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Dilma Rousseff, Laura Chinchilla, Portia Simpson-Miller and More of Latin America's Five Female Heads of State

Do you hear that glass shattering everywhere?

Oh, that's just Chile's upcoming presidential elections. The race between two female candidates in the country only continues Latin America's trend of making all sorts of history with female political participation.

Latin America has more female heads of state than any other region in the world. It currently boasts five female leaders. Let's take a second to get to know who these powerful women are.

Image: REMEZCLA

by Ana Maria Defillo

Latin America Is Making History

Do you hear that glass shattering everywhere?

Oh, that's just Chile's upcoming presidential elections. The race between two female candidates in the country only continues Latin America's trend of making all sorts of history with female political participation.

Latin America has more female heads of state than any other region in the world. It currently boasts five female leaders. Let's take a second to get to know who these powerful women are.

Image: REMEZCLA

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil

Former Chief of Staff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Rousseff is Brazil's first female president.

Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte, and became politically active at a young age. She was a socialist during her youth and joined various guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was eventually captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972, where she was reportedly tortured.

She helped found the Democratic Labour Party, but left it in 2000 for the Workers' Party.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina

Oliver Stone condescendingly called her "feisty" when interviewing her for his documentary on Latin America's Left, but Kirchner is well aware of the sexism embedded in politics and promptly put him in his place.

Kirchner is the country's second female president and first female president to be reelected for a second term. She is a widow of former president Néstor Kirchner, whom she referred to as her biggest advisor. Her seemingly overwhelming popularity hasn't stopped critics from accusing her administration of corruption and even falsifying country statistics.

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Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica

Georgetown graduate Laura Chinchilla is the first female president of Costa Rica. A conservative among her powerful female colleagues, she has publicly opposed progressive issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion, and the legalization of the morning-after pill. She plans to continue the neoliberal and free trade policies of her predecessor by forgoing social programs that disproportionately affect women and children.

That might explain why she's the country's least popular president of the last 20 years.

Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Trinidad and Tobago

The Honourable Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has an impressive background. Raised in a rural community at a time when the country had "pervading cultural norms relegating women and girls to the home," her mother encouraged her to pursue higher education in the United Kingdom.

She received a law degree at the Hugh Wooding Law School and later obtained an Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA) from the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, Trinidad.

As a strong advocate for women's rights and political participation, she believes her feminist policies are "pivotal in building a society that respects diversity, redresses inequalities, and promotes good governance that tackles corruption and addresses human and citizen security."

Thos Robinson/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Portia Simpson-Miller, Jamaica

A University of Miami, Berkeley, and Harvard Grad, Simpson Miller’s rise to Head of Government comes after seventeen years of service.

As Jamaica's first female head of state, Miller campaigned on themes of empowerment for the marginalized — specifically the poor — and uniting all classes of society to combat the root causes of economic underdevelopment.

Image Chris Jackson/Getty Images South America

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