Brazil’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, who takes up the helm on Saturday, will lead a small but powerful group of women taking on the political challenges facing Latin America.
When she is inaugurated as the head of the region’s biggest economy, Rousseff will be the most visible face of the inroads women are making into a paternalist tradition that has so long sidelined them into secondary roles.
It will be a tricky test for Rousseff, who takes over from her charismatic mentor, outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose gruff, bearded manner proved persuasive in a variety of situations — not least in getting her elected.
She joins a select club of Latina female leaders that already includes Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla.
“In Brazil, there is an attempt to undermine Dilma’s legitimacy because she was chosen by Lula, as if she was incapable of making her own decisions just because she’s a woman,” said Professor Rosemary Segurado, a social sciences professor at Sao Paulo University.
Rousseff, Lula’s former Cabinet chief; Kirchner, first lady before taking over the presidency; and Chinchilla, a former vice-president of Costa Rica, are finding themselves forced to prove “they are not in anyone’s shadow,” she said.
“Latin American politics is seen as an area for men and society has trouble accepting they have their own opinions, ideas and initiatives,” she said.
In Rousseff’s case, the fact she had never run in an election before winning the presidency was taken as evidence that she was simply a prolongation of Lula’s government — something which diminished her own accomplishments, Segurado said.
Chinchilla, likewise, faced criticism that she was propelled to the top by her predecessor, Oscar Aria.
And Kirchner was previously credited with being more influential when she was the senator wife of president Nestor Kirchner.
When she became president with her husband’s backing, “it was as if she had no political past” for much of the electorate, Segurado said.
In contrast, Chile’s former female president, Michelle Bachelet, served as defense minister before becoming head of state, Segurado said. She had successfully negotiated military matters that still felt the tug of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
“Bachelet is a case of a woman who had her own path, who managed to show she was not only a creation of ex-president Ricardo Lagos, but a public figure in her own right,” she said.
Latin America has also had several other female figures who, though not in the spotlight of international politics, were regarded as influential within their own countries.
They include Maraa Estela Martinez de Peron in Argentina, Nicaragua’s Violeta Chamorro and Panama’s Mireya Moscoso.
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