Almost Every Famous Female Politician

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Updated March 11, 2024 82.7K views 4,693 items

From trailblazing pioneers to contemporary leaders, female politicians have played an integral role in shaping political systems and championing pressing issues around the globe. These trailblazing women have not only shattered glass ceilings but also left an indelible mark on global politics with their astute leadership, powerful voices, and unwavering commitment to their nations and constituents. 

This comprehensive compilation showcases a remarkable group of female politicians, highlighting each individual's achievements and unique impact on the political arena. Featuring leaders and changemakers from around the world, this selection provides an enlightening look at the many ways these women have forever altered the course of history, earning them a well-deserved place among the most distinguished female politicians of all time. 

Among the many illustrious women politicians featured in this compilation, several stand out as particularly significant due to their groundbreaking achievements and enduring legacies. For example, Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, played an instrumental role in shaping American foreign policy and championing women's rights on the global stage. Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, has been a formidable force in American politics, skillfully negotiating and legislating throughout her illustrious career. Likewise, Condoleezza Rice, who served as the first African-American woman U.S. Secretary of State, showcased her expertise in world affairs and sharp diplomatic acumen. 

The inspiring legacies of these extraordinary female politicians serve as a testament to their indomitable spirit, resilience, and unwavering dedication to their respective nations and the global community. Delving into the accomplishments and milestones achieved by these trailblazers, readers are sure to gain a newfound appreciation for the inimitable contributions these famous women in politics have made. From advocating for social justice to forging new paths forward in international relations, these extraordinary women have indubitably earned their place in the annals of political lore. 

  • Hilaria Supa

    Hilaria Supa Huamán (born 1957) is a Peruvian politician, human rights activist, and an active member of several Indigenous women's organizations in Peru and the world. She was a Congresswoman representing the Cusco for the period 2006-2011, as a member of Ollanta Humala's Partido Nacionalista Peruano party. Hilaria Supa was raised by her grandparents on her mother Helena Huamán's side, who were peasants in a hacienda or a big farm owned by rich families. During her childhood she saw the hacendado or farm owner mistreat her grandfather and rape the local women, which had a crucial impact on her life. Her grandfather, who fought for farmers rights, was murdered in 1965. When she was only six years old, she had to travel to Arequipa, where she was forced to work as a maid but when she asked her relatives to get her back to Cusco, she found out that her grandmother had also died. Afterward Hilaria Supa worked as a house maid in Cusco, Arequipa, and Lima. She was raped at 14 when she was working for rich families in Lima. Her partner and father of her children, died in an accident when she was 22. As a result of physical abuse and forced labor as a child, she suffers of generalized boy arthritis. She has written a book about her life titled Threads of My Life -available in Spanish, English and German, and soon in Quechua- where she tells how she became stronger facing these adversities. In the 1980s she became involved with other Indigenous women in organizing a community program that provided with free meals for poor children. She became leader of the Micaela Bastidas Committee in Anta, Cusco and took part in the fights for land rights, which finally resulted in the land reform legislation under the government of Juan Velasco Alvarado. She was also leader of the Federación Departamental de Campesinos del Cusco, the regional organization of the Confederación Campesina del Perú in Cusco. In 1991 she became the Organizational Secretary of the new founded Women's Federation of Anta (Federación de Mujeres de Anta FEMCA), where she was responsible for alphabetization programs, traditional medicine preservation and pesticide issues. Hilaria Supa has taken part in numerous international women rights meetings, where she has actively used and promoted her Native Quechua language. In 1995 she led a protest and lobbying against forced sterilization of women and men, done under the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship with health minister Alejandro Aguinaga. This racist health policy resulted in enforced sterilization of 363,000 Indigenous women and over 22,000 men. Hilaria Supa was elected to the Peruvian Congress in 2006, taking the oath in Quechua, followed by her fellow Congresswoman María Sumire. Doing this she became the first parliamentarian in Peru's history to take the oath in any Indigenous language, for which both were sharply criticized by Congresswoman Martha Hildebrandt and some other members of Congress.Congresswoman Hilaria Supa participated twice at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, where she denounced the crisis that her community was facing, after free trade policies and abusive decrees had been passed by the Peruvian government of Alan García in complicity with the U.S. government. She is working now to rescue Machu Picchu and other Native sites, and return them under the management of the Indigenous peoples of Cusco. In August 2010 Hilaria was elected president of the Education Commission of the Peruvian Congress. While congressmen of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) and the Fujimori parties were criticizing this, she received support by Peruvian education experts.In April 2011 Hilaria was elected as candidate of Gana Perú into the Andean Parliament.
  • Ingegerd Troedsson

