toward our suggestions that there has to be a major push to include Bermuda's women in Parliament and on boards of all kinds, not just Government boards.

For many years Bermuda has debated race and racial equality. It is time now to move toward gender equality. Just as Government is trying to eliminate the "glass ceiling'' on blacks, it should also be looking at the glass ceiling as it affects women. There are very few women at the top of Bermuda's businesses or on major business sector boards or Government boards.

We do not know what the figures are in Bermuda with regard to the percentage of women on boards but it is safe to say that the figure is low. Of elected members of the 40 member House of Assembly, only six are women, which is 15 percent and not 50 percent. The figures in the appointive Senate are a bit better.

A recent conference in Australia was reminded of United Nations statistics that women, who make up 50 percent of the world's population, perform two-thirds of its work hours, earn one tenth of its income and own less than one-hundredth of its property.

As a result of several recent editorials, we were accused of being strident advocates of women's lib. We are not strident nor are we on the "bra burning fringe'' but we do believe women are not receiving their due. It seems to us self-evident that women are under-represented and there are any number of women in Bermuda who would make much better public representatives than some of the non-entity men now in office.

We were very interested this week in some newspaper cuttings about the Women, Power and Politics conference in Australia. Australia appears to be in the forefront of women's rights.

The Australian federal government has announced that by the year 2000 women will be guaranteed at least 50 percent of the membership of hundreds of Federal Government boards, councils and authorities. This is considered to be an historic change which will extend affirmative action and change the face of public decision making. Canberra has said that it will encourage all other organisations, from sporting bodies to banks, to lift the representation of women to 50 percent. This follows a decision by the Australian Labour Party to guarantee 35 percent of the winnable seats in federal and state legislatures to women by the year 2002.

The important word is "winnable'' because too often political parties in Bermuda have been willing to sacrifice women in safe seats but not to give them places where they had a fair chance of success.

Holding public office would mean sacrifices for women. As you get more and more women in politics, it will seem more natural than it does today and women will accumulate the pluses and minuses which go with that. There is little doubt that women would not have the automatic contempt of the public as do many males. They would not be assumed to be suspect or self-serving. We have no doubt that women would do a more thoughtful and sensitive job. And, we think there will be an added benefit for the Country. We think more women would improve the behaviour of Parliament and the standard of politics.