Like oth­er women prime min­is­ters else­where in the world, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has had to com­pete in the po­lit­i­cal are­na on equal terms with her male op­po­nents. The was por­trayed dur­ing the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, and has been por­trayed since, as be­ing fear­less, ca­pa­ble and in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly su­pe­ri­or. On this ba­sis Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar did bat­tle-and won, em­phat­i­cal­ly. First she de­feat­ed the found­ing fa­ther of the UNC, Bas­deo Pan­day, for the par­ty lead­er­ship, and then she un­seat­ed the in­cum­bent prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning. No spe­cial al­lowances were made for her in any way- if any­thing, her gen­der was an ad­van­tage. Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign she was of­ten por­trayed as a uni­fy­ing force among the coali­tion of par­ties that makes up her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, and for the coun­try as a whole. She was pre­sent­ed as bring­ing a spe­cial fe­male en­er­gy to the coun­try's pol­i­tics. Oc­ca­sion­al­ly, too, there are ref­er­ences to her as the "moth­er of the na­tion"-in the same way that the coun­try's first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, was hailed as the "fa­ther of the na­tion," a man­tle which Mr Man­ning al­so lat­er con­ferred up­on him­self. Gen­er­al­ly, Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been in­clined to close rather than widen the gen­der di­vide.

She fol­lows in the foot­steps of oth­er women in Trinidad and To­ba­go who have blazed a trail in pol­i­tics, law, med­i­cine, ed­u­ca­tion and nu­mer­ous oth­er fields and proved them­selves a match for their male peers. Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­sponse when chal­lenged about her sis­ter's ac­com­pa­ny­ing her on an over­seas trip at tax­pay­ers' ex­pense, then, comes as a sur­prise. It is rare that she choos­es to play the gen­der card. Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained her de­ci­sion to take her sis­ter on the trip by say­ing that it was nec­es­sary be­cause there were "many per­son­al is­sues unique to a woman." She named a few needs-"di­et, med­ica­tion, ex­er­cise, wardrobe"-and made an un­spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to "oth­er health-re­lat­ed and per­son­al is­sues" for which her sis­ter is re­spon­si­ble. Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar's dis­creet vague­ness made it seem in­del­i­cate to in­quire ex­act­ly what these needs might be; but in­quiry is nec­es­sary, be­cause no such women-on­ly needs come to mind. As for the oth­ers that Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar list­ed, they would ap­ply equal­ly to a male prime min­is­ter. It was es­pe­cial­ly un­for­tu­nate that the Prime Min­is­ter should try to use her gen­der to jus­ti­fy her de­ci­sion, be­cause it was un­nec­es­sary. There are nu­mer­ous oth­er rea­son­able grounds for her choice. Ss Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar her­self point­ed out, the of­fices of the Prime Min­is­ter and the Pres­i­dent have tra­di­tion­al­ly recog­nised that such of­fi­cials need sup­port ser­vices and staff while car­ry­ing out their du­ties over­seas. That re­mains so, re­gard­less of the of­fice-hold­er's gen­der. The ob­jec­tions arose not be­cause Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar took a per­son­al as­sis­tant with her, but be­cause she chose her sis­ter to ful­fil that role.

There was no need, then, for Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar to plead for spe­cial treat­ment. And she needs to be very cau­tious about do­ing so. Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be mind­ful that she is seen as a stan­dard-bear­er for half the pop­u­la­tion. In a coun­try that is still ex­treme­ly pa­tri­ar­chal in many ways, any claim that a woman prime min­is­ter has spe­cial needs is in dan­ger of be­ing in­ter­pret­ed as an ad­mis­sion that women have spe­cial weak­ness­es. The elec­torate go­ing to vote next time around might al­so mis­tak­en­ly con­clude that to elect a fe­male prime min­is­ter will mean spe­cial fi­nan­cial and oth­er forms of con­ces­sions. It would be un­for­tu­nate if, while she cham­pi­ons the women of the na­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter sets back their cause and puts them once again at a dis­ad­van­tage.