    Ingegerd Troedsson (5 June 1929 – 3 November 2012) was a Swedish Moderate Party politician. She served as the first female Speaker of the Riksdag.She was born in Vaxholm and was elected to the Riksdag in 1974. She had a junior role in the non-socialist government of 1976, as deputy Minister for Social Affairs 1976–78. In 1979 she was elected vice speaker of the Riksdag, a post she held until 1991 when, after the Moderate election victory, she was elected the first female speaker of the Swedish Riksdag. She was a candidate for party leader in 1986 – after Ulf Adelsohn had resigned – but lost to Carl Bildt. Instead, she was elected deputy chairman – a position she held until 1993.
  • Judith Chaplin

    Sybil Judith Chaplin, , known as Judith Chaplin, (19 August 1939 – 19 February 1993) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
  • Mary Honeyball

    Mary Hilda Rosamund Honeyball (born 12 November 1952 in Weymouth, Dorset) is a British politician and was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Labour Party representing London. She has been a member of the European Parliament since 2000. Seventh on Labour's 1999 list, she had not been elected in the 1999 European Parliament election, but replaced Pauline Green who resigned as an MEP in November 1999. She did not stand for re-election in 2019 and resigned from the Labour Party shortly after voting closed in the UK.
  • Mohsina Kidwai

    Mohsina Kidwai (born 1 January 1932) is a leader of Indian National Congress party, she belongs to Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh. Currently she is a member of Rajya Sabha, elected from Chhattisgarh., She is a member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), the highest decision making body of the Indian Congress Party as well as the All India Congress Committee (A.I.C.C.)
  • Renuka Chowdhury (13 August 1954) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress, she represents the political party in the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh. She has also served as the Union minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Women and Child Development and Tourism in the Government of India.
  • Ammu Swaminathan

    Ammu Swaminadhan or Ammukutty Swaminadhan (22 April 1894 – 4 July 1978) was an Indian social worker and political activist during the Indian independence movement and a member of the Constituent Assembly of India.
  • Jill Knight

    Joan Christabel Jill Knight, Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE (née Christie; born 9 July 1923) is a former British Conservative Member of Parliament. She was created a Life Peer as "Baroness Knight of Collingtree, of Collingtree in the County of Northamptonshire" in 1997 after standing down at that year's general election, and retired from the House of Lords on 24 March 2016. She was appointed MBE in 1964, and elevated to DBE in 1985.
  • Susan Jeanes

    Susan Barbara Jeanes (born 24 February 1958) is an Australian politician. She was a Liberal Party of Australia member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1996 to 1998, representing the electorate of Kingston. She defeated Labor MP Gordon Bilney as part of the Liberal victory at the 1996 federal election, only to lose to Labor candidate David Cox at the closer-run 1998 federal election. By the 2002 South Australian state election, the Liberal MP for the electorate of Fisher, Bob Such, had left the party and become an independent. Jeanes won Liberal preselection for the seat but lost to Such at the election. After her parliamentary career ended she worked as an advisor on climate change and energy policy to the then federal Environment and Heritage Minister Robert Hill. She was later appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Renewable Energy Generators of Australia (REGA) and is a director of the Climate Institute. In November 2007 she was appointed Chief Executive of the Australian Geothermal Energy Association, the national industry association for the Australian geothermal energy industry.
  • Heidi Lück

    Heidi Lück née Pfeifer (born 6 April 1943) is a German social-democratic (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SPD) politician and member of the Bavarian state parliament (Bayerischer Landtag) in the Sonthofen-Lindau electoral constituency.
  • Siri Hall Arnøy

