America’s grating culture-war debate over DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – was briefly interrupted last weekend by the distant crash of shattering glass.
It was the sound of two formidable glass ceilings giving way to two extraordinary female leaders.
On Friday, Dame Sarah Mullally was named the first female archbishop of Canterbury in the 500-year history of the Church of England. A day later, in Japan, Sanae Takaichi was chosen to lead the Liberal Democratic Party, putting her on track to become the country’s first-ever female prime minister later this month.
Why We Wrote This
As America wrestles with DEI issues, some other countries take them in their stride. A woman will be Japan’s next prime minister, and a woman was just named archbishop of Canterbury. For all the sound and fury, the direction of travel will not change.
Neither breakthrough will directly influence the political battle over U.S. President Donald Trump’s moves to unwind “woke” DEI programs and to weaken federal government support for women’s rights.
But the elevation of the two women – and the widespread recognition that they had earned their promotions simply by being more qualified than competing male candidates – provided timely context and sent an important message.
The context: The U.S. debate over DEI is the latest chapter in a story stretching back not just years or decades, but centuries. It is the story of how America, and countries and institutions around the globe, began moving slowly, often haltingly, to ensure equal status for women and other historically disadvantaged communities.
And the message?
How that is achieved, and governments’ role in making it happen, are questions at the center of a renewed partisan battle. But the direction of travel is not going to change.
Both Archbishop-designate Mullally and Japan’s premier-in-waiting, Ms. Takaichi, will have a raft of challenges in their in trays.
For Dame Sarah, the role of women in the Church of England will inevitably be one of them.
It was only a decade ago that the church installed its first female bishop. Dame Sarah became the first woman bishop of London three years later.
Most congregants have embraced the change, and fellow bishops were quick to congratulate her on being named archbishop. So was the titular head of the church, King Charles III.
Yet a vocal group of traditionalists, in England and in the 165 countries around the world with Anglican congregations, remains opposed to the new role for women.
Until now, the church has tried to finesse this by providing congregants unhappy with the idea of female priests an option for male-led services.
Yet the reality facing Dame Sarah as archbishop is that some of her serving bishops will likely be unwilling to take Communion from her.
If her record as London’s bishop is any guide, she will reach out to them and engage with them, but ultimately do what she feels is right.
An illustration: When she was bishop of London, she played a key role in the church’s decision to provide for the blessing of same-sex unions by clergy who wished to do so.
Still, she is aware that her responsibilities as overall head of the church are of a different order.
On becoming bishop of London, she said that as the first woman in the role, she was “necessarily subversive” and added, “It’s a necessity I intend to embrace.”
Her tone on being named archbishop was more restrained. “I will not always get things right,” she said. “But I am encouraged by the psalmist who tells us: ‘Though you stumble, you shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds you fast by the hand.’”
Different challenges will face Ms. Takaichi in Japan.
Modeling herself on Britain’s former Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, she is a vocal nationalist, a security hawk, and an advocate of limits to immigration.
But while that might seem to make her a natural ally of Mr. Trump – whom she is likely to meet at an Asian summit at the end of October – she was disheartened by his imposition of trade sanctions on his main regional ally.
She has suggested that Japan might want to revisit the compromise trade deal that followed.
How Ms. Takaichi proceeds on that front – as well as in confronting inflation and her own party’s recent electoral setbacks – will determine how she fares in office.
Unlike the new archbishop of Canterbury, she’s no feminist.
In fact, she has been on the traditionalist side of two key issues for Japanese women’s rights advocates. She is opposed to allowing married women to retain their maiden names, and she denies the right of a maternal descendant of Japan’s royal family to become monarch.
Still, by virtue of their new jobs, she and Dame Sarah have become players in the long story of women breaking new ground in the face of significant obstacles.
Dame Sarah lacks the Oxford and Cambridge pedigrees of most of her predecessors. Ms. Takaichi has risen to the top of one of the most heavily male-dominated political systems in the world.
Their new positions won’t suddenly alter the real-life challenges facing women in other countries or other workplaces.
But the fact that women will now head the Church of England and the government of Japan – unthinkable not long ago – might well have resonated with Martin Luther King Jr.
It was he who declared, after the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
