Women in power: From the young to the controversial

In this day and age, women have entered many professional fields and have made a mark however, world politics remains one of the spaces where very few women have been able to stamp their authority. International politics is still widely a male-dominated field with very few women who are heads of states and governments at the negotiating table. Even the United States, which has been a superpower for several decades has not had a female head of state or government yet.

Here are some women who are at present heads of state and government, and have caught the limelight for what they do:

Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel is the chancellor of Germany. She was elected to the position of the chief executive in 2005 and was re-elected in 2009, 2013 and 2017. She is widely regarded as the most powerful woman in the world and the de facto leader of the European Union due to her country’s position in the world economy and as the largest European economy. She has overseen various crises and situations in the world from the 2008 financial crisis, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal and Brexit between 2016 and 2020. Her longevity in a leadership position during a very tumultuous time for Europe and the world is respected by several world leaders, present and past. She said her party’s (Christian Democratic Union) conference that she would not seek re-election in 2021.

Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand is very popular in her home country and around the world not specifically for her negotiations with other world leaders but for how she has carried herself and been proud to be a female leader with a child and a partner. She is very popular for two major features of her prime ministership so far, for the way she led the country in March 2019, in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings and for being the first world leader for bringing her infant along with her to the UNGA. When she took office in 2017, at age 37, she was the world’s youngest female head of government. Jacinda has proven that it is possible to be a mother of an infant and lead a country without any compromise.

Sanna Marin

At age 34, she was the youngest state leader in the world when she took office and is also Finland’s youngest-ever prime minister. She also is the third woman to be the prime minister of the country. Marin has been a member of parliament since 2015 and is widely known around the world for setting such records. Although, she is not the youngest state leader anymore, losing the record to Austria’s Sebastian Kurz within 30 days of setting the record.

Aung San Suu Kyi

The 74-year-old 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate studied at the University of Delhi and the University of Oxford. She later worked for the United Nations. She is widely known for bringing democracy to the country by following Gandhian and Buddhist principles. After winning the majority of votes in the 1990 general election, she was placed under house arrest for a total of 15 years in a 21 year period. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, however, the military junta refused to hand over power to the democratically elected government in 1990. Suu Kyi’s reputation in the recent past, however, has been marred with the controversial treatment of Rohingya Muslims and her silence to what the UN has termed an ‘ethnic cleansing’. Many activists and political commentators have called to have her prestigious Nobel Peace Prize revoked. She is currently the State Counsellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs.