Be careful of what you wish for

[WarBlade]

As you seem to have missed the point in the noise, tokenism is irrelevant, and tokenism was your counter: "who had a lady president."

Tokenism? As in having a female figurehead as a token gesture? I still don't quite grasp your meaning with that.

No, I slipped that question in to query your position of "when it comes to women in government and the military, we are light years ahead of our NATO allies". It was incidental at best and quite frankly I find the notion that America's style of government being light years ahead of it's NATO allies quite a surprising claim. I look at your electoral system and see something similar to one my country abandoned years ago and Norway and Germany even earlier still.

Turkey and Pakistan, so what?  That says nothing to the actual social conditions in my country, or the example that has set for about past 50 years.  We move forward.  Those I hold in utter contempt are trying to set the clock backward.  That is why I hold them in comtempt.  If you admire them for that, all of their token female presidents are so much window dressing for those of you who wallow in your token symbols.  Dame Thatcher was no token, she was the real deal.

Turkey and Pakistan? I think you were replying to someone else there. :unsure:

As for Dame Thatcher, she has some similar qualities to my current Prime Minister and many have remarked on similarities. I would call Helen Clark "the real deal" too and certainly nothing resembling a tokenistic (is that the word? ) attempt to install a female figurehead. Jenny Shipley before her was also a powerful figure, although not one I'd ever vote for.

A listing of the Maori heads of ministries, such as your defense and foreign ministries would be most enlightening, or you once again sit as a pot screaming at a far cleaner kettle.

I'd have to research the names . . . I have no idea which of them would claim Maori ancestry aside from some of the more prominant figures.

I can offer the party lists where some names might give a clue, but Maori people like Dover Samuels with european names are as much the norm as the Maori names like Hekia Parata. Other names stand out too like a rastafarian politician called Nándor Tánczos and various "Wong"s and "Wang"s etc. so I really wouldn't even want to begin to guess which ethnic minorities our politicians belong.

This perhaps does highlight an element of tokenism though. NZ is divided up in voting regions as one would expect. It also has a number of Maori electorates overlayed with the ordinary electorates ensurating that Maori interests have a voice depending on region. Maps can be found here. Maori people have the option of choosing to vote by Maori electorate. Most prefer to vote according to the ordinary electorate boundaries IIRC.

How close to a token gesture the Maori electorates ever become (if anything) is not really for me to say - I don't really know either way. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of complaints that I know of so I can only assume the status quo is acceptable to most.