Prime Minister David Cameron has written to 15 nations that have the same head of state as the UK asking them to support an end to gender discrimination against female members of the Windsor family. At present male Windsors have precedence over their sisters when a new head of state is needed.
In general members of the Windsor family benefit from an egregious system of inequality that Mr. Cameron wishes to protect, making his plea for equality rather odd. Only Windsor family members are allowed to become head of state. That means that 30m adult females in the UK will still be excluded from the country’s chief public office if Mr. Cameron has his way. Millions of male Briton’s will also continued to be barred from public office for the offence of not being born into the Windsor clan. All citizens of the 15 countries to which Cameron is appealing for support will be similarly barred from ever holding this public office.
According to press reports the Prime Minister believes that he will win more support for his government from British women if discrimination against female Windsors is ended. He is not believed, however, to have any intention of allowing those women or their children to become their country’s head of state.
The Financial Times barely kept a straight face in its commentary. It called the move a “gender gesture” and said that “Marrying the progressive idea of gender equality to the somewhat less progressive idea of monarchical rule is the kind of cross-over that could boost the image of Cool Britannia across the waves. . . Taking up the cause of women at such a rarefied level will benefit one woman a generation at best. It does little for the more than 30m British women who are neither born nor married into the succession line”.