Bahraini woman chairs parliament

BBC News reported For the first time in the Arab world, a woman has chaired a parliamentary session in the Gulf state of Bahrain.
Alees Samaan, who is Christian, also became the first non-Muslim to act as speaker in predominantly Muslim Bahrain, if only for a few hours.
Details of the story are published on the front page of Bahraini newspapers, which describe the event as historic. The leading pan-Arab newspaper, al-Hayat, also reported the session on its front page.
The Bahraini press speak of warm applause as Ms Samaan walked up to the speaker's chair. At the end of the session, colleagues were said to have rushed to the podium to have their pictures taken with her.
But despite the apparent rejoicing by her male colleagues, this was equality by default rather than design. The speaker of the consultative council was absent and so were his two male deputies.
And according to the council's by-laws, the role of speaker had to go to the most senior member of the council, who happened to be Alees Samaan. There are only six women in Bahrain's two-chamber parliament.

It may have been accidental, but at least it happened, and next time it will be easier for it to happen intentionally.

Charles Paul Freund blogged A recent study found that "The number of women members of parliament in the Arab world has almost doubled in the last five years," to 6.5 percent of the region's MPs, according to a BBC report in March. "Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco contributed most" to that rise, "but the trend should continue thanks to the recent Iraqi elections."