Time for women to rise up, urges Desmond Tutu

DAVOS, Switzerland — After the uprisings in the Arab world, South Africa's veteran Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said Wednesday it was now time for women to have their revolution and banish men to the margins.

Speaking at a gathering of the world's political and financial elite in Davos, the vast majority of them men, Tutu said women had long been locked out of policy-making -- and the world had paid the price.

"Let us realign forces, let us ensure that women have a significant part in the decision-making process... we have been excluding women," said the former archbishop of Cape Town.

Telling the event's compere Klaus Schwab that he might need a security escort from the podium, Tutu said he was about to upset much of his audience.

"What we need is a revolution led by women. I think women ought to be saying to us men: 'You have made a mess, just get out and let us in'," he added.

Tutu was speaking shortly after the world's most powerful woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, delivered a keynote address in Davos. She in turn had been preceded by Swiss President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.