A woman in power in the modern world will not surprise anyone. But it is worth turning our eyes to the pages of history, and we will see that even in times far from our days, the fair sex was at the head of the state and quite successfully coped with this. What is the name of the Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra, Marie de Medici or Catherine the Great…
More surprising is the fact that the current democratically minded society is skeptical of the female representative of power.
This article will tell the reader which countries have a female president and interesting facts about these ladies.
Inactive presidents
To date, world history has recorded that women presidents have taken office thirty-five times. It should immediately be noted that this number does not include prime ministers, captain regents, state ministers, governors general, whose positions in different countries are equated to the head of state.
Of these, twelve women are currently serving as presidents. Respectively,twenty-three representatives are no longer in office.
The first woman president was elected in distant Argentina in 1974. She became Isabel Martinez de Peron. However, this was not the choice of the public. Isabel served as Vice President under her husband Juan Peron. Accordingly, after his death, she automatically became the head of the country. However, she received remarkable support from representatives of many parties, trade unions, and the regular army. Isabel was removed from her post as a result of the coup.
The first woman president in her country and the second in the world is Vigdis Finnbogadottir. She became the head of Iceland and held this post for four terms, she herself refused the fifth. Her policy was radically different from previous ones, since Vigdis devoted most of her time to the development of the national language and the unique Icelandic culture.
Women presidents don't always start their careers in politics. For example, the head of M alta, Agatha Barbara (1982-1987), was originally a simple school teacher.
Corazon Aquino - President of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992 - had no intention of getting into politics at all. She was a housewife and raised five children. But circumstances forced her to intervene in state affairs. Her husband, a prominent politician, was in opposition to the current authorities. He was arrested and expelled from the country, and when he tried to return back, he was killed. After these tragic events, Corazon was supported in her desire and attempts to take the presidency. About Ussuccessfully ruled the country, even despite numerous coup attempts (seven times in two years!).
Guyana also had its first female president. The United States was her homeland, Jewish blood flowed in her veins, and the ideas of Marxism were in her head. Her name was Janet Jagan. She took office after the death of the head of state, her husband Cheddi Jagan. It is noteworthy that before that he was a dentist, and she was a nurse.
Women presidents of the world often did not immediately begin to follow the political path. Sometimes they were motivated by a parental example (Megawati Sukarnoputri, Indonesia), sometimes by journalistic activity (Ruth Dreyfus, Switzerland), but someone went to this consciously, fighting for their rights (Tarja Halonen, Finland).
Incumbent female presidents. Liberia
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has been head of state since 2005. She became the first representative of the weaker sex in such a high position among the heads of African countries. True, only a madman would call her weak. Helen is known to the public as a strong-willed and determined leader.
Helen graduated from Harvard, after which she returned to Liberia and began working as an assistant to the secretary of the treasury. In 1980, she herself took up this post. This period became quite difficult for her career, as the woman was accused of state embezzlement and expelled from the country, where she could only return in 1997.
In the 1997 elections, Helen is a presidential candidate. The woman was able to gain only 10% of the vote. This defeat did not shake her self-confidence, and she made another attempt in 2005. Majorityvoters decided that Johnson-Sirleaf is the new president of the country.
Chile
The only female president in the history of her country is Michelle Bachelet. Today is the second term of her tenure as head of state. Like the first time (in 2006), she was elected by an absolute majority.
Michelle's family suffered greatly from the dictatorship of Pinochet. Her father was imprisoned because he, true to his military duty, remained on the side of the legitimate ruler. In prison, he died. Michelle and her mother were also arrested and brutally tortured as traitors. Only by a miracle did they manage to free themselves and leave the country. For some time they lived in Australia and the GDR.
In 1979, Bachelet returned home, received her medical degree from the University of Chile, and worked for a long time in a children's hospital.
Her political career began in 1990 when she was a consultant for the World He alth Organization. Four years later, she received a position in the ministry. In 2000 she became Minister of He alth, and in 2002 (in addition) - Minister of Defense, which is quite unusual for a woman.
During her first presidential term, pension reform and social guarantees for low-income families became priorities.
Entering her second term, Michelle brought education reform to the fore, promising to make education free. Also, one of the most important issues that the government has been working on since 2014 is the fight against inequality.
Bachelet is single. She has three children.
