Canada Swears In a 50 Percent Female Cabinet

We love that new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls himself a feminist. We love it even more that he’s practicing what he preaches.

During his campaign, Trudeau promised to make 50 percent of his cabinet female. Last week, he announced that he’s done just that. No joke: there is now gender parity in the executive branch of the Canadian government. It’s awesome.

When someone asked Trudeau why he did it, his response was: “It’s 2015.” On a related note, if you don’t hear from us for a few days, it’s because we’re packing to move to Canada.

Canada isn’t the only country currently leaving the US in the dust in terms of women’s representation in government. In Sweden, the ministry is 52 percent female and the Parliament is 43 percent female. Its neighbors in Finland have even more women running the country with a 62 percent female ministry. And in Rwanda, women make up 64 percent of Parliament.

These countries are probably onto something. As Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of 20-first, puts it: “We know that companies with more gender-balanced leadership teams significantly outperform companies with only men at the helm. Why wouldn’t this be even more true at a country level?”

About the Author

Julianne Helinek is Take The Lead's blog editor and writer of the newsletter Take The Lead This Week. She thinks the women she knows are too talented not to be running the world, and she’s especially interested in bringing more men into the gender equality conversation. Julianne is an MBA student at NYU’s Stern School of Business. For more on feminism in the business school world, follow her on Twitter at @thefeministmba.