    Siri Hall Arnøy (born 28 November 1978 in Oslo) is a former Norwegian politician for the Socialist Left Party. She was elected to the Norwegian Parliament from Akershus in 2001, but was not re-elected in 2005. She then served in the position of deputy representative during the term 2005–2009. Hall Arnøy is openly lesbian.In 2012 she took the PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology with the thesis The Hopeful Hydrogen. Scientists Advocating Their Matter of Concern.
  • Caroline M. Nichols Churchill

    Caroline Nichols Churchill (December 23, 1833 – 1926) was a Canadian-born writer and newspaper editor in the United States, best known as the editor of the Queen Bee, a feminist publication prominent during the Colorado Suffrage movement. As a travel writer and editor, Churchill aimed to promote female independence in the post Civil War West, culminating ultimately in the right to vote in the state of Colorado. Her publications Over the Purple Hills, Over the Evergreen Hills, and Little Sheaves detailed the growth of California as well as her experiences in Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Indian Territory and later Colorado. In 1988, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame.
  • Donna Frye
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    Donna Frye

    Donna Frye (born January 20, 1952) is an American politician from San Diego. She was born in Pennsylvania and is one of three children. Frye was a member of the San Diego City Council, representing District 6 and a two-time candidate for mayor of San Diego. In July 2013 Frye was among the first to call on then-San Diego Democrat Mayor Bob Filner to resign over accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
  • Sheila Camerer

    Sheila Margaret Camerer is a retired South African politician and was a Member of Parliament of the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance(DA).
  • Vicki Dunne

    Vicki Ann Dunne (born 25 December 1956), an Australian politician, is a member of the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, since 2001, representing the electoral district of Ginninderra for the Liberal Party.Dunne was first elected at the 2001 ACT general election, defeating prominent sitting member and fellow Liberal, Harold Hird, by just 55 votes, after distribution of preferences. Following the announcement of the election result in 2001, Hird sought a recount of the votes in the electorate of Ginninderra. Hird’s request for a recount was rejected by both the Electoral Commissioner and, on appeal, the full ACT Electoral Commission. In considering the request, the Commissioner and the full Commission had regard to the level of accuracy achieved by the data entry of paper ballots and the computer count. The Commission was satisfied that the level of accuracy was so high that a recount in any form could not have improved on the accuracy of the original count, and that there was no probability that the original count had indicated that the wrong candidates had been elected, given the margins between the winning and losing candidates.Prior to entering the Assembly, Dunne had served on the staff of the then Chief Minister of the ACT, Gary Humphries. Dunne held the position of Speaker of the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly from 2012 to 2016. Although a coalition of Labour and Greens had been formed after the ACT election of 2012, the sole Green MP Shane Rattenbury had also announced to support the Liberal Party's candidate for the Speaker post, allowing Dunne to be elected. Labour MP Mary Porter was elected her deputy.Vicki Dunne has been associated with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) for a several years including as one of the Regional Representatives on the CPA Executive Committee for the CPA Australia Region between 2013 and 2015 and as the CPA Treasurer between 2016 and 2019.
  • Anna RadziwiÅ‚Å‚

    Anna Maria Radziwiłł ([ˈanna raˈd͡ʑiviU:]; 20 April 1939 – 23 January 2009) was a Polish historian, educator, and politician. Born in Sichów Duży, she was a former member of the Solidarity movement and a Minister of Education.
  • Caroline Schaefer

