“You could grow up to be President,” says an oft-quoted
quip. But do little girls stand the same odds as little boys of ever attaining
such an office – in any country of this big, wide world?
In the United States, as American voters consider their
prospective Presidential candidates for the 2016 election, only two women
remain in the running at this point. In a bipartisan
field of some 22 participants (as of this writing), former Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton stands in the Democratic camp, while business leader Carly
Fiorina squares off on the Republican side. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has
opted not to run.
Reaching the top office of the land is a tall order for
sure. And it may be an even tougher goal in the vast majority of the world’s
domains.
A Pew Research Center study, with results published
July 30, suggests only one in 10 of the world’s nations now have female
leaders in their top slots. The study, examining the leadership of 142 United
Nations member states, excluded figurehead monarchs, focusing exclusively on
heads of state or heads of government.
The 18 countries currently led by women serving as heads of
state, according to the Pew Research Center findings, include Argentina, Bangladesh,
Brazil, Central African Republic, Chile, Croatia, Germany, Jamaica, Latvia, Liberia,
Lithuania, Malta, Mauritius, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Switzerland, and Trinidad
& Tobago.
The current total is apparently twice what it was a decade
ago.
Maybe the glass
ceiling theory does hold true – at least for top slots on the global scale.
Image/s:
Adapted from public domain artwork
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