rasdani/cohere-wikipedia-2023-11-en · Datasets at Hugging Face

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20231101.en_13200141_134	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Aung Sang Suu Kyi is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991). She is the de facto head of the government of Myanmar since 2016. She remained under house arrest for almost 15 years from 1989 to 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent political prisoners.
20231101.en_13200141_135	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Although she was prohibited from becoming the president due to a clause in the constitution – her late husband and children are foreign citizens – she assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor, a role akin to a Prime Minister or a head of government. Incumbent president Win Myint is seen as an important ally and placeholder for Aung San Suu Kyi.
20231101.en_13200141_136	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	On 1 February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military during the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état after it declared the November 2020 Myanmar general election results fraudulent.
20231101.en_13200141_137	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The 2020 Singapore general election saw a record number of women become lawmakers in Singapore's Parliament. 27 out of 93 seats (29%) for elected Members of Parliament went to women, compared to 21 out of 89 (24%) seats in the 2015 general election. One of the two Non-constituency MP seats has also been taken up by a woman.
20231101.en_13200141_138	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	While women have served in every Sri Lankan parliament to date, proportions have been low. Adeline Molamure became the first female parliamentarian when she was elected in 1931. Molamure went onto serve as the Deputy President of the Ceylonese Senate. The first woman minister in Sri Lankan history was Vimala Wijewardene when she served as Minister of Health, first appointed in 1956.
20231101.en_13200141_139	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Additionally, Sri Lanka saw the world's first elected woman national leader when the Sirimavo Bandaranaike led Sri Lanka Freedom Party won the July 1960 Ceylonese parliamentary election in an era where the Sri Lankan government was headed by the Prime Minister. Sworn in as Prime Minister, Bandaranaike went on to hold two of the most prominent ministries, Defence and Foreign Affairs. Bandaranaike's election drew international media coverage to Ceylon, with newspapers speculating that they would have to create a new word, stateswoman, to describe her. Bandaranaike served three terms as Prime Minister and was the longest-serving Prime Minister in Sri Lankan history, serving a total of 18 years in office. Bandaranaike also played a formative role in the modern state of Sri Lanka, it was under her tenure that Sri Lanka became a republic, removing the British monarch as its head of state.
20231101.en_13200141_140	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Bandaranaike's daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, held the post of Prime Minister, as deputy head of government for two months, before successfully contesting the 1994 Sri Lankan presidential election, becoming the nation's first female head of state. Kumaratunga also appointed her mother Sirimavo Bandaranaike as Prime Minister, marking the first time a woman succeeded a woman as prime minister, and the first time any nation in the world had a female President and Prime Minister.
20231101.en_13200141_141	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Sri Lanka has seen a multitude of female Cabinet ministers. The current health minister, Pavithra Devi Wanniarachchi has received accolades for her handling of the COVID-19 situation in Sri Lanka.
20231101.en_13200141_142	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Sri Lanka has also seen glass ceilings shattered in local government. The 10th Governor of the Central Province, Niluka Ekanayake was the first LGBT person and transgender woman to hold the office of Governor in Sri Lanka. She is widely considered to be the first openly transgender head of a government in the world. The first woman mayor of the capital, Rosy Senanayake was elected in 2018. While Sri Lanka has a long and varied history of woman leaders, female representation in Parliament is still lower than hoped for. In 2016, the government passed legislation mandating that 25% of Parliamentary seats be reserved for women.
20231101.en_13200141_143	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The constitution, adopted in 1947, protected female candidates in elections during the Mainland Period. Article 134 states: "In the various kinds of elections, quotas of successful candidates shall be assigned to women; methods of implementation shall be prescribed by law". The female representation rate in the Legislative Yuan and local councils has steadily increased above 30%.
20231101.en_13200141_144	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Thailand's first female Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was elected as 28th Prime minister of Thailand in 2011, was the youngest prime minister in over 60 years. She was removed from office on May 7, 2014, by a constitutional court decision.
20231101.en_13200141_145	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The gender quotas implemented across parties in Germany in the 1990s serve as a natural experiment for the effect of sub-national party political gender quotas on women participation. Davidson-Schmich (2006) notes, "the German case provides the variance needed to explain the successful (or failed) implementation of these political party quotas". Germany's sixteen state legislatures, the Länder, feature a variety of party systems and varied numbers of potential female candidates. Germany is rated highly in its gender gap, but is an example of a developed country with a low percentage of female leadership in politics.
20231101.en_13200141_146	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Davidson-Schmich's study shows that there are many factors that influence how effective a political quota for women will be. Because Germany's quotas cover culturally diverse areas, Davidson-Schmich was able to see which cities best responded to the increase in women running for office. In her bivariate study, the quota was more successful when the city had a PR electoral system, when more women held inner-party and local political offices, and when there were more women in state-level executive offices. The quota was less successful in rural areas, areas with a large number of Catholic voters, electoral systems with a preferential system, in extremely competitive party systems, and with greater rates of legislative turnover. In her multivariate study of these regions, however, Davidson-Schmich narrowed these factors down even further to the most significant variables of: Catholicism and agricultural economics (Davidson-Schmich, 2006, p. 228). This is very intriguing, and as she explains, "the success of voluntary gender quotas in the German states hinged not on the political structure of these Lander, but rather the willingness of within the system to act on the opportunities inherent in these structures" (Davidson-Schmich, 2006, p. 228). Social factors and inherent gender discrimination are more important in the success of a female political quota than the structure of the quota itself.
20231101.en_13200141_147	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 1990, Mary Robinson was elected as the first female President of Ireland. The second female head of state, Mary McAleese, was president between 1997 and 2011.
20231101.en_13200141_148	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first woman elected to the Dáil was Constance Markievicz in 1918. (Directly prior to this, in the general election of 1918, she became the first woman elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. In line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy she did not take her seat there).She was appointed Minister for Labour in 1919, the first woman Cabinet minister in Western Europe.
20231101.en_13200141_149	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Six decades with all-male Cabinets would elapse before the appointment of the next woman minister in 1979, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.
20231101.en_13200141_150	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Between 1919 and 2019, 19 women served as Cabinet ministers in Ireland, comprising 10% of those who have held senior ministerial positions.
20231101.en_13200141_151	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	As yet, the highest office attained by women is Tánaiste, that is, deputy prime minister. Four women have served as Tánaiste—Mary Harney (1997-2006), Mary Coughlan (2008-2011), Joan Burton (2014-2016) and Frances Fitzgerald (2016-2017).
20231101.en_13200141_152	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Following the 2011 Irish general election and a re-shuffle in 2014, four women were appointed cabinet ministers (the highest number of women in senior ministerial positions ever in Ireland): Joan Burton, Frances Fitzgerald, Jan O'Sullivan and Heather Humphries.
20231101.en_13200141_153	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Women remain a small minority of political office-holders in Ireland. The main factors are the role of traditional Catholicism in Irish political culture and the role of localism in party politics. Ann Marie O'Brien has studied the women in the Irish Department of External Affairs associated with the League of Nations and United Nations, 1923–1976. She finds that women had greater opportunities at the UN.
20231101.en_13200141_154	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Following Micheál Martin's appointment as Taoiseach in June 2020, after the formation of a Fianna Fáil, Green Party and Fine Gael coalition, Sinn Féin's president Mary Lou McDonald became Leader of the Opposition. She is the first woman to occupy that position and the first to come from a party other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael since the Labour Party's Thomas Johnson in 1927.
20231101.en_13200141_155	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Since the institution of the Italian Republic in 1946, women's right to vote and participate in public institutions has been recognized. According to article 51 of the Italian Constitution, "Citizens of one or the other sex are eligible for public offices and for elective positions under equal conditions, according to the rules established by law. To this end, the Republic adopts specific measures in order to promote equal chances for men and women." Nevertheless, only 21 women were elected, among the 556 members of the Constituent Assembly. In the years that followed, the percentage of women inside both chambers of the Parliament remained quite low.
20231101.en_13200141_156	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first woman to be appointed as Secretary of State was Christian Democrat Angela Maria Guidi Cingolani in 1951. She served as Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry and Commerce until 1953. In 1976, Christian Democrat Tina Anselmi was appointed by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti as the Minister for Labour and Social Security. This made her the first woman to hold a ministerial position in the Italian government.
20231101.en_13200141_157	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 1979, Italian Communist Nilde Iotti, was elected Chambers of Deputies president, becoming the first woman to hold one of the 5 great offices of the state.
