All eyes are currently on the United States, where the country may get their first ever female president.
For context, current US President Joe Biden has decided to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race and has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him on the ballot.
If Ms Harris is officially appointed as the 2024 Democratic nominee, either she or Donald Trump will become president after the upcoming election – set to be held in November later this year.
While we won’t know whether Ms Harris will replace Mr Biden on the ballot until at least August 19, we’ve started thinking about other female world leaders.
Sadly, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, fewer than a third of UN countries have ever had a woman leader.
Not to mention, that research from LinkedIn shows that globally only 32 percent of any sort of leadership position are currently held by women. Yikes.
Read on to find out more about the few female world leaders we’ve had so far…
Who are the female leaders in the world?
Presidents
- Isabel Perón – Argentina (1974-1976)
- Vigdís Finnbogadóttir – Iceland (1980-1996)
- Corazon Aquino – Philippines (1986-1992)
- Mary Robinson – Ireland (1990-1997)
- Mary McAleese – Ireland (1997-2011)
- Violeta Chamorro – Nicaragua (1990-1997)
- Ruth Dreifuss – Switzerland (1999)
- Tarja Halonen – Finland (2000-2012)
- Mireya Moscoso – Panama (1999-2004)
- Gloria Macapagal Arroyo – Philippines (2001-2010)
- Michelle Bachelet – Chile (2006-2010, 2014-2018)
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – Liberia (2006-2018)
- Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – Argentina (2007-2015)
- Dalia Grybauskaitė – Lithuania (2009-2019)
- Laura Chinchilla – Costa Rica (2010-2014)
- Dilma Rousseff – Brazil (2011-2016)
- Park Geun-hye – South Korea (2013-2017)
- Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović – Croatia (2015-2020)
- Tsai Ing-wen – Taiwan (2016-present)
- Sahle-Work Zewde – Ethiopia (2018-present)
- Zuzana Čaputová – Slovakia (2019-present)
- Katerina Sakellaropoulou – Greece (2020-present)
Prime Ministers
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike – Sri Lanka (1960-1965, 1970-1977, 1994-2000)
- Indira Gandhi – India (1966-1977, 1980-1984)
- Golda Meir – Israel (1969-1974)
- Margaret Thatcher – United Kingdom (1979-1990)
- Édith Cresson – France (1991-1992)
- Kim Campbell – Canada (1993)
- Tansu Çiller – Turkey (1993-1996)
- Jenny Shipley – New Zealand (1997-1999)
- Helen Clark – New Zealand (1999-2008)
- Julia Gillard – Australia (2010-2013)
- Yingluck Shinawatra – Thailand (2011-2014)
- Helle Thorning-Schmidt – Denmark (2011-2015)
- Erna Solberg – Norway (2013-2021)
- Theresa May – United Kingdom (2016-2019)
- Jacinda Ardern – New Zealand (2017-2023)
- Sanna Marin – Finland (2019-2023)
- Liz Truss – United Kingdom (September 2022-October 2022)
Chancellor
- Angela Merkel – Germany (2005-2021)
Who was the first-ever female world leader?
Obviously, females have been world leaders in a royal context for centuries; the first being Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled as Pharaoh of Egypt from approximately 1479 to 1458 BCE.
However, the first female world leader in a democratic context is widely recognised as Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). She became the world’s first female prime minister in 1960.
How many female prime ministers has Australia had?
Sadly, since Federation (when Australia first became a nation on January 1, 1901), Australia has only ever had one female prime minister.
In 2010, Julia Gillard challenged Kevin Rudd for the leadership of the Australian Labor Party, as she felt the party needed a change – Mr Rudd was facing a serious decline in public support, plus there were internal party dissatisfactions with his leadership style as well as concerns about his ability to win another term in office.
After initially declaring he would challenge her, Mr Rudd ultimately decided not to contest the leadership vote, so Ms Gillard became the leader unopposed.
Then as the Labor Party leader, she automatically became the 27th Prime Minister of Australia – and the first female prime minister.
23 days after becoming prime minister, Ms Gillard announced the next federal election and swiftly began campaigning with the slogan, “Moving forward”.
After winning the election (which was held on August 21, 2010) against Opposition leader Tony Abbott, Ms Gillard was sworn in once again as prime minister on September 14, 2012 by Quentin Bryce, who was Governor-General at the time.
Ms Gillard held office until 2013 and since then, Australia has not had another female prime minister.
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