Indeed, in calling for a minimum of 30 percent of all leadership to be in the hands of women by 2004, the United Nations has been leading the resocialization of power. Women are stepping forward to answer these calls.

Why do we need women's political leadership anyway? The absence of women in decision-making is a signal part of an inequitable worldwide structure and maldistribution of power - gendered global apartheid. This very undemocratic structure, particularly harsh for unschooled, immigrant, nonwhite, nonelite women, excludes most women from power and wealth and is found to one degree or another in every society.

According to the United Nations, more than 70 percent of the estimated 1.3 billion people living in poverty are female. Women work longer hours than men in all countries: on average, women carry 53 percent of the total burden of work as compared to men's 47 percent, and in rural areas, the gap widens to 55 and 45 percent.

On average, women spend two-thirds of their work time in unpaid activities, while for men it is no more than a quarter of their work time. Indeed, men receive the lion's share of income and recognition - while women's work remains unpaid, unrecognized, and undervalued: $16 trillion of global output is ''invisible, '' $11 trillion produced by women.

Gendered global apartheid is evidenced too and has strong implications for the makeup of decision-making bodies around the globe. Women, 50 percent of the world's population, hold only 6 percent of seats in national cabinets and 13 percent of the seats in world parliaments. Women's absence in decision-making has generally meant that women's (and children's) needs are inadequately met as the state plans, budgets, spends, and recognizes.

Removing gendered global apartheid necessitates women's leadership; equally, women's increased leadership will be a sign that this unjust regime is ending. In changing the power structure, women are participating in politics more than ever before. Women outvote men in places as diverse as the United States, Iran, and Grenada. Seven national leaders in office today are women: in Sri Lanka (the prime minister and the president), Panama, Bangladesh, Ireland, Switzerland, and Finland.

Women lead at the international level too: former Irish president Mary Robinson and former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlan Brundtlandt now head up the UN Commission on Human Rights and the World Health Organization, respectively. Impressive, but they constitute less than 4 percent of the world's political leadership.

Like constitutions, policy instruments are critical management tools in democratizing structure and culture. Thus it is important that 165 countries have ratified the 1980 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. It has become a virtual bible for women's rights worldwide, transforming thinking, action, and expectations.

In the Caribbean, amid globalization's demands, the pace of development is not fast enough for the poor and for women. The region's universal ratification of the convention and the high percentage of women in public office make a critical difference in women's advocacy.

Last year, visiting South Africa, which has ratified the convention, I found that women's political management is significant. Women made up 27 percent of the parliament from 1994 to 1999 and increased to 30 percent in the June 1999 elections. Their strategic national political gain in leadership affords them initiatives for the feminist resocialization of power, the adoption of women's needs in all policies and state spending, a Gender Equity Commission, day care for all in parliament, and the birthing of a new culture.

With women only 14 percent of the Congress, the United States is one of a handful of countries yet to join that global policy avalanche in support of women. Passing the convention is mandatory old business; faithfully and meaningfully implementing it is serious new business for women and men.

As Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the women of the world know, women's increased political management is one place to hasten the long and critical path to feminize, democratize, and ultimately resocialize power.

Dessima Williams, former ambassador to Grenada, teaches at Brandeis University.

© Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company

###