20231101.en_13200141_158	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 2014 Renzi cabinet was the first Italian government in which the number of female ministers was equal to the number of male ministers, excluding the prime minister. After 2018 Italian general election 35% of lawmakers of both chambers of the parliament were women, reaching the highest level in Italian history. In 2018, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, member of Forza Italia party, was elected Senate president, becoming the first women to serve in the second highest office of the state. In 2019, Marta Cartabia became the first woman to serve as Constitutional Court president.
20231101.en_13200141_159	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	After the 2022 Italian general election and the victory of the centre-right coalition, President Sergio Matterella appointed Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni as Prime Minister of Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in on October 22, 2022, becoming the first-ever female head of government in Italy.
20231101.en_13200141_160	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 2016, the Dutch government achieved their goal for women in top jobs within the government. A 30% female share was achieved two years earlier than anticipated.
20231101.en_13200141_161	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In business, the number of women in top jobs is behind in the political sector. In 2013, the listed companies inserted a 'one in three' rule, which meant that of every three top jobs, one must be exerted by a woman. Not long after, it turned out companies did not put much effort in to achieving this goal, as in practice even less than one in every ten top jobs was occupied by women. The goal for women in top jobs was postponed to 2023. The government and business sector agreed that if every one in five top jobs is not exerted by women, after 2018 the 30% rule will become mandatory.
20231101.en_13200141_162	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Meanwhile, women's quota received a fair share of criticism. It has been argued that women should be employed based on their own qualities, not because of their gender.
20231101.en_13200141_163	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The Nordic countries have been forerunners in including women in the executive branch. The second cabinet Brundtland (1986–1989) was historical in that 8 out of 18 cabinet members were women, and in 2007 the second cabinet Stoltenberg (2005–2013) was more than 50% women. In 2003, Finland had a historical moment when all top leaders of the country were women and also represented different political parties: Social democrat Tarja Halonen was President, Riitta Uosukainen from National Coalition Party was Speaker of the Parliament and after the parliamentary elections of 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki from Center party was on her way to become the first female Prime Minister of Finland. Between 2007 and 2011 the Finnish cabinet was 60% female, with a female Prime Minister from 2010 to 2011. Between 2014 and 2015 the Finnish cabinet was 59% female. On June 22, 2010 Mari Kiviniemi of the Centre Party was appointed the second female Prime Minister of Finland. The present Danish government is a coalition between the Social Democrats, the Social-Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party. All three parties have female leaders. Helle Thorning-Schmidt is Prime Minister.
20231101.en_13200141_164	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The Finnish national quota law, introduced in 1995, mandates that among all indirectly elected public bodies (at both a national and a local level), neither sex in the governing body can be under 40%. The 1995 laws was a reformed version of a similar 1986 law. Unlike other countries' quota laws, which affect party structure or electoral candidate lists, the Finnish law addresses indirectly elected bodies (nominated by official authorities)—the law does not address popularly elected bodies. The Finnish law heavily emphasizes local municipal boards and other subnational institutions. From 1993 (pre-quota law) to 1997 (post-quota law), the proportion of women on municipal executive boards increased from 25% to 45%. The quota law also affected gender segregation in local governance: before the passage of the law, there had been a gender imbalance in terms of female overrepresentation in "soft-sector" boards (those concerned with health, education, etc.) and female "underrepresentation" in "hard-sector" boards (those concerned with economics and technology). In 1997, the boards were balanced horizontally. However, areas not subject to quota laws continue to be imbalanced. In 2003, it was determined that only 16% of the chairs of municipal executive boards are female—chair positions in this area are not quota-regulated. Presidential elections were held in Finland on 16 January 2000, with a second round on 6 February; the result was a victory for Tarja Halonen of the Social Democratic Party, who became the country's first female President.
20231101.en_13200141_165	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	No political gender quotas exist in Romania, however the Equality Act of 2002 provides that public authorities and institutions, political parties, employers' organizations and trade unions must provide an equitable and balanced representation of men and women at all decisional levels. Following the 2016 elections, women gained only 20.7% of seats in the Lower House (Romanian Chamber of Deputies) and 14.7% in the Upper House (Senate of Romania). These figures are up from the 4.9% of women in the Romanian Parliament in 1990. On the other hand, women are well represented in the central public administration, including the Government, with more than half of decision-making positions held by women, according to a 2011 study commissioned by the Ministry of Labor. Viorica Dăncilă was the prime minister of Romania since 29 January 2018 to 4 November 2019. She was the first woman in Romanian history to hold the office of Prime Minister.
20231101.en_13200141_166	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 2007, Spain passed the Equality Law, requiring a "principle of balanced presence" by mandating political parties to include 40–60% of each sex among electoral candidates. This law is unique in that surpasses the 40% parity figure established by the European Commission in 1998; a figure which (according to the EC) indicates "parity democracy." Though there is anecdotal evidence of increasing female representation on a local and national level, there has not yet been national-level data to quantitatively bolster this assertion.
20231101.en_13200141_167	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	On June 6, 2018, Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, presented his cabinet which included eleven women and six men, making it the cabinet with the highest proportion of women in the world at the time. This proportion was increased after a cabinet reshuffle on 12 July 2021.
20231101.en_13200141_168	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Tansu Çiller, a career professor of economics since 1983, entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). On June 13, 1993, she was elected the party's leader, and on 25 June the same year, Çiller was appointed the prime minister of a coalition government, becoming Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. She served at this post until 6 March 1996.
20231101.en_13200141_169	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The office of Prime Minister was abolished in Turkey in 2018. However, since 1995, the number of women in the parliament has been continually on the rise. Female representation rate did not fall below 10 percent after the 2007 elections.
20231101.en_13200141_170	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Turkey's first female governor was Lale Aytaman. Aytaman, who served as the governor of Muğla between 1991 and 1995, was appointed to this position by President Turgut Özal. Meanwhile, Turkey's first female district governor is Özlem Bozkurt Gevrek. She served in the Orta district of Çankırı in 1995. After these years, the number of female governors and district governors increased rapidly.
20231101.en_13200141_171	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In the United Kingdom, 34% of the lower house, the House of Commons, and 28% of the upper house, the House of Lords, are women as of March 2021, which ranks 38th in the world for the proportion of women in the lower (or only) house of parliament. The government of the United Kingdom at that date included five women Cabinet ministers (23%). The highest proportion of women in Cabinet was 36% between 2006 and 2007. The UK has had three female prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990), Theresa May (2016–2019) and Liz Truss (2022). In 1992 Betty Boothroyd became the first female elected Speaker of the House of Commons and held that post until 2000.
20231101.en_13200141_172	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The head of state of the United Kingdom from 1952 until 2022 was Queen Elizabeth II. She remains the longest-serving female head of state in world history. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772, replacing male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture for those born in the line of succession after 28 October 2011, which meant the eldest child, regardless of sex, would precede his or her brothers and sisters.
20231101.en_13200141_173	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Nicola Sturgeon served as First Minister of Scotland from 2014 until 2023. Arlene Foster served twice as First Minister of Northern Ireland (2016–2017 and 2020–2021). In the devolved legislatures of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the proportion of women members is 47% in Wales and 36% in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In local councils the proportion of women councillors is 36% in England, 29% in Scotland, 28% in Wales and 26% in Northern Ireland. 40% of members of the London Assembly are women.
20231101.en_13200141_174	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The number of women in the Canadian Parliament has been slowly but steadily increasing since the 1980s and has reached its highest point following the 2021 Canadian federal election where women made up 30.5% of the Canadian House of Commons, higher than the global average of 25.7% and surpassing the 1995 United Nations goal of 30% female representation in government.
20231101.en_13200141_175	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Women secured officeholding rights in the United States in a piecemeal fashion. Some women were even able to achieve positions in offices like mayor, notary public, state librarian, and others before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
20231101.en_13200141_176	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Although the number of women in government in the US has grown, they still hold less than 25% of government positions nationwide. Steinhauer notes that in Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, women historically and currently are under represented. No political gender quotas exist, mandatory or voluntary.
20231101.en_13200141_177	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	From 1917, when Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to serve in Congress, to the 115th congress, a total of 329 women have served as U.S. Representatives, Delegates, or Senators. Between 1917 and 2018, the United States has had 277 women serve in the House of Representatives. From 1922—when Rebecca Latimer Felton became the first woman to serve in the Senate—to the present, 58 women have served in the United States Senate.
20231101.en_13200141_178	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In the 115th Congress, 107 (78D, 29R) women hold seats in the United States Congress, comprising 20.0% of the 535 members; 23 women (23%) serve in the U.S. Senate, and 84 women (19.3%) serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.
20231101.en_13200141_179	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The United States is one of the shrinking number of industrialized democracies to not have yet had a woman as its leader. Although a country which promotes the rights of women and girls around the world, it is conspicuous for having had only male presidents.
