Thursday, July 07, 2016

Three Female Heads of Government?

This possibility was mentioned in a Washington Post piece on June 30. With Angela Merkel head of German government, Hillary Clinton currently favored to be elected president, and Theresa May the frontrunner for UK prime minister, we could see it happen.  Interesting to speculate on the impact on the dynamics of G-7, G-8, G-20, etc. etc. meetings which typically these days just have Merkel surrounded by business suits.

In this context I recall an article on Sen. Mikulski, who organized a weekly/monthly? luncheon for female senators which was credited with helping them to assume a greater role in the Senate. (IIRC she was an early, maybe the first elected female senator in the current era.  Just checked wikipedia--I thought maybe I was slighting Nancy Kassebaum (KS) and I was.  She and Hawkins were the female senators present when Mikulski was elected.)

Assuming it happens, I predict there will be multiple articles on the issue of how a common gender has affected the dynamics of the group.

[Corrected: Paula Hawkins served only one term, ending on the day Mikulski was sworn in.  So it was a bipartisan club of two from 1987 to 1992.]

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