A valu­able ad­di­tion to re­search on gen­der and women in pol­i­tics in the Com­mon­wealth. That's how Dr Mark Collins, di­rec­tor of the Com­mon­wealth Foun­da­tion, de­scribed the new book by Dr Kris Ram­per­sad–Through The Po­lit­i­cal Glass Ceil­ing–the Race to Prime Min­is­ter­ship by Trinidad & To­ba­go's first fe­male, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Se­lect­ed Speech­es. Speak­ing at the Com­mon­wealth launch of the book at the Part­ners' Fo­rum of the Ninth Women's Af­fairs Min­is­ters meet­ing (9WAMM) in Bar­ba­dos on Fri­day, Collins not­ed the need for re­search and doc­u­men­ta­tion iden­ti­fied by var­i­ous speak­ers and work­shops at the meet­ing.

He said the book and the project for pro­mot­ing so­cial re­search and pub­lish­ing which it launch­es were an­swers to that need. He al­so point­ed out that it was not com­mon for a chair of the Com­mon­wealth to change mid-term, as hap­pened in this case, with the change of Gov­ern­ment in T&T which makes Per­sad-Bisses­sar the first fe­male Caribbean chair-in-of­fice of the Com­mon­wealth. The launch was at­tend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from across the Com­mon­wealth. A copy of Through the Po­lit­i­cal Glass Ceil­ing was pre­sent­ed to chair­per­son of the foun­da­tion, Si­mone de Co­mar­mond who en­dorsed Collins ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the book as a need­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion on gen­der de­vel­op­ment.

The launch was in keep­ing with the fo­rum's theme, Gen­der Is­sues in the Eco­nom­ic Cri­sis Re­cov­ery and Be­yond: Women as Agents of Trans­for­ma­tion. All pro­ceeds of the launch go to­wards sup­port­ing Caribbean re­search and pub­lish­ing. Com­piled, with in­tro­duc­tion, con­texts and analy­ses by Ram­per­sad, the book fea­tures se­lect­ed speech­es of Per­sad-Bisses­sar against the back­drop of the roles of gen­der and geo-pol­i­tics among oth­er fac­tors in the con­test for lead­er­ship be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the coun­try's longest stand­ing po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. Ram­per­sad is a jour­nal­ist, re­searcher and writer who has been ex­plor­ing the di­ver­si­ty of Caribbean so­ci­ety and cul­tures for some 20 years. Through the Po­lit­i­cal Glass Ceil­ing is avail­able at all ma­jor book­stores.