20231101.en_13200141_180	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Women have served as mayors in the United States since the late nineteenth century and as state governors since 1925. In 2008, the New Hampshire State Senate became the first state legislature upper house to possess an elected female majority.
20231101.en_13200141_181	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 2019, the Nevada Legislature became the first state to have a state legislature composed of a female majority.
20231101.en_13200141_182	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In popular media in the United States, female politicians see some focus on their appearance; more so than their male counterparts. A 2011 feminist journal by Carlin and Winfrey focuses on the portrayal of female politicians in the media. According to the journal, the way media perceives women and men is very distinct in the language they chose to use. The language chosen to talk or describe other people can either hurt or help them in a political campaign. As a result of
20231101.en_13200141_183	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	women being talked about in sexist terms in can greatly affect her reputation and credibility. The journal claims the media uses terms that indicative of women not being valued as individuals. "This is especially true when women are described using metaphors that draw on animals, children, or food. Animal terms focus on the appearance and sexuality of young women (foxy), and as women grow older, or are seen as too aggressive, they may be called barracuda, old bat, shrew, or cow." Females tend to have less issue coverage than males (due to fewer female politicians), but tend to have more coverage on things such as their appearance than male politicians. Male candidates don't get coverage on what kind of suit they are wearing or who designed it. This is due to innate purpose of the media to appeal to demands of their audiences for sales – in this case, the popular female focus on fashion that dominates the media. Studies done on women candidates have shown that women receive more attention in the media for factors such as appearance, clothes, size, and emotional state". In 2015 Rachel Silbermann conducted a study that time spent traveling to and from work is particularly burdensome for those who spend time caring for children, and as women do a majority of the child care and housework, commuting is particularly burdensome to them. Silbermann also found that female students weigh proximity to home twice as heavily as male students do in a hypothetical decision of whether to run for higher office. She suggests that to achieve equal representation of women in government men and women will need to share household responsibilities more equally.
20231101.en_13200141_184	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	A 2016 study found no evidence that the low share of women in the U.S. House of Representative was due to gender discrimination by voters. According to the author of the study, "these results suggest that the deficit of female representation in the House is more likely the result of barriers to entering politics as opposed to overt gender discrimination by voters and campaign donors."
20231101.en_13200141_185	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	A 2017 study found that over the prior decade, public opposition to electing a woman as president declined from approximately 26% to 13%.
20231101.en_13200141_186	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review did not find evidence that American voters were outright hostile to women in politics or that they held double standards. The study did however find that American voters preferred candidates who were married and had children. Since the burdens of child-rearing disproportionately fall on women in households, the bias in favor of married candidates with children may explain women's underrepresentation in politics.
20231101.en_13200141_187	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Nevertheless, the year 2018 saw the largest increase in female representation in state governments following a decade of stagnation: 1,834 women won office at the state and federal level during the mid-term elections, 2,112 women got seats in state legislative offices, and six women have launched campaigns for the highest office in the land.
20231101.en_13200141_188	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 2021, a quarter of all members in Congress were women, the highest percentage in US history. 27% of the House of Representatives are women, while women hold 24 out of 100 seats in the Senate.
20231101.en_13200141_189	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	According to a survey administered to 1,039 U.S. citizens, the number of women who hold a position in government office could be due to a baseline preference of one sex over another. The results show that 60% of respondents have a baseline gender preference for a male candidate, while 40% prefer a female candidate.
20231101.en_13200141_190	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Other notable female politicians in the United States include U.S. Senator and Vice President Kamala Harris; U.S. Representative and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; U.S. Senator and President Pro Tempore Patty Murray; First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro; Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin; New Hampshire Governor and U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen; Michigan Governor and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm; Kansas Governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley; Wyoming Governor and director of the U.S. Mint Nellie Ross; Texas Governor Miriam A. Ferguson; Alabama Governor, Alabama Lieutenant Governor, and Alabama Treasurer Kay Ivey; U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators Margaret Chase Smith, Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe, Barbara Boxer, Debbie Stabenow, and Tammy Baldwin; U.S. Senators Nancy Kassebaum, Dianne Feinstein, Carol Moseley Braun, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Elizabeth Warren; U.S. Representatives Edith Rogers, Patsy Mink, Shirley Chisolm, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Marcy Kaptur, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene; and Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
20231101.en_13200141_191	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 1902, Australia became the first country to give some women the vote and allow them to stand for Parliament. This did not apply to Aboriginal Australians, including women, until the amendment of the Electoral Act in 1962. It wasn't until 1983 that Indigenous people had voting rights entirely equal to white Australians when another amendment made enrollment to vote compulsory, rather than voluntary. 19 years after the Commonwealth Franchise Act was passed, Edith Cowan was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly and became the first woman ever elected to any Australian Parliament. Dorothy Tangney was the first woman elected to the Australian Senate in 1946, a seat she held for twenty-five years. In the same year, Dame Enid Lyons became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. In 1986, Joan Child becomes the first female elected to Speaker of the House of Representatives and held the position for over three years. Of the two major political parties in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) introduced a 35% quota in 1994 and increased this to 40% in 2002 whereas the Liberal National Party (LNP) currently has no gender-based quotas.
20231101.en_13200141_192	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	As of May 2018, women comprise approximately 38% of senators and occupy 44 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. In the current 45th Parliament, the ALP exceeds their 40% quota and is made up of 44% women and the LNP 21%. On 1 January 2017, Australia was ranked 52 out of 175 countries in terms of women in ministerial positions and 50th out of 190 countries in terms of women in the lower house of Parliament. The report issued by UN Women found 24.1% of, or 7 out of the 29 Australian ministers were women.
20231101.en_13200141_193	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	2007 was a notable year for women in Australian Parliament. Anna Bligh became Queensland's first female premier, a position she occupied for five years, and Julia Gillard MP became Deputy Prime Minister. Three years later, Gillard was elected as Australia's first female prime minister. Dame Quentin Bryce became the first and only woman appointed Governor-General, a position that is representative of the Monarch, in 2008 and served until 2014. Christine Milne is the only woman to have been head of a major political party when she was elected leader of the Australian Greens in 2012.
20231101.en_13200141_194	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Indigenous people, women in particular, are grossly under-represented in Australian Parliament. Since Federation in 1901, there have been 40 Indigenous Australians involved in any Parliament (sixteen women) and eight in the Federal Parliament (four women). Following are some notable figures:
20231101.en_13200141_195	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Carol Martin of Western Australia was the first Indigenous woman elected to any Australian Parliament in 2001 and was subsequently re-elected in 2005 and 2008.
20231101.en_13200141_196	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Marion Scrymgour of the Northern Territory became the first Aboriginal woman minister in any Australian government in 2002 and became the highest-ranked Indigenous woman in government with her service as Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2007 to 2009.
20231101.en_13200141_197	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Linda Burney, New South Wales, becomes the first Aboriginal person elected to the New South Wales State Parliament in 2003 and the first Aboriginal woman elected to the House of Representatives in 2016.
20231101.en_13200141_198	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Malarndirri McCarthy was elected to the Northern Territory's legislature in 2005 and gained a Senate seat in 2016.
20231101.en_13200141_199	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first Aboriginal woman to be elected to Federal Parliament was Nova Peris in 2013 after being selected as a Northern Territory Senate candidate.
20231101.en_13200141_200	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to allow women to vote. This included both European and Māori women. Elizabeth Yates became the first female mayor in the British Empire in 1893. However, it was not until 1919 that women were allowed to run for Parliament, and Elizabeth McCombs became the first women elected to the Parliament in 1933.
20231101.en_13200141_201	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In the early twentieth-century party leaders—all of them men—were reluctant to allow women rights beyond basic suffrage, but wartime sped up change. By 1972, the Second Wave of Feminism and the changing attitudes of some party leaders resulted in women gaining more opportunities to become MPs and by 2001 an unprecedented number of women held leadership positions in the New Zealand Parliament.
20231101.en_13200141_202	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In recent times New Zealand has had many women in top leadership and government roles including three Prime Ministers; Jenny Shipley (1997–1999), Helen Clark (1999–2008) and Jacinda Ardern (2017–2023). New Zealand has a gender pay gap of 9.5%.
20231101.en_13200141_203	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Bertha Lutz was the founding mother of the Brazilian woman suffrage movement. In 1919 she founded the League for Intellectual Emancipation of Women. Lutz also created the Brazilian Federation for Women's Progress (1922), a political group which advocated for Brazilian women's rights, most importantly, their right to vote. She later played a central role as a member of the small group of feminists at the 1945 founding of the United Nations.
