A Brief History
On March 3, 2005, the “other” country down under became the first modern nation with an all-female leadership cadre when New Zealand elected Margaret Wilson as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives.
Digging Deeper
Wilson, the former Attorney General, joined Prime Minister Helen Clark, Governor General Silvia Cartwright, and Head of State Queen Elizabeth II to round out the all-woman leadership of the country. New Zealand continued its history making advances for women in politics when in 2022, the nation’s Parliament became female majority.
As of 2022, the following countries have a female majority in their lower legislative houses: Cuba, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Rwanda, and United Arab Emirates.
In 2023, the US Congress could only boast 28% women, with 25 female senators and 128 representatives. Over 70 nations have had women heads of government, but not the US!
Note: In 2021, Estonia became the only current nation led by women elected to head of state and head of government.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Wynter, Chantal. Women In Government: 10 Key Strategies to Advance Your Career. Kindle, 2016.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Michał Koziczyński of Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives Margaret Wilson in the Polish Senate, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Poland license.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
