Women Leaders in Modern Times

Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for President unless something bizarre happens at the upcoming convention. If she wins, she’ll be the first woman to win the Presidency of the United States of America. She’s already broken one glass ceiling by becoming VP; will she shatter the next one?

Given America’s history she might find the hurdles are high.

Yet women have held national leadership positions in other countries for 80 years. And many of these places have been less favorable to women’s rights in many ways than the United States.

The first female head of state was Khertek Anchimaa-Toka. She was the head of the parliament of the Tuvan People’s Republic from 1940 until 1944.

The first to ascend to power in free and fair elections was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). She became Prime Minister of her country in 1960 and again in 1970. Her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, would also serve as Sri Lanka’s prime minister, and from 1994–2005, its first woman president.

Then came Indira Gandhi who became Prime Minister of India in 1966 and again in 1980, though she was assassinated in 1984 by Sikh nationalists.

Golda Meir became the fourth Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, four years after being diagnosed with lymphoma.

Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979. Dubbed the “Iron Lady” by the Soviets, she served for 11 years, the longest of any modern UK Prime Minister.

In 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the first female President of Iceland. Re-elected three times, she was immensely popular, garnering more than 96% of the vote in one election. At 16 years, Finnbogadóttir’s tenure was the longest of any elected female head of state in history, and her success jump-started her nation’s impressive record of gender equality.

Angela Merkel is next on the list of modern female leaders, becoming Germany’s first woman chancellor as well as it’s first East German one in 2005. She won a fourth term in 2017, and said it would be her last.

In 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf beat several male candidates to win Liberia’s first presidential election after its civil war. winning support from nearly 80 percent of women voters to become Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state. During her 12 years in power, Sirleaf helped preserve peace, erase the national debt and build up Liberia’s economy; she earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work on behalf of women’s rights.

Other notable modern female leaders include Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Filipino President Corazon Aquino, President of Ireland Mary Robinson, and New Zealand Prime Ministers Helen Clark and Jacinda Arden.

Some of these countries, such as India, may be surprising to Americans since it has a reputation for misogyny; however, it has a history of powerful female queens, as I discuss in this article.

Given the electoral success women have had in many countries around the world, why has the United States lagged far behind?

Part of it might be our electoral system. For example, many female world leaders were under a Parliamentary style of government.

Another reason might be that American women didn’t get the right to vote in national elections. until the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.

However, long before that, women in Western states got the right to vote in local elections and in 1890 Wyoming became the first to allow women to vote in their state elections.

The first female Presidential candidate was Victoria Woodhull, who ran in 1872.

Other early female candidates for President included Belva Lockwood (1884 and 1888), Margaret Smith (1964), and Shirley Chisholm (1972) who was also the first black female candidate on a major party platform. More recently, we’ve had Hillary Clinton and now Kamala Harris.

While one can use the fact that American women didn’t get the national right to vote until 1920, in the UK they didn’t get that right until 1918, just two years before the US. That was the same year German women got the right to vote, yet they’ve already had a female Chancellor.

Sri Lanka did not give women suffrage until 1931, and the Philippines until 1937, yet they both have had female heads of state before the US.

So other countries have beaten the US on their timelines for having women in power.

It’s really quite astonishing to me, and unfortunately I don’t have any good answers. Feel free to share any insights you may have.

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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.

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