When Women Take Power, It’s Usually Because Men Have Made a Big Mess

Article here. Excerpt:

'It is now absolutely certain that Britain’s next prime minister will be a woman. Every male candidate for party leader was eliminated after Conservative members of Parliament voted to narrow the field to two nominees. Grass-roots party members will decide between Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom in an election that will last until September. Elsewhere in Britain, the Scottish National Party, the Green Party, Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, and the Scottish Labour and Conservative parties are all led by women. The left-wing Labour Party has never had a female leader, but Angela Eagle is expected to challenge Jeremy Corbyn if he ever opens his eyes, takes his fingers out of his ears, and stops saying, “I’m not stepping down! I’m not stepping down! I’m not stepping down!”

It’s hard not to notice that this blossoming of female political power comes at a time when British politics is in a stonking great mess. The June 23 referendum vote to leave the European Union means that the next prime minister will spend half her time negotiating with Europeans who want to boot the ungrateful Brits out of their union and the other half calming down Brits who want to kick Europeans out of their not at all united kingdom. In other words, the gig is a poisoned chalice. And that list of women-led U.K. political parties is less impressive when you realize that with the notable exception of the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon (and possibly the Greens, who have had more than one female leader), the women took the top spots when their parties were in crisis.'