Heads of State

Don’t Mess with Dilma tells a gripping story of Brazil’s President, Dilma Vana Rousseff, her much struggled but nevertheless thriving journey, in the September 26, 2011 issue of Newsweek (also featuring spotlight articles on Women in the World). When you read about another mortal who has lived through imprisonment, interrogation as well as torture for resisting military dictatorship (yes, torture, as in being whacked, hung upside down, electric-shocked, god knows what else were there!*) and continues to live-on to serve as the Head of State despite undergoing chemo treatments, it puts your misery and pessimism into perspective. Thanks to the need to pass time while procrastinating from job-hunting, I decided to compile a list of current female Heads of State.

During my search, I discovered that in some countries, the Head of State’s portfolio doesn’t necessarily include the role of, literally, governing the State. Take England for example, where Queen Elizabeth II is the de jure Head of State, but it is actually David Cameron and his cabinet who are really calling the shots. So, I revised the title of my list to 'The Current Women Leaders Who Exercise Executive Power Or Constitute The Unit That Wields Executive Power (i.e. Switzerland)' and found 20 of such women who run the shows:

1. Argentina - Cristina E. Fernández de Kirchner, President (December 2007 - current).
2. Australia - Julia Gillard, Prime Minister (June 2010 - current).
3. Brazil - Dilma Vana Rousseff, President (January 2011 - current).
4. Costa Rica - Laura Chinchilla Miranda, President (May 2010 - current).
5. Denmark - Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Prime Minister (October 2011 - current).
6. Germany - Angela Merkel, Chancellor (November 2005 - current).
7. Iceland - Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Prime Minister (February 2009 - current)
8. India - Pratibha Patil, President (July 2007 - current).
9. Ireland - Mary McAleese, President (November 1997 - current)
10. Kosovo - Atifete Jahjaga, President (April 2011 - current)
11. Kyrgyzstan - Roza Otunbayeva, President (April 2010 - current)
12. Liberia - Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President (January 2006 - current)
13. Lithuania - Dalia Grybauskaitė, President (July 2009 - current)
14. Slovakia - Iveta Radičová, Prime Minister (8 July 2010 - current)
15. Switzerland - Micheline Calmy-Rey, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (January 2003 - current).
16. Switzerland - Doris Leuthard, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (August 2006 - current).
17. Switzerland - Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (January 2008 - current).
18. Switzerland - Simonetta Sommaruga, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (November 2010 - current).
19. Thailand - Yingluck Shinawatra, Prime Minister (August 2011 - current).
20. Trinidad and Tobago - Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister (May 2010 - current)

Sure it took 160 years (since the first wave of feminist movements) for ladies to constitute about 9.9% of the world’s total political leaders, hopefully it'll take lesser than another 160 years for that amount to double, if not, triple.

---

On another note...

Just earlier, I attended a career/motivational talk, Bosses in Heels, at the Intercontinental Hotel. The audience were asked a question...

Speaker: How many current female Heads of State are there in the world?
Me: [Cognition in process: By Heads of State, I think she meant female political leaders who rock'n'roll the show. It’ll be unfair for Queen E II to be one half of Australia’s Head of State - the other half is shared with the Governor General - while Julia Gillard gets criticized and disliked for running the country; c’mon, the Aussies even made a TV production on her with explicit scenes...Right!) 20.
Speaker: 20? [Looked my way] You’re ahead of your time. Anyone else?
Random dude: 1!
Speaker: There are actually about 9 current female Heads of State in the world and, of course, there will more emerging from the African countries.
Me: [Sad face - what's wrong with my '20?' Think, what would Dilma Rousseff do?].

---

---

Footnote
* ...which also makes one wonder if Prime Ministers, Presidents and other political leaders would eagerly step up to their positions if the job requirements include ‘a minimum of 3 years experience being underprivileged, humiliatingly deprived, oppressed, battered, broiled and fried alive, but managed to gracefully rise above the living hell for the sake of the nation.’ Nonetheless, we have seen an exceptional character as such (take a guess first before clicking on the link to find out who this person is). You've gotta love this one.