By Naomi Steer, National Director, Australia for UNHCR
It can be lonely at the top – and no more so than for women in public life who, despite the rewards, also face daily scrutiny, sometimes personal vilification and in some cases even violence.
If the recently published IPU Women in National Parliaments ranking is anything to go by, it looks like it will be even lonelier with Australia’s ranking of 43, well behind our sisters in New Zealand (25), Denmark (13) and perhaps surprisingly, number one-ranked Rwanda.
However, in this at least we are not alone. The report Sex and Power 2013: Who Runs Britain? by the Centre for Women and Democracy, bemoans the falling numbers of women in the UK in senior levels of the judiciary, education, the arts, finance, the civil service and government.
