Kuala Lampur, Sept. 18 -- Women make effective political leaders by most of the standard measures political scientists use, including constituency service, cross-party cooperation and, in study after study, lower tolerance for corruption once in office. What they don't get, almost anywhere, is a fair share of the seats.

Women held just 27.5 per cent of parliamentary seats worldwide as of the start of this year, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a pace so slow that gender parity in the world's legislatures is still roughly 75 years away. Malaysia sits below even that modest global average, not above it.

Women hold 13.5 per cent of seats in the Dewan Rakyat, short of the 30 per cent floor the country itself signed up to under th...