Rwandan Women Lead

I just saw a Washington Post story from Oct. 27 called Women Run the Show in Recovering Rwanda. With 56 percent of its parliament female, Rwanda has the highest proportion of women legislators in the world.

What effect has that percentage had? They've either eliminated or are working on eliminating laws that kept women from inheriting land and required women to have their husband's signature for a bank loan. They've passed laws that make child and spouse abuse illegal. And they're looking over the entire legal code for unfair discrimination.

After the genocide of 1994, Rwanda's population was 70 percent female. As they rebuilt, they revised their constitution in 2003 to guarantee 30 percent of the parliamentary seats to women.

For comparision, check out this table that gives the percent of women and men in national legislative bodies worldwide by region.