The quest for gender equality

AT the 2018 Golden Globes Award on Jan 7, Oprah Winfrey, the respected American media personality, delivered a stirring call for “a new day” on the horizon for American women. Her speech made me reflect on the faltering quest for gender equality in our own constitutional democracy.

At the outset, it needs to be acknowledged that the ideal of sex equality is so complex and contradictory that everywhere it is buffeted by currents and cross-currents.