by diplomacy, arbitration, negotiation, and appeals to reason and justice. Believing in education as a basis for enlightenment, she left her jewels to endow the University of Krakow. Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria rank among the most notable English monarchs, and both their reigns coincided with a rise in prestige and prosperity such as England had never before experienced. It is important to observe that today in the United States there is probably a higher proportion of the population that would vote for a woman president than there has been at any other time in our history, and that is a healthy sign.
Having successfully freed herself from her thralldom to man, woman has now to emancipate herself from the myth of inferiority and to realize her potentials to the fullest. That seems a consummation well on its way to fulfillment.
It was asked earlier: Can one argue the natural superiority of woman in the face of all the evidence to the contrary? The evidence to the contrary merits our serious attention, and that it shall receive. What has, up to now,