Argentina
Argentine President - Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. She has held this post since 2007.
Christina's ancestors were emigrants from Spain and Volga Germans. She was born in La Plata in 1953. She became interested in politics while studying at the university, or rather, after meeting her future husband Nestor, who was involved in the radical left movement.
She graduated from law school, after which the couple (married in 1975) left for Santa Cruz, where they opened a law office.
Christina began her political career during her husband's election campaign in the late 1980s. He became governor of the province, and she became a member of the legislature.
Actively supporting her husband in the presidential election, Christina herself understood that she was attracting much more public attention. Therefore, when her husband's term ended and he refused to run again, Christina put forward her candidacy.
In domestic politics, Christina passed several significant laws, for example, a ban on smoking in public places, the legalization of same-sex marriages, the nationalization of private pension funds and more.
Foreign policy was aimed at stabilizing relations with other countries. However, the Argentine woman president could not find understanding with some. The USA and Great Britain are not always friendly towards the Latin American leader. The conflict with the first state occurred in 2007 (the case of businessman Antonini Wilson), and with the second - in 2010, when twocountries have not been able to find a solution to the issue of British oil production off the coast of Argentina (more precisely, the disputed Falkland Islands).
The woman president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez, differs from her colleagues not only in her way of thinking, but also in her style. She is invariably in high heels and gorgeous outfits. More than once, she has stated that shopping is her passion.
After the death of her husband in 2010, Christina made a vow to mourn herself and has since appeared in public only in black outfits.
Brazil
Women presidents of Third World countries were often persecuted for their progressive views. This fate did not escape the head of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.
She became interested in politics after 1964, when there was a military coup. The girl was only seventeen years old. But then the genes made themselves felt, because Dilma's father, Peter, was also involved in politics in his homeland (Bulgaria), but was forced to flee because of the threat to his life.
Dilma has been underground for several years supporting armed organizations against the military dictatorship.
In 1970, she was detained and was under arrest for two years. She had to go through a lot, even electric shock torture. She came out of prison a completely different person, went away from terrible events, received a diploma in economics, gave birth to a daughter from her husband (also supporting revolutionary formations).
Dilma became one of the founders of the Democratic Labor Party. But in the late 1990s, she joined the workers' party, which is distinguishedmore radical views. In 2003, she became Minister of Energy under President da Silva, and in 2005 led his administration.
Five years later, Dilma announced her candidacy for the post of head of the country. In the campaign, she promised to solve many problems, including:
- carrying out political and agrarian reforms;
- support for racial quotas and religious freedom;
- legalization of same-sex marriages;
- abolition of the death pen alty;
- repeal the legalization of soft drugs.
Republic of Korea
Women presidents are sometimes vulnerable in the face of danger. But the leader of Korea, Park Geun-hye, is probably ready for anything. She had to endure the tragic death of her parents. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was the president, and during one attempt on his life, her mother was mortally wounded. After the death of his wife, the head of the Republic entrusted the duties of the first lady to his eldest daughter. Therefore, Park Geun-hye initially knew what the world of politics was like, what she would have to face.
Five years after her mother's death, she also lost her father, who was treacherously murdered in 1979.
For several years, starting in 1998, she ran for parliament and received a deputy seat. But since 2004, she has been engaged exclusively in party activities.
In 2011, she became the leader of the Senuri party, which won the parliamentary elections a year later. In the same year, Park Geun-hye won the presidential election.
Todaythe Korean leader is sixty-three years old, and it is safe to say that politics has become her life's work. She has never been married and has no children.
Croatia
For almost a year (since February 2015) the country has been headed by Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. No one could have thought that a woman president would grow out of a village girl. The USA became her starting point, but first things first.
Kolinda was born in a tiny village in Yugoslavia, from early childhood she had to experience all the hardships of rural life. She once said that no one in NATO, except for her, knows how to milk cows. It must be true.
But, despite the hardships of life, the girl had a very inquisitive mind. She learned the Croatian language, but her main victory was getting a grant to study in America. It was there that she perfectly mastered the English language.
Kolinda graduated from the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb and went back to the USA, becoming a scholar of the George Washington University. In addition, she managed to study at Harvard University. After that, Kolinda was invited to Johns Hopkins University as a research assistant.
