USA

In 1916, a 36-year-old woman, Jeannette Pickering Rankin, became the first woman to be elected to the US House of Representatives—at least four years before every woman in the United States could vote. Ninety-two years later, the candidacies of Hillary Rodham Clinton—in the White House race—and Sarah Palin—the Republican VP candidate, were the closest the US came to shattering the glass ceiling. Now with Hillary Clinton replacing Condoleezza Rice as US Secretary of State, she becomes the third woman US Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright was the other.

ASIA

Has had some of the most powerful women heads of state, including Sri Lankan Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Indira Gandhi. India’s Sonia Gandhi is among Newsweek’s 50 most powerful persons and president Pratibha Patil is the country’s first woman president. Bangladesh voted on Monday after about a two-year emergency rule. Former prime ministers Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia are again the front-runners. Phillipines president Gloria Arroyo has been in power since 2001.

Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni is the designated acting prime minister. In September, Livni was elected leader of the Kadima party and tried to form a coalition government, unsuccessfully. Elections are scheduled for February 2009.

AFRICA

In 2006, Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa’s first elected female head of state and is often referred to as the ‘Iron Lady of Africa’.

LATIN AMERICA

Gave the world its first woman president in 1974 with Argentina’s Isabel Martínez de Perón. Now has Michelle Bachelet as president of Chile—she is 15th on Time’s list of 100 most influential people—and Cristina Fernández de Kichner as the Argentine president. A February report by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, released in February 2008, said though the number of Latin American women in politics has grown to 8.5 per cent, real progress is highly uneven. For instance, while one in three parliamentarians is a woman in Argentina , in Brazil, the figure is one in 12.

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