My neatly (or so I may think) combining my established love of gender issues with my fledgling political education has produced a interesting statistic that I cannot help but share.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an annual meeting among CEO’s of the world's richest corporations, national political leaders (presidents, prime ministers, etc), selected intellectuals and ‘respected’ journalists. (Around 2000 people).

Until 2001, the main WEF decision making boards, the Forum Board of Directors and the Council Board of Directors, were 100% male. In 2001, of nine new members, one was female.

Now, to my way of thinking, some of the qualities each gender possesses make them better equipped for certain life situations. Is politics another one those situations ?.

The term ‘Gender Balance’, applied politically, is as much a loaded issue as when applied to its' better known cousins, 'sexuality' and 'workplace equality'.

The growing female political presence is another ‘equal opportunity’ or ‘gender equality’ stumbling block that may well need to be examined for a deeper motivation than “but, that’s not fair !”.

Is the right to political power to be considered an issue for sexual equality, or an issue for ‘the greater good of man-(no pun intended)-kind ?'. Does equality belong everywhere ?.

I don’t doubt the capabilities of the female parliamentarians of the world. I would just prefer that sexism was left to issues that relate to sex – and that politics was left to be, well, political.

That the number of female politicians is on the rise is viewed as a success from the ‘equality’ point of view, regardless of its' eventual outcome.

Yet, if the individual women were viewed as politicians and not ‘female politicians’, maybe the focus would be the job itself, rather than the gender of its' incumbent.