A democracy is a polity where citizenship is understood to be as important as leadership, where the voluntary worker is as highly valued as the paid official. Paritocracy occurs when women and men become true partners in citizenship and leadership, sharing equal responsibilities in government and administration, parliament and political parties, the judiciary and the media, and over public revenue and expenditure.
Parity democracy (democratie paritaire) is an end in itself, to bring to bear on public affairs the intelligence and creativity, the courage and integrity, the kindness and compassion, and the enthusiasm and industry of both halves of humankind. It is also a means to a world where every girl, as well as every boy, from Afghanistan to ex-Zaire, receives adequate nutrition, secondary education, and the expectation of gainful employment and an independent income; to a world where women and girls enjoy freedom from violence and from the fear of violence; and a world where elderly women and widows, both old and young, enjoy their full human rights.
The Council for Parity Democracy was founded as Women & Men by Raymond Lloyd in Rome on 8 March 1980. In 1986 I began working out of London, in 1991 from Westminster, at 19 Mulready House, Herrick Street, London SW1P 4JL tel + 44 20 7834 1309 email shequality @ gmail.com. Since January 1997, the Council has published a monthly newsletter, The Parity Democrat (ISSN 1367-6946), uploaded regularly from Issue 61 of January 2002 onward. There are some 600 downloadable text files on this site, from 1 to 118 pages, representing 28 years of fulltime voluntary research. It may be easier to save large files to disk, before opening them. Narratives are in Times font, tabulations in Courier New font, both in Microsoft Word (.doc) format. The whole site is currently 44 Mb in size, and may be downloaded free with a website copier such as the 3.4 Mb HTTrack-3.42-2, freeware downloadable from www.httrack.com. Indeed I would encourage friends both to download it for its unique databases, and to update it every few months.
More recently, to illustrate narratives of work and travel, recounted in monthly issues of The Parity Democrat, I have uploaded on to a separate site, at http://shequality.spaces.live.com, some 2500 photos, in 140 albums, taken on journeys to Austria, Belgium, Cambodia, Finland, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Wales. The present site incorporates some ten unique promotional databases, still in part to be uploaded, comprising
- 3000 major anniversaries of the democracies, annually, to 2017
- 1000 anniversaries of women's empowerment, annually, to 2010
- 6000 centenaries of distinguished women of history, annually, to 2056
- 2800 birthdays of distinguished living women from 180 countries
- 600 current heads of state and other women leaders in 220 countries
- 300 past heads of state and other women leaders
- 5000 able women proposed as heads of international bodies
- 500 flowers and wines named after distinguished women
- 500 coins and banknotes portraying women, and
- 1900 press questions on democracy and women's empowerment
The following pages show an evolution in my work over the past fifty years in both substance and form. My work for democracy began in 1956 when I flew to Vienna to volunteer for the International Red Cross relief operation on behalf of Hungarians fleeing soviet communism. Subsequent work for Algerians taking refuge from European colonialism showed that the refugees were often better off materially than their host populations in Morocco and Tunisia. In 1961 therefore I began working for third world development, only to find in the 1970s that much modernization made women worse off, as men received machinery and credit while women were left with drudgery and subsistence. I then began the first international programme for rural women's advancement, financing it with the first world coin issue in monetary history. But by 1980 I realized that the UN system, through which I worked, had become as unaccountable as the100 of its 150 member governments which imprisoned, tortured or murdered their civilian opponents. At the age of 45 I resigned to work on my own, both for women's empowerment more generally, and for the restoration of democracy and political integrity to the international community.
I have long realized that the substance of such work would bring neither acknowledgement nor appreciation, so the past quarter century has been that of finding ways in which I could get across my suggestions. This first entailed building up databases of Democracy, Distinguished Women, and Women Leaders (see Navigation Panel at left), on which I could make my Proposals. In 1980 these went first in circular letters to foreign ministers, UN agency heads, central banks and postal administrations, none of which letters have yet been posted. In 1987 I began work on some 127 individual letters to citizens and leaders in the democracies, the last 28 of which, and 10 earlier, are on the Letters page. From 1994 on I have spent more time on some 200 Conference Papers, outlining research proposals on democracy and women's advancement for almost every major meeting I attended. And since 1998 I have persisted with Questions at these and other meetings, based on suggestions made earlier, particularly on how anniversaries and centenaries can be used to consolidate and enhance democracy and women's advancement, or promote lustration and reconciliation.
Most Frequent Downloads:
190 Major Anniversaries of the Democracies in 2008 http://www.shequality.org/D2008.doc
50- & 100-year Anniversaries of 184 Distinguished Women of History in 2008 http://www.shequality.org/2008.doc
http://www.shequality.org/2800 Birthdays of Distinguished Living Women in 2008.doc
Women Leaders throughout the World List 74 of 3 May 2005 with 586 names.doc
Women on Banknotes - Queens, Heroines, Educators, Artists (Illustrated).doc
http://www.shequality.org/Reference Sources for Women's Birthdays & Centenaries 2008.doc
Uploads in past six months
12 May Paper for EBRD meeting In Ukraine http://www.shequality.org/11. 18-19 May 2008 Kyiv Ukraine.doc
4 May The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 138 June 2008.doc
Talk in House of Lords http://www.shequality.org/Empowering Women.doc
18 April Questions in Slovenia http://www.shequality.org/Ljubljana 16-18 April 2008.doc
13 April Paper for EU Meetings in Slovenia http://www.shequality.org/35. April-June 2008 Slovenia.doc
Paper for London Book Fair http://www.shequality.org/Celebrating Women Writers 2008.doc
8 April The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 137 May 2008.doc
4 April Questions at Nato summit http://www.shequality.org/Bucharest 2-4 April 2008.doc
30 March Paper for Nato Summit http://www.shequality.org/5. 2-4 April 2008 Bucharest.doc
2 March The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 136 April 2008.doc
27 January The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 135 March 2008.doc
3 January http://www.shequality.org/Celebrating Women, Art and Democracy in Italy 2008-11.doc
29 December The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 134 February 2008.doc
15 December Questions in Brussels http://www.shequality.org/Brussels 14 December 2007.doc
12 December http://www.shequality.org/8th 100 Questions on Women's Advancement.doc
8 December EU Council Paper http://www.shequality.org/34. 14 December 2007 Brussels.doc
7 December The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 133 January 2008.doc
The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/Contents Jan-Dec 2007.doc
28 November Annual Birthday Newsletter to Friends http://www.shequality.org/No 33 of 28 November 2007.doc
Conference papers in 2007 http://www.shequality.org/Conference Papers 2007.doc
24 November Women Against Fundamentalism and For Equality http://www.shequality.org/Talk at WAFE meeting.doc
20 November The Parity Democrat http://www.shequality.org/No 132 December 2007.doc
Questions in London http://www.shequality.org/World Travel Market London 12-15 November 2007.doc
9 November http://www.shequality.org/5 World Travel Market London 2007.doc
50- & 100-year Anniversaries of Distinguished Women of History 2008-2020 http://www.shequality.org/2008-2020.doc
1 November http://www.shequality.org/Celebrating Women Artists 2008.doc
http://www.shequality.org/Celebrating Major British Anniversaries in 2008.doc
28 October Major Anniversaries of the Democracies http://www.shequality.org/D2008-2017.doc
