SALON

Monday, Nov 1, 2010 1:01 PM UTC

Brazil elects first female president

Dilma Rousseff marks another milestone for women's global political presence

By

Topics: Brazil, Broadsheet, Gender, Love and Sex,

Brazil elects first female presidentDilma Rousseff, presidential candidate for the governing Workers Party, greets supporters as he leaves a polling station after voting in Brazil's presidential election runoff in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Sunday Oct. 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Nabor Goulart)(Credit: AP)

Well, here’s occasion to break out the Carnival costumes and floats once more this year: Brazil just elected its first female president.

Dilma Rousseff’s win follows major global steps toward presidential parity: In 2006, Michelle Bachelet was elected as Chile’s first female president, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner became Argentina’s first female president in 2007. You might also have noticed that the 2008 U.S. election brought about many historic moments for women (so many, in fact, that some smart people have written whole books on that very subject). In the context of women’s advancement, her victory is certainly something to celebrate, as are her leftist, democratic aims — but Rousseff is also a more complex character than that narrative allows. As the Washington Post reports, she has quite the fabled past:

In the 1960s, with Brazil ruled by a military dictatorship, she joined a rebel movement and, according to Brazil’s military of the time, became an urban commander of the VAR Palmares organization that robbed banks and carried out assassinations. … After her capture by the security forces in 1970, she was tortured –including hanging upside down from a metal bar, her wrists wrapped to her ankles in an excruciatingly painful position called the “parrot’s perch.”

Rousseff, who campaigned on the promise of reducing poverty and giving the government greater economic control, has little in the way of actual political experience, but the 62-year-old was given an enormous boost by the endorsement of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the country’s celebrated outgoing president. Now, she says, “a new stage of democracy begins” — although, policy-wise, the new administration isn’t expected to differ much from the current one. Only, this time around, there will be a lady at the helm.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 12 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
GOP opposes right to vote - Iraq's new constitution has something America's doesn't: The right to vote. Republicans want to keep it that way
20 points21 points | 5 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of all Americans struggle to afford food
23 points24 points | 6 comments
vote
Brad Pitt keeps breaking his silence on how boring marriage to Jennifer Aniston was
18 points19 points | 26 comments
vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
24 points25 points | comment
vote
Journalists file suit against Manning trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
15 points16 points | 1 comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations