Trailblazers

As a Canadian, I am at a bit of a loss. Our great neighbours to the south are making a great deal out of Hillary Clinton almost making it to a position, from which she might or might not have reached a position of power. They, particularly women, rave about her accomplishments. They claim that she, Hillary, has paved the way for women of America, of the World, to reach the pinnacle of power.

Well, not mentioning the old adage that only a fool would want to be the President of the United States, and only a saint would agree to be one, Hillary may be a great and wonderful woman, but a trailblazer she is not. Many great women have shown her the way. We, in Canada, already had a woman Prime Minister, Kim Campbell. We also had Jeanne Sauve, Adrienne Clarkson and Michaelle Jean serving as Governor General of Canada, the present one being not only a beautiful woman, but also an African-American. We always treated our women with respect. But even our ladies did not really lead the way. They had many forerunners estblishing the precedent of great women leaders. Here are but a few of them.

Corazon Aquino and Gloria Arroyo, from the Philippines;
Bnazir Bhutto, Pakistan;
Chandrika Kumaratunga and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lanka;
Golda Meir, Israel;
Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua;
Angela Merkel, Germany;
Mary Robinson, Ireland;
Pratibha Patil and Indira Gandhi, India;
Magawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia
Margaret Thatcher, England,

Now, please, don’t be offended. I may have missed a few among this illustrious dozen of great women (not even counting the Canadians). But surely, isn’t it time the ladies (and a number of gentlemen, mostly of the press) in the USA stopped living in parochial backwaters? Perhaps they ought to learn something from the past, starting with Cleopatra. The last time I looked, she was a woman. And talking of blazing a trail... now there was a girl I admire. Don't you?