Beliefnet
2017-03-27

Who are the most inspiring women politicians of all time? We cannot overlook Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto, India’s Indira Gandhi, Israel’s Golda Meir or Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Nor can we ignore Americans Margaret Chase Smith, Jeannette Rankin or Victoria Woodhull.

 Bhutto and Gandhi both served as prime ministers and were assassinated, giving their lives for the homelands they loved. Meir and Thatcher led their nations through periods of deadly conflict, impossible challenge … and astonishing victory.

Smith, a U.S. Senator from Maine, repeatedly sought the nomination for the presidency on a road paved by Rankin, the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, and Woodhull, pictured at left, the first woman to make a serious bid for the U.S. presidency.

How can any list of powerful political women not include the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt? Cleopatra reigned from 69-30 BC, battling politically to defend her beloved Egypt from the expanding Roman Empire. In doing so, she formed romantic alliances with Rome’s most powerful leaders of that day, Marc Anthony and Julius Caesar, but historians say she was just a very canny and effective political strategist who did what it took to ensure Egypt’s sovereignty.

Ruling England from 1533-1603, a time of great social change, Queen Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII, saw England confirmed as a world power, establishing colonies in the Americas, Africa, Australia and Asia. In one of the major turning points of world history, her navy devastated the unbeatable Spanish Armada, empowering Britannia to rule the seas for centuries as the world’s first superpower.

One of the greatest political leaders of the eighteenth century. Russia’s Catherine the Great (1729-1796) played an important role in freeing Russia’s serfs – who were unpaid slaves, owned by the country’s nobility. She placed great emphasis on the arts and helped cement Russia as one of the dominant powers in Europe and Asia.

How could a preacher’s daughter change the world? In 1833, aspiring writer Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) attended a Kentucky slave auction and her resulting novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, galvanized America’s anti-slavery campaign. During the War Between the States, Abraham Lincoln remarked at a White House reception, “So, you’re the little lady who started this big war.” A bestseller in Europe, the novel was credited with keeping France, England, Russia and Spain from coming to the South’s aid or defying the Union’s naval blockade of the slave states.

Presiding over one of the largest empires ever seen, Queen Victoria (1819-1901) was Great Britain’s head of state for most of the nineteenth century – a period during which her realm stretched from Gibraltar to Hong Kong and the South Pacific, from Canada to India and Ceylon, from Australia to vast African colonies that included today’s Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Sudan. Her Victorian Age was synonymous with personal propriety and middle-class morality. One of the last British monarchs to actively influence British politics, Victoria publicly attempted to appear aloof from partisan affairs.

The wife of American president Franklin D. Roosevelt was a tireless campaigner. During her husband’s unprecedented four-term presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) made significant contributions to human rights and spoke out for the downtrodden during the Great Depression -- when that described almost all Americans as the nation was devastated in modern history’s worst economic downturn, and then when America led the successful fight for freedom against the Nazi and fascist Axis Powers during World War II.

The wife of China’s Chairman Mao wielded tremendous power during some of the most tumultuous years in the world’s largest nation. Jiang Qing (1914-1991) has been blamed for some of the worst outrages of the Cultural Revolution – particularly the brutal campaigns of the Red Guard, roving gangs of young, fanatical Maoists who publicly humiliated, imprisoned and frequently executed anyone suspected of not being radical enough –  targeting those they identified as “intellectual” or “artistic,” which they saw as bourgeois decadence. Jiang claimed she was only following Mao’s orders, but abused her position to take revenge on political enemies and advance her vast power. Together with Mao's, her multi-million death toll has been compared to that of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot.

The first female prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi (1917-1984) was in power in 1966-77 and 1980-84. Accused of being a benign dictator – using authoritarian tactics to advance her causes – she only narrowly avoided a military coup by agreeing to hold an election at the end of the “emergency period” of 1977. She was assassinated in 1984 by her own Sikh bodyguards who were angered over her decision to storm the sacred Sikh Golden Temple, which left many innocent pilgrims dead. Nevertheless, she left a legacy of human rights reforms and economic policy credited for India’s rise today as a world power.

The enigmatic wife of fascist dictator and Hitler ally Juan Peron, Eva Peron (1919-1952) was widely loved by the ordinary people of Argentina for whom she campaigned tirelessly until her death at age 32. Among her causes were land reform and women’s rights. She was also feared for her intolerance of criticism. She did not hesitate to shut down any newspaper that opposed her.

Born in Czarist Russia, but raised in Milwaukee and Denver, Golda Meir emigrated to a Israeli kibbutz in the 1920s. In 1948, when Jewish leaders despaired over raising money to finance the means for Israel to defend itself, she traveled to the United States and came back with $50 million. Founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wrote that history would remember her as the "woman who got the money which made Israel possible." On May 10, 1948, four days before the official establishment of Israel, she met secretly with Jordan’s King Abdullah who asked her not to hurry to proclaim a state. Meir replied: "We've been waiting for 2,000 years. Is that hurrying?" She was elected to the Knesset in 1949 and became Prime Minister on March 17, 1969. Ben-Gurion liked to call her "the best man in our government." The press portrayed her as the strong-willed, straight-talking, grey-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people who led her people to an impossible victory in the 1973 Yom Kippur War .

The first female Prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher was known as Great Britain's "Iron Lady" for her refusal to be intimidated, her emphasis on individual responsibility and her deep belief in the free market system. She developed a close relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and is credited with him in bringing the Cold War to a close with the collapse of the Soviet Union. She was also intensely skeptical of allowing Britain to merge with the European Union. She campaigned successfully to preserve the British pound when other European nations adopted the Euro as their currency. Today she is credited with keeping Great Britain aloof of much of the EU's fiscal problems while enjoying the benefits of the continent's open borders and markets.

The first female prime minister of a Muslim country, Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) helped to move Pakistan from a dictatorship to democracy in 1977. She sought to implement social reforms, in particular helping women and the poor. She was forced out of office on corruption charges which she adamantly denied – and of which she was absolved. The eldest child of the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she studied law at Oxford. She was sworn in as Prime Minister in 1988, but left office 20 months later. In 1993 she was re-elected but again removed in 1996 by political opponents resisting her human rights stance. She went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998. She returned on October 18, 2007, but was assassinated on December 27, 2007, two weeks before an election she was expected to win. Although she suffered significant frustration as she fought to bring democracy and freedom to Pakistan, she remains an inspiration for her determination to improve conditions in her homeland – in the face of impossible odds.


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