I experienced a slight disconnect while reading your item about "women of power." The power of the women mentioned in the article is connected to their positions in government, government bureaucracy, and business. Women leaders in the labour, environmental, feminist and social-equality movements go unmentioned. These women are much more likely to be transforming the world rather than just, say, improving the gross domestic product. Women (those that didn't inherit thrones) came to power because of the suffragette and feminist movements, which engaged in what Hilary Clinton would be obligated now to call terrorism. The first feminist leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, led a group that broke windows, attacked police and staged hunger strikes in prison. Her daughter Christabel added arson to the repertoire. Despite what pragmatists say, democratic governments and multinational corporations often have to be forced by violence to act on principle, even on obvious principles like sexual equality, racial equality, privacy and equal opportunity. The people who staged the Boston Tea Party in 1773 recognized this. Luckily there are people like them, the Pankhursts, Bridget Moran, and (just to mention a guy) Nelson Mandela who realize that issues like improving the GDP are often used as an excuse for violating principle and withholding justice. Why is it as hard for women in power as it is for men in power to admit this?
John Harris
Prince George