20231101.en_13200141_204	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	A 1995 Brazilian gender quota was extended first to city councilor positions in 1996, then extended to candidates of all political legislative positions by 1998. By 1998, 30% of political candidates had to be women, with varied results in terms of the gender balance of the officials ultimately elected. Though the percentage of national legislature seats occupied by women dropped in the initial years following the passage of the quota law, the percentage has since risen (from 6.2% pre-quota, to 5.7% in 1998, to 8.9% in 2006). However, Brazil has struggled with the quota law in several respects:
20231101.en_13200141_205	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Though the quota law mandates a certain percentage of candidate spots be reserved for women, it is not compulsory that those spots be filled by women.
20231101.en_13200141_206	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The quota law also allowed political parties to increase the number of candidates, further increasing electoral competition and having a negligible impact on the actual number of women elected.
20231101.en_13200141_207	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In Brazil, the Secretariat of Policies for Women, was until recently the main Brazilian state-feminism agency at the federal level. Under Workers' Party governments (2003-2016), Brazil carried out women-focused policies in three dimensions of its foreign policy: diplomacy, development cooperation, and security.
20231101.en_13200141_208	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Women have been notably in fewer numbers in the executive branch of government. The gender gap has been closing, however, albeit slowly, and they are still underrepresented.
20231101.en_13200141_209	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The socialist revolutions taking place during World War I saw the first few women become members of governments. Yevgenia Bosch held the position of Minister of Interior and Acting Leader of the People's Secretariat of Ukraine, one of a number of competing ruling bodies in the Ukrainian People's Republic, the predecessor of Soviet Ukraine (it proclaimed its independence from the Russian Soviet Republic on 25 January 1918). She is sometimes considered the first modern woman leader of a national government.
20231101.en_13200141_210	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first women, other than female hereditary rulers, to hold head of state positions were in socialist countries. Khertek Anchimaa-Toka led the Tuvan People's Republic, a little recognized state that is today part of Russia, from 1940 to 1944. Sükhbaataryn Yanjmaa was acting leader of the Mongolian People's Republic 1953–1954 and Soong Ching-ling was acting co-chair of the People's Republic of China from 1968 to 1972 and again in 1981.
20231101.en_13200141_211	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first democratically elected female prime minister (head of government) of a sovereign country was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1960–1965. She served again 1970–77 and 1994–2000; a total of 17 years. Other early elected female prime ministers were Indira Gandhi of India (1966–1977; she served again 1980–1984), Golda Meir of Israel (1969–1974) and Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom (1979–1990). Angela Merkel of Germany is the longest (continuously) serving female head of government (2005–2021).
20231101.en_13200141_212	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first woman to hold the title of "president", as opposed to a queen or prime minister, was Isabel Perón of Argentina (appointed head of state and government, 1974–76). The world's first elected female president was Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland, whose term lasted from 1980 to 1996. She is the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date. Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines (1986–1992), was the first woman president in Southeast Asia.
20231101.en_13200141_213	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan (1988–1990), was the first female prime minister of a Muslim-majority country. She served again 1993–96. The second was Khaleda Zia (1991–1996) of Bangladesh. Tansu Çiller of Turkey was the first elected Muslim female prime minister in Europe (1993–1996).
20231101.en_13200141_214	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Elisabeth Domitien was appointed prime minister of the Central African Republic (1975–1976). Carmen Pereira of Guinea-Bissau (1984) and Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi (1993) acted as head of state for 2 days and 101 days respectively. Ruth Perry of Liberia was the first appointed female head of state in Africa (1996–1997). Ten years later, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia was Africa's first elected female head of state (2006–2018).
20231101.en_13200141_215	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Sri Lanka was the first nation to possess a female president, Chandrika Kumaratunga (1994–2000), and a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) simultaneously. This also marked the first time that a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) directly succeeded another female prime minister (Chandrika Kumaratunga). Mary McAleese's election as president of Ireland (1997–2011) was the first time that a female president directly succeeded another female president, Mary Robinson. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, prime minister of Iceland (2009–2013), was the world's first openly lesbian world leader, first female world leader to wed a same-sex partner while in office.
20231101.en_13200141_216	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The first woman to be appointed President of the European Commission was Ursula von der Leyen in 2019.
20231101.en_13200141_217	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms from 1952 to 2022, is the longest-serving female head of state and longest-reigning queen regnant in world history.
20231101.en_13200141_218	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	When Barbados became a republic on the last day of November 2021, it became the first nation to have a woman as its first president, Sandra Mason. The country has yet to have a male president.
20231101.en_13200141_219	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Sofia Panina was the world's first Deputy Minister of State Welfare and Vice Minister of Education in Russia in 1917. Alexandra Kollontai became the first female to hold a ministerial position, as the People's Commissar for Social Welfare in Soviet Russia in October 1917. Yevgenia Bosch held the position of Minister of Interior and Acting Leader of the People's Secretariat of Ukraine from December 1917 to March 1918. The Countess Markievicz was Minister of Labour in the Irish Republic from 1919 to 1922.
20231101.en_13200141_220	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	The world's first female cabinet minister in an internationally recognized government was Nina Bang, Danish Minister of Education from 1924 to 1926. Margaret Bondfield was the first female Minister of Labour from 1929 to 1931; she was a cabinet minister and member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Dolgor Puntsag was the world's first female Minister of Health in Mongolia in 1930. The first woman to hold the position of finance minister was Varvara Yakovleva, the People's Commissar for Finance of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1937. Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, was the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States federal government. Azerbaijan appointed the first female justice minister, Ayna Sultanova, in 1938. Ana Pauker of Romania was the first woman to be a foreign minister in 1947, a position she held for four years. Qian Ying of China was the first female interior minister from 1959 to 1960. The position of defence minister was first held by a woman, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon, from 1960 to 1965.
20231101.en_13200141_221	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	While women's representation as ministers grew through the 20th century, women holding the most senior cabinet posts was relatively rare until the 21st century. In recent years, women have increasingly held the top profile portfolios for their governments in non-traditional areas for women in government, such as foreign relations, defense and national security, and finance or revenue.
20231101.en_13200141_222	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Kamala Harris is the first woman to serve as Vice President of the United States, making her the highest ranking female politician in US history. Janet Yellen is the first woman to serve as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury having previously been chair of the Federal Reserve and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
20231101.en_13200141_223	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Yevgenia Bosch, the Bolshevik military leader, held the People's Secretary of Internal Affairs position in the Ukraine People's Republic of the Soviets of Workers and Peasants from 1917 to 1918, which was responsible for executive functions of the Ukrainian People's Republic, part of the Russian Soviet Republic.
20231101.en_13200141_224	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Nellie Ross was the first woman to be sworn in as governor of a U.S. state in January 1925, followed later that month by Miriam A. Ferguson.
20231101.en_13200141_225	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Louise Schroeder was the first female member of the Weimar National Assembly. After the division of Germany following World War II, she served as governing mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1951.
20231101.en_13200141_226	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Sucheta Kripalani was India's first woman Chief Minister, serving as the head of the Uttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967.
20231101.en_13200141_227	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Savka Dabčević-Kučar, of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1967–1969), was the first female premier of a non-sovereign European constituent state. She held the position of Chairman of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) of Croatia when it was a constituent republic of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
20231101.en_13200141_228	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Imelda Marcos was Governor of Metro Manila in the Philippines from 1975 until 1986 when the People Power Revolution unseated the Marcoses and forced the family into exile.
20231101.en_13200141_229	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Griselda Álvarez was the first female governor in Mexico, serving as governor of the state of Colima from 1979 to 1985.
20231101.en_13200141_230	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Carrie Lam became the first female Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2017 and before that was Chief Secretary for Administration from 2012.
20231101.en_13200141_231	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Claudia Sheinbaum is the first female mayor of Mexico City. She is the head of the most populous governmental jurisdiction administered by a woman in the Americas, and third most in the world (after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh).
20231101.en_13200141_232	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.
20231101.en_13200141_233	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government	Women in government	Aggestam, Karin, and Ann Towns. "The gender turn in diplomacy: a new research agenda." International Feminist Journal of Politics 21.1 (2019): 9-28 online..

