The president of a women's organisation has hit back at statements made in The Royal Gazette by political commentator Rolfe Commissiong, calling his words "myopic and misguided".

Barbara Lewis-Mills, president of the Business and Professional Women's Association, spoke to The Royal Gazette earlier this week after both the United Bermuda Party and the Progressive Labour Party appointed an all-male, all-black Senate.

"Today there are a lot of issues that men don't look into that really affect women," she said. "So you need some sort of representation."

Her comments sparked a wider debate on the overall general lack of diversity in the Senate, including complaints that, along with women, Anglo-Saxon whites and Portuguese Bermudians were not being represented in the Upper House.

However Mr. Commissiong said the members of the Business and Professional Women's Association were a mere "sub-group" of Bermudian women, and that most Bermudian women would not react the way they had to the gender of the new Senators.

"Is this really about not having any women in the Senate or is it about not having Elizabeth Christopher in the Senate?" he asked.

"We would like to inform Mr. Commissiong that, as an organisation, we are not interested in any one woman," Ms Lewis-Mills said last night.

"We are however interested in the representation of women in all walks of life in Bermuda.

"Ms Elizabeth Christopher has never been a member of this organisation; therefore we are at a loss as to why he should have mentioned her name.

"It is not that we think we are better than men are, it is that we think differently. It is not that women must compete with men, but that women must be allowed to work with and enhance men."

Ms Lewis-Mills also expressed her pleasure at Governor Sir John Vereker's appointment of Carol Ann Bassett to the Senate. "We are so sorry that she is the only lady there," she said.

"But we know she will do her best to represent the women of Bermuda in that chamber."