Women, Power and Politics

A new era for Australia! First Female Prime Minister
Few people will be unaware that Australia now has its first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Gillard was Deputy Prime Minister (the first female Deputy Prime Minister). She was elected unopposed after the Kevin Rudd stood down from the leadership when it became clear that he no longer had the support of the party. It will be interesting to watch how the media and the population at large react to our first female Prime Minister. We wish her well in her new leadership role!!

Staying on the political theme – Women Power and Politics
A series of new plays ‘Women, Power and Politics’ is currently running at the Tricycle Theatre in north London. The series is part of a wider program examining UK women’s absence in positions of political power, their activism and issues such as pornography and the impact on families of war.

Part One of the series titled ‘Then’ consists of four plays that look at surviving in a man’s world and the choices or lack of choices available to women wanted to engage in political processes. Elizabeth 1, the Suffragettes, the Greenham Common protests and the relationship between Margaret Thatcher and the Queen were all explored. The second series of five plays is titled ‘Now’ and looks at Tony Blair’s rise to power over the Acting Leader of the Opposition Margaret Beckett, student politics and how much people are prepared to compromise (or not) to win an election, pre-selection decisions, the impact of pornography and why people engage or disengage from political processes.

It is a powerful series of plays that have moments of great humour and insight. I think what is the most interesting aspect is that this was a specially commissioned series of plays by the Tricycle Theatre to examine the complexity of women and political power in the UK.

Some books that have caught our attention


‘Women’s Leadership’ (2009) by Valerie Stead and Carole Elliot explores women’s accounts of becoming leaders. Stead and Elliot show the critical importance of the relationship between gender and leadership and how women are perceived and treated differently to men. The book is published by Palgrave McMillan.




Donna Ladkin asks us to rethink leadership in her book titled ‘Rethinking Leadership A New Look at Old Leadership Questions’. The book was published this year (2010) by Edward Elgar.



And finally some shameless self promotion!
“Self-Management and Leadership Development” edited by Mitch Rothstein and Ronald Burke published this year (2010) by Edward Elgar contains a chapter titled ‘Learning from Life Experiences: A Study of Female Academic Leaders in Australia’ by Linley Lord from the Maureen Bickley Centre and Susan Vinnicombe from the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield University, UK.