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Women in government

Aung Sang Suu Kyi is a Burmese politician, diplomat, author, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991). She is the de facto head of the government of Myanmar since 2016. She remained under house arrest for almost 15 years from 1989 to 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent political prisoners.

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Women in government

Although she was prohibited from becoming the president due to a clause in the constitution – her late husband and children are foreign citizens – she assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor, a role akin to a Prime Minister or a head of government. Incumbent president Win Myint is seen as an important ally and placeholder for Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Women in government

On 1 February 2021, Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested by the military during the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état after it declared the November 2020 Myanmar general election results fraudulent.

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Women in government

The 2020 Singapore general election saw a record number of women become lawmakers in Singapore's Parliament. 27 out of 93 seats (29%) for elected Members of Parliament went to women, compared to 21 out of 89 (24%) seats in the 2015 general election. One of the two Non-constituency MP seats has also been taken up by a woman.

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Women in government

While women have served in every Sri Lankan parliament to date, proportions have been low. Adeline Molamure became the first female parliamentarian when she was elected in 1931. Molamure went onto serve as the Deputy President of the Ceylonese Senate. The first woman minister in Sri Lankan history was Vimala Wijewardene when she served as Minister of Health, first appointed in 1956.

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Women in government

Additionally, Sri Lanka saw the world's first elected woman national leader when the Sirimavo Bandaranaike led Sri Lanka Freedom Party won the July 1960 Ceylonese parliamentary election in an era where the Sri Lankan government was headed by the Prime Minister. Sworn in as Prime Minister, Bandaranaike went on to hold two of the most prominent ministries, Defence and Foreign Affairs. Bandaranaike's election drew international media coverage to Ceylon, with newspapers speculating that they would have to create a new word, stateswoman, to describe her. Bandaranaike served three terms as Prime Minister and was the longest-serving Prime Minister in Sri Lankan history, serving a total of 18 years in office. Bandaranaike also played a formative role in the modern state of Sri Lanka, it was under her tenure that Sri Lanka became a republic, removing the British monarch as its head of state.

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Bandaranaike's daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, held the post of Prime Minister, as deputy head of government for two months, before successfully contesting the 1994 Sri Lankan presidential election, becoming the nation's first female head of state. Kumaratunga also appointed her mother Sirimavo Bandaranaike as Prime Minister, marking the first time a woman succeeded a woman as prime minister, and the first time any nation in the world had a female President and Prime Minister.

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Sri Lanka has seen a multitude of female Cabinet ministers. The current health minister, Pavithra Devi Wanniarachchi has received accolades for her handling of the COVID-19 situation in Sri Lanka.

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Women in government

Sri Lanka has also seen glass ceilings shattered in local government. The 10th Governor of the Central Province, Niluka Ekanayake was the first LGBT person and transgender woman to hold the office of Governor in Sri Lanka. She is widely considered to be the first openly transgender head of a government in the world. The first woman mayor of the capital, Rosy Senanayake was elected in 2018. While Sri Lanka has a long and varied history of woman leaders, female representation in Parliament is still lower than hoped for. In 2016, the government passed legislation mandating that 25% of Parliamentary seats be reserved for women.

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Women in government

The constitution, adopted in 1947, protected female candidates in elections during the Mainland Period. Article 134 states: "In the various kinds of elections, quotas of successful candidates shall be assigned to women; methods of implementation shall be prescribed by law". The female representation rate in the Legislative Yuan and local councils has steadily increased above 30%.

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Women in government

Thailand's first female Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was elected as 28th Prime minister of Thailand in 2011, was the youngest prime minister in over 60 years. She was removed from office on May 7, 2014, by a constitutional court decision.

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Women in government

The gender quotas implemented across parties in Germany in the 1990s serve as a natural experiment for the effect of sub-national party political gender quotas on women participation. Davidson-Schmich (2006) notes, "the German case provides the variance needed to explain the successful (or failed) implementation of these political party quotas". Germany's sixteen state legislatures, the Länder, feature a variety of party systems and varied numbers of potential female candidates. Germany is rated highly in its gender gap, but is an example of a developed country with a low percentage of female leadership in politics.

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Women in government

Davidson-Schmich's study shows that there are many factors that influence how effective a political quota for women will be. Because Germany's quotas cover culturally diverse areas, Davidson-Schmich was able to see which cities best responded to the increase in women running for office. In her bivariate study, the quota was more successful when the city had a PR electoral system, when more women held inner-party and local political offices, and when there were more women in state-level executive offices. The quota was less successful in rural areas, areas with a large number of Catholic voters, electoral systems with a preferential system, in extremely competitive party systems, and with greater rates of legislative turnover. In her multivariate study of these regions, however, Davidson-Schmich narrowed these factors down even further to the most significant variables of: Catholicism and agricultural economics (Davidson-Schmich, 2006, p. 228). This is very intriguing, and as she explains, "the success of voluntary gender quotas in the German states hinged not on the political structure of these Lander, but rather the willingness of within the system to act on the opportunities inherent in these structures" (Davidson-Schmich, 2006, p. 228). Social factors and inherent gender discrimination are more important in the success of a female political quota than the structure of the quota itself.

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In 1990, Mary Robinson was elected as the first female President of Ireland. The second female head of state, Mary McAleese, was president between 1997 and 2011.

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Women in government

The first woman elected to the Dáil was Constance Markievicz in 1918. (Directly prior to this, in the general election of 1918, she became the first woman elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. In line with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy she did not take her seat there).She was appointed Minister for Labour in 1919, the first woman Cabinet minister in Western Europe.

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Women in government

Six decades with all-male Cabinets would elapse before the appointment of the next woman minister in 1979, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.

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Women in government

Between 1919 and 2019, 19 women served as Cabinet ministers in Ireland, comprising 10% of those who have held senior ministerial positions.

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Women in government

As yet, the highest office attained by women is Tánaiste, that is, deputy prime minister. Four women have served as Tánaiste—Mary Harney (1997-2006), Mary Coughlan (2008-2011), Joan Burton (2014-2016) and Frances Fitzgerald (2016-2017).

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Women in government

Following the 2011 Irish general election and a re-shuffle in 2014, four women were appointed cabinet ministers (the highest number of women in senior ministerial positions ever in Ireland): Joan Burton, Frances Fitzgerald, Jan O'Sullivan and Heather Humphries.

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Women in government

Women remain a small minority of political office-holders in Ireland. The main factors are the role of traditional Catholicism in Irish political culture and the role of localism in party politics. Ann Marie O'Brien has studied the women in the Irish Department of External Affairs associated with the League of Nations and United Nations, 1923–1976. She finds that women had greater opportunities at the UN.

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Women in government

Following Micheál Martin's appointment as Taoiseach in June 2020, after the formation of a Fianna Fáil, Green Party and Fine Gael coalition, Sinn Féin's president Mary Lou McDonald became Leader of the Opposition. She is the first woman to occupy that position and the first to come from a party other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael since the Labour Party's Thomas Johnson in 1927.