She began her political career in 1992, when she became an adviser to the Foreign Ministry. Throughout the 1990s, she was engaged in embassy activities, supervising the North American direction. Was Deputy Ambassador to Canada.
Since 2003 she has been a Member of Parliament and has been working on European integration issues. And two years later she became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The priority tasks for Kolinda were the country's entry into the EU andNATO.
For three years (since 2008) she was the Ambassador of Croatia to the United States.
In 2015, in the second round of elections, she won and became the President of Croatia.
Colinda has been married since 1996. The marriage has two children.
Lithuania
Dalia Grybauskaite was re-elected for a second term as President of Lithuania in 2014.
She was born in 1956 in Vilnius. According to her personal statements, her parents were simple hard workers. But declassified information was published in the press that her father, Polikarpas, belonged to the NKVD.
After graduating from high school, she worked a little to get some money. And then she left for Leningrad, where she entered the University. Zhdanov. She studied at the evening department, because during the day she worked at a fur factory as a laboratory assistant.
In 1983 she received a diploma in political economy. In the same year she became a party member and returned to Vilnius. She lectured there on her subject speci alty at the city's higher party school.
In 1988, she defended her Ph. D. thesis in Moscow and remained at the Academy of Social Sciences.
Because Dalia spoke English very well, she was sent from Lithuania to the USA, where she completed an internship at Georgetown University. She worked for several years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then became the Plenipotentiary Representative of Lithuania in the United States.
After Lithuania joined the EU, Dalia held a post in the European Commission, not fulfilling her duties in 2009 in connection with the election campaign. Voters decide that the head of stateshould be a woman president. Russia did not like it very much, the relations of the countries from now on are in a state of cooling.
Dalia is single, has no children.
Germany
America's female president may not appear in the sky soon, but Angela Merkel's star has been shining since 2005. It was then that she became the head of her country.
Angela was born in 1954 in Hamburg. Her ancestors, both on her mother's side and on her father's side, were Poles.
Studying at school, Angela did not stand out, she was a modest and quiet girl. But she made great strides in the study of mathematics and the Russian language. After leaving school, she left for Leipzig to enter the university's physics department.
In her student years, the girl participated in the activities of the Union of Free German Youth, and also married Wilrich Merkel, also a student of physics.
After receiving diplomas, the couple left for Berlin, where they parted ways. Angela began working at the Academy of Sciences, and later defended her dissertation. In the service, she met her current husband, Joachim Sauer.
Merkel's political career began after the fall of the Berlin Wall and her entry into a party called the Democratic Breakthrough. In the early 1990s, Angela changed her mind and joined the Christian Democratic Union. It was difficult for her to move up the career ladder, since she was the only one from East Germany. But on her side was Helmut Kohl, the leader of the party. In 1993year she leads the CDU in one of the lands of Germany.
A year later, in the elections to the Bundestag, Angela receives the post of Minister of the Environment. In 1998, she became the General Secretary of the CDU.
Due to a financial scandal in 2000, Schäuble (and before that Kohl) resigned as leader of the CDU. It was decided by a majority vote that Merkel would take the helm of the party.
The 2002 elections were won by Gerhard Schroeder, who, unlike Merkel, did not support Bush's policy in Iraq.
However, gradually the Social Democratic Party, which is at the helm of power, lost confidence. It was decided to call early elections for 2005. The SPD and the CDU received almost the same number of votes (1% difference). Five weeks of negotiations were held between the parties, as a result of which coalition agreements were reached, and Angela Merkel was recognized as head of state.
Merkel is known for her pro-American stance, and even the CIA wiretapping scandal on her phones hasn't changed things. As for domestic policy, according to experts, it is characterized by duality and big plans that are constantly in limbo.
Switzerland
The female president of Belarus is a character literally from a science fiction film, but in Switzerland such an outcome of the presidential election is not uncommon. The current president, Simonetta Samorugga, is the fifth woman in office (in modern history).
After graduating from school, she wanted to seriously pursue music, was excellentpianist. Simonetta was trained in the USA and Italy. Then I studied English language and literature at the university.
It was her work at the Consumer Rights Protection Fund that pushed her to politics. She has represented the Social Democrats since 1981.
Simonetta was a member of the National Council and the Council of Cantons. In 2010, she headed the Department of Justice and Police. And at the end of 2014, she was elected president of the country.
Simonetta is the wife of writer Lukas Hartmann.
