Glamour Magazine Celebrates Women Leaders from Around the World

This month, Glamour Magazine is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its Women of the Year Awards. While past women of the year honorees have included names like Madonna,  Glenn Close, Martina Navritalova, and Barbara Walters, this year Glamour chose to honor women who’ve reached the highest level of politics in their country and are serving as Presidents or Prime Ministers of their respective countries – 18 of them.

Glamour Magazine says these women are women of the year because: “They have remained focused on the issue of women’s empowerment. Thanks to them, girls now have powerful models at the veyr top. With these women leaders inspiring the next generation, perhaps the concerns of today – girls’ under-education, maternal mortality, rape as a weapon of war – will, by the fortieth Glamour Women of the Year Awards, have been resolved.”

Among the women interviewed by Glamour are the President of Lithuania, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, the President of Liberia, and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. When asked about how the world might be different if there were more women leaders, Kamla Persad-Bissessar had this to say:

“Well, we grew up at a time when the majority of heads of state has mainly been men. And we have to ask, how is the world today? If women were in the majority as world leaders, would there still be the rape of women as a spoil of war? What about female genital mutilation, the stoning of a woman and mother for alleged adultery, children being sold into slavery, prostitution? The proof of the pudding is always in the eating, so maybe 50 years from now a female leader somewhere may have the answer to this question. Who knows? She may be the fourth or fifth female U.S. president.”

During the entire four years I was in high school, there were no more than five women heads of state at any given time. So I guess the fact that today there are 18 is progress. But considering there are 194 countries, the fact that less than 10% have female leaders still seems pretty dismal. And I KNOW we can do better.

Back when I was in high school, I remember having a lively debate in one of my social studies classes about whether or not the world would be a different place if women had been the ones running the show. Would the world wars have happened? Would societies be more equal? Would poverty exist? Would racism be nonexistent? I had never considered these ideas prior to this class, and it really made me think about just how different, and better, the world might look with women calling the shots. Of course my answer then, and still is today, that yes, the world would be a much different place. And I’d like to think it would be much better as well.

So it got me to wondering, what are the real differences between men and women that would lead to a different outcome? I’m not talking about opinion or anecdotes or belief systems – I’m talking about the actual BRAIN SCIENCE – the scientific differences between men and women’s brains and physiology – that impacts the way women would and do lead.

I did a little research and found this interesting article that lays out big differences between men and women’s brains, several of which directly relate to how a woman might lead differently than a man:

• Human relationships – women typically communicate more effectively than men (women are better at understanding nonverbal cues than men)
• Brain hemispheres – men tend to process better in the left hemisphere of the brain, while women are equally good at processing in the left and right hemispheres
• Stress response – the testosterone in men reduces the effects of the stress-relieving hormone, oxytocin, whereas the estrogen in women enhances the calming effects of oxytocin
• Emotions – women have a larger deep limbic system which allows them to be more in touch with and express their feelings than men

What do you think? How might the world today be different if there were more women heads of state?