international women's day: u.s. and german chicks in national politics

given that today is international women's day why not look at our women on top.

talking about the women quote of 25% set for the iraqi parliament that saw its latest election just yesterday (march 7, 2010), it is interesting what our countries have to offer in that direction.

i guess the most obvious difference is that in iraq with nuri al-maliki the most powerful seat in the country is taken by a man. likewise, in the united states the highest political human being is with barack obama a man.

not so in germany where angela merkel as the first women ever elected as chancellor reigns since 2005.

but to make this game more fun, let's look at the parliaments. since they are still counting the votes in iraq we can meanwhile turn our attention to germany and the united states. and while we're at it, why not find out who has the highest percentage of women worldwide.

who would have thunk it's rwanda.

rwanda ranked first in terms of percentage of women in the lower house (or single house) as of january 31, 2010 with 56.3% or 45 out of 80 seats taken by female members. that's out of 187 countries of which the inter-parliamentary union compiles data provided by the national governments. that's where the numbers below stem from cross-checked by official websites:

Germany
Bundestag as of 9/2009 (house of representatives):
32.8% or 204 out of 622 members

Bundesrat (similar to the u.s. senate because members represent the 16 german states):
21.7% or 15 out of 69 members
(according to the display of the Bundesrat website there were only 13 as of march 8, 2010 -- even after counting twice)

United States of America
House of representatives as of 11/2008:
16.8% or 73 out of 435 members
(currently 76 according to the office of the house of representative office of clerk's website
but it doesn't say when it was last updated)

Senate as of 11/2008:
15.3% or 15 out of 98 members
(currently 17 according to the house of the representative office of the clerk's website but it doesn't say when they last updated)

for a historical perspective on women in the united states congress: in the hundred years between 1917 and 2006 there were 260 female representatives or senators as a book on the matter cum website adopted by the house of representative states.

to save you the trouble of looking for the ranking of the united states and germany out of the 187 listed countries:

angela merkel can shine with a position 18 -- off course beaten by socially correct scandinavia, a couple of western neighbors but also south africa (3), cuba (4), mozambique (9), and angola (10).

barack obama sits with his team on a rather crestfallen 74th place. sandwiched by turkmenistan (73) and san marino (75).

and the loser?

there is a bunch of them with saudi arabia, oman, and qatar as the bigger names among them garnished by the lesser known belize, comoros, micronesia, tuvalu, nauru, paulu, and the solomon islands. they all share the 139th position. not far away neighbors such as iran (134), egypt (136), and yemen (138) say hello.

with its 25% quota iraq ranks around position 38, in the first quarter -- doing better than the united states in both chambers and beating the german Bundesrat but not outmatching the german Bundestag. (of course bearing in mind that in the united states and germany females don't get quota seats).

some will say quantity is not quality. but doing the numbers provides a skeleton before measuring muscle and meat on it. and no skeleton no backbone; no female bodies inside the legislative no chance for them to show there qualities to begin with in high level national politics.