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Women in government

Since the institution of the Italian Republic in 1946, women's right to vote and participate in public institutions has been recognized. According to article 51 of the Italian Constitution, "Citizens of one or the other sex are eligible for public offices and for elective positions under equal conditions, according to the rules established by law. To this end, the Republic adopts specific measures in order to promote equal chances for men and women." Nevertheless, only 21 women were elected, among the 556 members of the Constituent Assembly. In the years that followed, the percentage of women inside both chambers of the Parliament remained quite low.

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Women in government

The first woman to be appointed as Secretary of State was Christian Democrat Angela Maria Guidi Cingolani in 1951. She served as Secretary of State to the Minister of Industry and Commerce until 1953. In 1976, Christian Democrat Tina Anselmi was appointed by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti as the Minister for Labour and Social Security. This made her the first woman to hold a ministerial position in the Italian government.

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Women in government

In 1979, Italian Communist Nilde Iotti, was elected Chambers of Deputies president, becoming the first woman to hold one of the 5 great offices of the state.

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Women in government

In 2014 Renzi cabinet was the first Italian government in which the number of female ministers was equal to the number of male ministers, excluding the prime minister. After 2018 Italian general election 35% of lawmakers of both chambers of the parliament were women, reaching the highest level in Italian history. In 2018, Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, member of Forza Italia party, was elected Senate president, becoming the first women to serve in the second highest office of the state. In 2019, Marta Cartabia became the first woman to serve as Constitutional Court president.

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Women in government

After the 2022 Italian general election and the victory of the centre-right coalition, President Sergio Matterella appointed Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni as Prime Minister of Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in on October 22, 2022, becoming the first-ever female head of government in Italy.

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Women in government

In 2016, the Dutch government achieved their goal for women in top jobs within the government. A 30% female share was achieved two years earlier than anticipated.

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Women in government

In business, the number of women in top jobs is behind in the political sector. In 2013, the listed companies inserted a 'one in three' rule, which meant that of every three top jobs, one must be exerted by a woman. Not long after, it turned out companies did not put much effort in to achieving this goal, as in practice even less than one in every ten top jobs was occupied by women. The goal for women in top jobs was postponed to 2023. The government and business sector agreed that if every one in five top jobs is not exerted by women, after 2018 the 30% rule will become mandatory.

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Meanwhile, women's quota received a fair share of criticism. It has been argued that women should be employed based on their own qualities, not because of their gender.

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Women in government

The Nordic countries have been forerunners in including women in the executive branch. The second cabinet Brundtland (1986–1989) was historical in that 8 out of 18 cabinet members were women, and in 2007 the second cabinet Stoltenberg (2005–2013) was more than 50% women. In 2003, Finland had a historical moment when all top leaders of the country were women and also represented different political parties: Social democrat Tarja Halonen was President, Riitta Uosukainen from National Coalition Party was Speaker of the Parliament and after the parliamentary elections of 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki from Center party was on her way to become the first female Prime Minister of Finland. Between 2007 and 2011 the Finnish cabinet was 60% female, with a female Prime Minister from 2010 to 2011. Between 2014 and 2015 the Finnish cabinet was 59% female. On June 22, 2010 Mari Kiviniemi of the Centre Party was appointed the second female Prime Minister of Finland. The present Danish government is a coalition between the Social Democrats, the Social-Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party. All three parties have female leaders. Helle Thorning-Schmidt is Prime Minister.

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The Finnish national quota law, introduced in 1995, mandates that among all indirectly elected public bodies (at both a national and a local level), neither sex in the governing body can be under 40%. The 1995 laws was a reformed version of a similar 1986 law. Unlike other countries' quota laws, which affect party structure or electoral candidate lists, the Finnish law addresses indirectly elected bodies (nominated by official authorities)—the law does not address popularly elected bodies. The Finnish law heavily emphasizes local municipal boards and other subnational institutions. From 1993 (pre-quota law) to 1997 (post-quota law), the proportion of women on municipal executive boards increased from 25% to 45%. The quota law also affected gender segregation in local governance: before the passage of the law, there had been a gender imbalance in terms of female overrepresentation in "soft-sector" boards (those concerned with health, education, etc.) and female "underrepresentation" in "hard-sector" boards (those concerned with economics and technology). In 1997, the boards were balanced horizontally. However, areas not subject to quota laws continue to be imbalanced. In 2003, it was determined that only 16% of the chairs of municipal executive boards are female—chair positions in this area are not quota-regulated. Presidential elections were held in Finland on 16 January 2000, with a second round on 6 February; the result was a victory for Tarja Halonen of the Social Democratic Party, who became the country's first female President.

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No political gender quotas exist in Romania, however the Equality Act of 2002 provides that public authorities and institutions, political parties, employers' organizations and trade unions must provide an equitable and balanced representation of men and women at all decisional levels. Following the 2016 elections, women gained only 20.7% of seats in the Lower House (Romanian Chamber of Deputies) and 14.7% in the Upper House (Senate of Romania). These figures are up from the 4.9% of women in the Romanian Parliament in 1990. On the other hand, women are well represented in the central public administration, including the Government, with more than half of decision-making positions held by women, according to a 2011 study commissioned by the Ministry of Labor. Viorica Dăncilă was the prime minister of Romania since 29 January 2018 to 4 November 2019. She was the first woman in Romanian history to hold the office of Prime Minister.

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In 2007, Spain passed the Equality Law, requiring a "principle of balanced presence" by mandating political parties to include 40–60% of each sex among electoral candidates. This law is unique in that surpasses the 40% parity figure established by the European Commission in 1998; a figure which (according to the EC) indicates "parity democracy." Though there is anecdotal evidence of increasing female representation on a local and national level, there has not yet been national-level data to quantitatively bolster this assertion.

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On June 6, 2018, Pedro Sánchez, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, presented his cabinet which included eleven women and six men, making it the cabinet with the highest proportion of women in the world at the time. This proportion was increased after a cabinet reshuffle on 12 July 2021.

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Tansu Çiller, a career professor of economics since 1983, entered politics in November 1990, joining the conservative True Path Party (DYP). On June 13, 1993, she was elected the party's leader, and on 25 June the same year, Çiller was appointed the prime minister of a coalition government, becoming Turkey's first and only female prime minister to date. She served at this post until 6 March 1996.

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The office of Prime Minister was abolished in Turkey in 2018. However, since 1995, the number of women in the parliament has been continually on the rise. Female representation rate did not fall below 10 percent after the 2007 elections.

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Turkey's first female governor was Lale Aytaman. Aytaman, who served as the governor of Muğla between 1991 and 1995, was appointed to this position by President Turgut Özal. Meanwhile, Turkey's first female district governor is Özlem Bozkurt Gevrek. She served in the Orta district of Çankırı in 1995. After these years, the number of female governors and district governors increased rapidly.

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In the United Kingdom, 34% of the lower house, the House of Commons, and 28% of the upper house, the House of Lords, are women as of March 2021, which ranks 38th in the world for the proportion of women in the lower (or only) house of parliament. The government of the United Kingdom at that date included five women Cabinet ministers (23%). The highest proportion of women in Cabinet was 36% between 2006 and 2007. The UK has had three female prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990), Theresa May (2016–2019) and Liz Truss (2022). In 1992 Betty Boothroyd became the first female elected Speaker of the House of Commons and held that post until 2000.

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The head of state of the United Kingdom from 1952 until 2022 was Queen Elizabeth II. She remains the longest-serving female head of state in world history. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772, replacing male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture for those born in the line of succession after 28 October 2011, which meant the eldest child, regardless of sex, would precede his or her brothers and sisters.

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Nicola Sturgeon served as First Minister of Scotland from 2014 until 2023. Arlene Foster served twice as First Minister of Northern Ireland (2016–2017 and 2020–2021). In the devolved legislatures of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the proportion of women members is 47% in Wales and 36% in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In local councils the proportion of women councillors is 36% in England, 29% in Scotland, 28% in Wales and 26% in Northern Ireland. 40% of members of the London Assembly are women.

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The number of women in the Canadian Parliament has been slowly but steadily increasing since the 1980s and has reached its highest point following the 2021 Canadian federal election where women made up 30.5% of the Canadian House of Commons, higher than the global average of 25.7% and surpassing the 1995 United Nations goal of 30% female representation in government.

