George Bernard Shaw, you will recall, sent the following invitation to Winston Churchill, “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend... if you have one.”

Churchill’s reply did not take long to come, “Cannot possibly attend first night. Will attend second... if there is one.” Tit for tat!

Tit for tat was also the response of Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam to the lobby of campaigners for quotas for women in politics, “‘No’ to one out of three. But ‘yes’ to three out of three!” and three women were fielded in a constituency where, I think, they might have a fighting chance.

Yes, there were disappointments that the parties did not field a bigger number of female candidates. There were also and especially perhaps personal ambitions which were frustrated after high expectations. However, one can only serve women by giving them the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

No more, no less. If the world at large remains egregiously male dominated in nearly all spheres (look worldwide at the corporate world above a certain level, for example) it is because of the lack of equal opportunities. Girls are demonstrably higher performers academically where there is really equal opportunity.

Nor is the number of women fielded or even elected a measure of the rights women have. Canada, for example, has a low female representation of 22%, the United Kingdom 20 and the United States 17%! It would be wrong to assume that women in the US have fewer rights than those in Rwanda where the representation is as high as 47% and where women make such little difference that the system of quotas is now being questioned.

The women fielded by both parties, like their male counterparts, have a hard task ahead of them. They need to convince the electorate that they are the best possible candidates in their constituency. I hope that they set the example by doing that through the values they stand for, the programme they present to the electorate and their competence and track record rather than through using their gender as their only weapon. Our enemy is not the man we wake up next to, but the challenges that we face together as individuals, as couples, as families and as a country.

Nor should these women, once elected, be burdened with the task of single handedly defending the cause of women. Their task should be no different from that of their male colleagues.

They should stand for equal opportunity and unity, empowering the most vulnerable sections of our community and negotiating to obtain workplaces flexible enough to take into account the needs of dual working couples. They should work for adequate and subsidized pre-school and after-school care to allow women and men to be economically independent.

What will also genuinely empower women is a change in the mindset. In a country where abortion is still a taboo, where our male compatriots in 2010 still expect their wives to be virgins when they get married and where some middle-class women, according to a study done by l’Express Dimanche, still pay huge sums of money to have a virginity remake to give their partners the illusion they are looking for, I think we have a long way to go. I am happy for the three out of three, but the real struggle for women’s empowerment is still far away.