Women World Leaders

Around the world, women are occupying the highest political offices. They’re running armies, heading up Parliaments, and overseeing the laws of the land. And this is not just happening in progressive countries in the West. In fact, women are breaking political glass ceilings in some of the world’s most traditional and conservative nations, and a new generation of female leaders are rising to the top in some truly unexpected places: countries like Cameroon, Thailand, and Pakistan, where the average woman has a mere fraction of those we enjoy in the West. But this might not be as paradoxical as it initially seems. After all, in 1960, Sri Lanka, the tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean, was the first country to elect a female Prime Minister. And in 1974, Argentina made Isabel Peron the world’s first female president. (Here in the United States, meanwhile, we’ve yet to elect a woman to either of the top two governmental seats.) But wherever they are, these are women to watch. A look at the new generation of female political powerhouses.