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Women secured officeholding rights in the United States in a piecemeal fashion. Some women were even able to achieve positions in offices like mayor, notary public, state librarian, and others before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

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Although the number of women in government in the US has grown, they still hold less than 25% of government positions nationwide. Steinhauer notes that in Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, women historically and currently are under represented. No political gender quotas exist, mandatory or voluntary.

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From 1917, when Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to serve in Congress, to the 115th congress, a total of 329 women have served as U.S. Representatives, Delegates, or Senators. Between 1917 and 2018, the United States has had 277 women serve in the House of Representatives. From 1922—when Rebecca Latimer Felton became the first woman to serve in the Senate—to the present, 58 women have served in the United States Senate.

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In the 115th Congress, 107 (78D, 29R) women hold seats in the United States Congress, comprising 20.0% of the 535 members; 23 women (23%) serve in the U.S. Senate, and 84 women (19.3%) serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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The United States is one of the shrinking number of industrialized democracies to not have yet had a woman as its leader. Although a country which promotes the rights of women and girls around the world, it is conspicuous for having had only male presidents.

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Women have served as mayors in the United States since the late nineteenth century and as state governors since 1925. In 2008, the New Hampshire State Senate became the first state legislature upper house to possess an elected female majority.

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In 2019, the Nevada Legislature became the first state to have a state legislature composed of a female majority.

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In popular media in the United States, female politicians see some focus on their appearance; more so than their male counterparts. A 2011 feminist journal by Carlin and Winfrey focuses on the portrayal of female politicians in the media. According to the journal, the way media perceives women and men is very distinct in the language they chose to use. The language chosen to talk or describe other people can either hurt or help them in a political campaign. As a result of

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women being talked about in sexist terms in can greatly affect her reputation and credibility. The journal claims the media uses terms that indicative of women not being valued as individuals. "This is especially true when women are described using metaphors that draw on animals, children, or food. Animal terms focus on the appearance and sexuality of young women (foxy), and as women grow older, or are seen as too aggressive, they may be called barracuda, old bat, shrew, or cow." Females tend to have less issue coverage than males (due to fewer female politicians), but tend to have more coverage on things such as their appearance than male politicians. Male candidates don't get coverage on what kind of suit they are wearing or who designed it. This is due to innate purpose of the media to appeal to demands of their audiences for sales – in this case, the popular female focus on fashion that dominates the media. Studies done on women candidates have shown that women receive more attention in the media for factors such as appearance, clothes, size, and emotional state". In 2015 Rachel Silbermann conducted a study that time spent traveling to and from work is particularly burdensome for those who spend time caring for children, and as women do a majority of the child care and housework, commuting is particularly burdensome to them. Silbermann also found that female students weigh proximity to home twice as heavily as male students do in a hypothetical decision of whether to run for higher office. She suggests that to achieve equal representation of women in government men and women will need to share household responsibilities more equally.

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A 2016 study found no evidence that the low share of women in the U.S. House of Representative was due to gender discrimination by voters. According to the author of the study, "these results suggest that the deficit of female representation in the House is more likely the result of barriers to entering politics as opposed to overt gender discrimination by voters and campaign donors."

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A 2017 study found that over the prior decade, public opposition to electing a woman as president declined from approximately 26% to 13%.

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A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review did not find evidence that American voters were outright hostile to women in politics or that they held double standards. The study did however find that American voters preferred candidates who were married and had children. Since the burdens of child-rearing disproportionately fall on women in households, the bias in favor of married candidates with children may explain women's underrepresentation in politics.

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Nevertheless, the year 2018 saw the largest increase in female representation in state governments following a decade of stagnation: 1,834 women won office at the state and federal level during the mid-term elections, 2,112 women got seats in state legislative offices, and six women have launched campaigns for the highest office in the land.

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In 2021, a quarter of all members in Congress were women, the highest percentage in US history. 27% of the House of Representatives are women, while women hold 24 out of 100 seats in the Senate.

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According to a survey administered to 1,039 U.S. citizens, the number of women who hold a position in government office could be due to a baseline preference of one sex over another. The results show that 60% of respondents have a baseline gender preference for a male candidate, while 40% prefer a female candidate.

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Other notable female politicians in the United States include U.S. Senator and Vice President Kamala Harris; U.S. Representative and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; U.S. Senator and President Pro Tempore Patty Murray; First Lady, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro; Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin; New Hampshire Governor and U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen; Michigan Governor and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm; Kansas Governor and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius; South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley; Wyoming Governor and director of the U.S. Mint Nellie Ross; Texas Governor Miriam A. Ferguson; Alabama Governor, Alabama Lieutenant Governor, and Alabama Treasurer Kay Ivey; U.S. Representatives and U.S. Senators Margaret Chase Smith, Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe, Barbara Boxer, Debbie Stabenow, and Tammy Baldwin; U.S. Senators Nancy Kassebaum, Dianne Feinstein, Carol Moseley Braun, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Elizabeth Warren; U.S. Representatives Edith Rogers, Patsy Mink, Shirley Chisolm, Bella Abzug, Barbara Jordan, Marcy Kaptur, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene; and Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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In 1902, Australia became the first country to give some women the vote and allow them to stand for Parliament. This did not apply to Aboriginal Australians, including women, until the amendment of the Electoral Act in 1962. It wasn't until 1983 that Indigenous people had voting rights entirely equal to white Australians when another amendment made enrollment to vote compulsory, rather than voluntary. 19 years after the Commonwealth Franchise Act was passed, Edith Cowan was elected to the Western Australian Legislative Assembly and became the first woman ever elected to any Australian Parliament. Dorothy Tangney was the first woman elected to the Australian Senate in 1946, a seat she held for twenty-five years. In the same year, Dame Enid Lyons became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. In 1986, Joan Child becomes the first female elected to Speaker of the House of Representatives and held the position for over three years. Of the two major political parties in Australia, the Australian Labor Party (ALP) introduced a 35% quota in 1994 and increased this to 40% in 2002 whereas the Liberal National Party (LNP) currently has no gender-based quotas.

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As of May 2018, women comprise approximately 38% of senators and occupy 44 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives. In the current 45th Parliament, the ALP exceeds their 40% quota and is made up of 44% women and the LNP 21%. On 1 January 2017, Australia was ranked 52 out of 175 countries in terms of women in ministerial positions and 50th out of 190 countries in terms of women in the lower house of Parliament. The report issued by UN Women found 24.1% of, or 7 out of the 29 Australian ministers were women.

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2007 was a notable year for women in Australian Parliament. Anna Bligh became Queensland's first female premier, a position she occupied for five years, and Julia Gillard MP became Deputy Prime Minister. Three years later, Gillard was elected as Australia's first female prime minister. Dame Quentin Bryce became the first and only woman appointed Governor-General, a position that is representative of the Monarch, in 2008 and served until 2014. Christine Milne is the only woman to have been head of a major political party when she was elected leader of the Australian Greens in 2012.

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Indigenous people, women in particular, are grossly under-represented in Australian Parliament. Since Federation in 1901, there have been 40 Indigenous Australians involved in any Parliament (sixteen women) and eight in the Federal Parliament (four women). Following are some notable figures:

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Carol Martin of Western Australia was the first Indigenous woman elected to any Australian Parliament in 2001 and was subsequently re-elected in 2005 and 2008.

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Marion Scrymgour of the Northern Territory became the first Aboriginal woman minister in any Australian government in 2002 and became the highest-ranked Indigenous woman in government with her service as Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory from 2007 to 2009.

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Linda Burney, New South Wales, becomes the first Aboriginal person elected to the New South Wales State Parliament in 2003 and the first Aboriginal woman elected to the House of Representatives in 2016.

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Malarndirri McCarthy was elected to the Northern Territory's legislature in 2005 and gained a Senate seat in 2016.

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The first Aboriginal woman to be elected to Federal Parliament was Nova Peris in 2013 after being selected as a Northern Territory Senate candidate.

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In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to allow women to vote. This included both European and Māori women. Elizabeth Yates became the first female mayor in the British Empire in 1893. However, it was not until 1919 that women were allowed to run for Parliament, and Elizabeth McCombs became the first women elected to the Parliament in 1933.

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In the early twentieth-century party leaders—all of them men—were reluctant to allow women rights beyond basic suffrage, but wartime sped up change. By 1972, the Second Wave of Feminism and the changing attitudes of some party leaders resulted in women gaining more opportunities to become MPs and by 2001 an unprecedented number of women held leadership positions in the New Zealand Parliament.

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In recent times New Zealand has had many women in top leadership and government roles including three Prime Ministers; Jenny Shipley (1997–1999), Helen Clark (1999–2008) and Jacinda Ardern (2017–2023). New Zealand has a gender pay gap of 9.5%.

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Bertha Lutz was the founding mother of the Brazilian woman suffrage movement. In 1919 she founded the League for Intellectual Emancipation of Women. Lutz also created the Brazilian Federation for Women's Progress (1922), a political group which advocated for Brazilian women's rights, most importantly, their right to vote. She later played a central role as a member of the small group of feminists at the 1945 founding of the United Nations.

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A 1995 Brazilian gender quota was extended first to city councilor positions in 1996, then extended to candidates of all political legislative positions by 1998. By 1998, 30% of political candidates had to be women, with varied results in terms of the gender balance of the officials ultimately elected. Though the percentage of national legislature seats occupied by women dropped in the initial years following the passage of the quota law, the percentage has since risen (from 6.2% pre-quota, to 5.7% in 1998, to 8.9% in 2006). However, Brazil has struggled with the quota law in several respects:

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Though the quota law mandates a certain percentage of candidate spots be reserved for women, it is not compulsory that those spots be filled by women.

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The quota law also allowed political parties to increase the number of candidates, further increasing electoral competition and having a negligible impact on the actual number of women elected.

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In Brazil, the Secretariat of Policies for Women, was until recently the main Brazilian state-feminism agency at the federal level. Under Workers' Party governments (2003-2016), Brazil carried out women-focused policies in three dimensions of its foreign policy: diplomacy, development cooperation, and security.

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Women have been notably in fewer numbers in the executive branch of government. The gender gap has been closing, however, albeit slowly, and they are still underrepresented.

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The socialist revolutions taking place during World War I saw the first few women become members of governments. Yevgenia Bosch held the position of Minister of Interior and Acting Leader of the People's Secretariat of Ukraine, one of a number of competing ruling bodies in the Ukrainian People's Republic, the predecessor of Soviet Ukraine (it proclaimed its independence from the Russian Soviet Republic on 25 January 1918). She is sometimes considered the first modern woman leader of a national government.

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The first women, other than female hereditary rulers, to hold head of state positions were in socialist countries. Khertek Anchimaa-Toka led the Tuvan People's Republic, a little recognized state that is today part of Russia, from 1940 to 1944. Sükhbaataryn Yanjmaa was acting leader of the Mongolian People's Republic 1953–1954 and Soong Ching-ling was acting co-chair of the People's Republic of China from 1968 to 1972 and again in 1981.

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The first democratically elected female prime minister (head of government) of a sovereign country was Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1960–1965. She served again 1970–77 and 1994–2000; a total of 17 years. Other early elected female prime ministers were Indira Gandhi of India (1966–1977; she served again 1980–1984), Golda Meir of Israel (1969–1974) and Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom (1979–1990). Angela Merkel of Germany is the longest (continuously) serving female head of government (2005–2021).

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The first woman to hold the title of "president", as opposed to a queen or prime minister, was Isabel Perón of Argentina (appointed head of state and government, 1974–76). The world's first elected female president was Vigdís Finnbogadóttir of Iceland, whose term lasted from 1980 to 1996. She is the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date. Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines (1986–1992), was the first woman president in Southeast Asia.

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Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan (1988–1990), was the first female prime minister of a Muslim-majority country. She served again 1993–96. The second was Khaleda Zia (1991–1996) of Bangladesh. Tansu Çiller of Turkey was the first elected Muslim female prime minister in Europe (1993–1996).

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Elisabeth Domitien was appointed prime minister of the Central African Republic (1975–1976). Carmen Pereira of Guinea-Bissau (1984) and Sylvie Kinigi of Burundi (1993) acted as head of state for 2 days and 101 days respectively. Ruth Perry of Liberia was the first appointed female head of state in Africa (1996–1997). Ten years later, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia was Africa's first elected female head of state (2006–2018).

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Sri Lanka was the first nation to possess a female president, Chandrika Kumaratunga (1994–2000), and a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) simultaneously. This also marked the first time that a female prime minister (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) directly succeeded another female prime minister (Chandrika Kumaratunga). Mary McAleese's election as president of Ireland (1997–2011) was the first time that a female president directly succeeded another female president, Mary Robinson. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, prime minister of Iceland (2009–2013), was the world's first openly lesbian world leader, first female world leader to wed a same-sex partner while in office.

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The first woman to be appointed President of the European Commission was Ursula von der Leyen in 2019.

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Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms from 1952 to 2022, is the longest-serving female head of state and longest-reigning queen regnant in world history.

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When Barbados became a republic on the last day of November 2021, it became the first nation to have a woman as its first president, Sandra Mason. The country has yet to have a male president.

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Sofia Panina was the world's first Deputy Minister of State Welfare and Vice Minister of Education in Russia in 1917. Alexandra Kollontai became the first female to hold a ministerial position, as the People's Commissar for Social Welfare in Soviet Russia in October 1917. Yevgenia Bosch held the position of Minister of Interior and Acting Leader of the People's Secretariat of Ukraine from December 1917 to March 1918. The Countess Markievicz was Minister of Labour in the Irish Republic from 1919 to 1922.

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The world's first female cabinet minister in an internationally recognized government was Nina Bang, Danish Minister of Education from 1924 to 1926. Margaret Bondfield was the first female Minister of Labour from 1929 to 1931; she was a cabinet minister and member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Dolgor Puntsag was the world's first female Minister of Health in Mongolia in 1930. The first woman to hold the position of finance minister was Varvara Yakovleva, the People's Commissar for Finance of the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1937. Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, was the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States federal government. Azerbaijan appointed the first female justice minister, Ayna Sultanova, in 1938. Ana Pauker of Romania was the first woman to be a foreign minister in 1947, a position she held for four years. Qian Ying of China was the first female interior minister from 1959 to 1960. The position of defence minister was first held by a woman, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon, from 1960 to 1965.

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While women's representation as ministers grew through the 20th century, women holding the most senior cabinet posts was relatively rare until the 21st century. In recent years, women have increasingly held the top profile portfolios for their governments in non-traditional areas for women in government, such as foreign relations, defense and national security, and finance or revenue.

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Kamala Harris is the first woman to serve as Vice President of the United States, making her the highest ranking female politician in US history. Janet Yellen is the first woman to serve as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury having previously been chair of the Federal Reserve and chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

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Yevgenia Bosch, the Bolshevik military leader, held the People's Secretary of Internal Affairs position in the Ukraine People's Republic of the Soviets of Workers and Peasants from 1917 to 1918, which was responsible for executive functions of the Ukrainian People's Republic, part of the Russian Soviet Republic.

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Women in government

Nellie Ross was the first woman to be sworn in as governor of a U.S. state in January 1925, followed later that month by Miriam A. Ferguson.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Louise Schroeder was the first female member of the Weimar National Assembly. After the division of Germany following World War II, she served as governing mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1951.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Sucheta Kripalani was India's first woman Chief Minister, serving as the head of the Uttar Pradesh government from 1963 to 1967.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Savka Dabčević-Kučar, of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1967–1969), was the first female premier of a non-sovereign European constituent state. She held the position of Chairman of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) of Croatia when it was a constituent republic of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Imelda Marcos was Governor of Metro Manila in the Philippines from 1975 until 1986 when the People Power Revolution unseated the Marcoses and forced the family into exile.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Griselda Álvarez was the first female governor in Mexico, serving as governor of the state of Colima from 1979 to 1985.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Carrie Lam became the first female Chief Executive of Hong Kong in 2017 and before that was Chief Secretary for Administration from 2012.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Claudia Sheinbaum is the first female mayor of Mexico City. She is the head of the most populous governmental jurisdiction administered by a woman in the Americas, and third most in the world (after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh).

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%20in%20government

Women in government

Aggestam, Karin, and Ann Towns. "The gender turn in diplomacy: a new research agenda." International Feminist Journal of Politics 21.1 (2019): 9-28 online..