    Caroline Veronica Schaefer (born 16 April 1947) is an Australian politician, and a Liberal Party member of the South Australian Legislative Council from 1993 to 2010.Community activities involve Australian Women in Agriculture, Board Member; Leader, SA Trade Delegation to Hofex '97 and '99, Hong Kong; Leader, SA Delegation to Women in Agriculture Conference in USA 1998; Registered Show Jumping Judge; Former Councillor, Kimba Catholic Church; Member, Isolated Children and Parents Association; Kimba District Councillor 1989-93; Kimba District Hospital Board of Management 1983-93; Patron, Rural SA Network; Patron, Women's Fishing Network; State Councillor, Liberal Party of Australia (SA Branch); Member, Liberal Party Rural and Regional Council Executive Schaefer has held many positions in previous governments and committees, most notably Government Whip in the Legislative Council from 1996 to 2001 and Minister for Primary Industries from December 2001 to March 2002. Schaefer retired at the 2010 state election.
  • Jana Hybášková (born 26 June 1965 in Prague) is a Czech and European politician and diplomat, who currently serves as the Ambassador of the European Union in Namibia. She served as a Member of the European Parliament for the European People's Party from 2004 to 2009 and as the Ambassador of the European Union in Iraq from 2011 to 2015. She has been chairwoman of the European Democratic Party (EDS). As a Member of the European Parliament, she was a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, a substitute on the Committee on Budgets and chairwoman of the European delegation for relations with Israel. Jana Hybášková is also a member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy. She has been critical of the Iranian government and of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and has advocated closer relations between Israel and Europe.She graduated in Arabic at Charles University, earning a doctorate in 1989, and worked at the Foreign Ministry of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic from 1991 to 1997. She was Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Slovenia 1997–2001, and then in Qatar and Kuwait (2002–2004). She is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, and the co-organizer (with Senator Martin Mejstřík) of its preceding conference. She co-sponsored the European Parliament resolution of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism on behalf of the European People's Party.
  • Nivedita Sambhajirao Mane
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    Nivedita Sambhajirao Mane

    Nivedita Sambhajirao Mane (Marathi: निवेदिता माने) (born 11 April 1963) was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. She represented the Ichalkaranji constituency of Maharashtrafor two terms 1999 and 2004 and is a member of the rashtrawadi congress political party. On 10 January 2017, Mane, along with NCP MP Dhananjay Mahadik, NCP MLA Hasan Mushrif, Kolhapur mayor Hasina Faras, and 400 others were arrested for blocking traffic on the Pune-Bengaluru National Highway as part of a protest against the effects of demonetization.
  • Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan
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    Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan (born 24 June 1947) was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India, representing the Tiruchengode constituency of Tamil Nadu as a member of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) political party. She was previously elected to the Modakurichi constituency of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 1977,1996 elected to the Erode constituency of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 1989 .She was minister in the ministry of Textile, kaadhi, handloom and small scale industries of Tamil Nadu, 1977–1980. She was minister in the ministry of Social welfare of Tamil Nadu, 1989–1991. She was Minister of State in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of the Government of India.She is Deputy General Secretary & High level committee member of DMK party.
  • Katina Schubert

    Katina Schubert (born 28 December 1961) is a German politician who has been one of four deputy chairpersons of the German socialist party Die Linke ("The Left") since 2007.Schubert was born in Heidelberg. From 1981-1989 she studied political science, sociology and economics, primarily in Bonn. For parts of the 1990s, Schubert worked as a volunteer and journalist. In her youth (1980–1982) Schubert was a member of the German Social Democratic Party's (SPD) youth organization, but later became involved with the extraparliamentary left. In 1996 she started to work in the office of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in the German Bundestag, and in 2001 she joined the party as a member. The PDS was the successor of the East German communist party "Socialist Unity Party of Germany" (SED) after reforms in 1990. In 2003, Schubert joined the board of the PDS. In connection with the fusion of Die Linkspartei (the name of PDS from 2005) and Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative (WASG) to form Die Linke, Schubert became one of four vice chairmen of the party, which is led by two chairmen, one from the former Linkspartei and one from the former WASG.
  • Kirstie Marshall

    Kirstie Claire Marshall, OAM (born 21 April 1969) is an Australian aerial skier and Victorian state politician. Marshall was an ex-gymnast who became an aerial skier at Mount Buller, Victoria. During her skiing career Marshall won over 40 World Cup medals, including 17 World Cup gold medals. Marshall competed in aerial skiing as a demonstration sport at the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics, and as a medal event at the 1994 Lillehammer and 1998 Nagano games, where she came sixth and fourteenth, respectively. In December 2002, aged 33, Marshall was elected as a Member of Parliament in the Victorian Legislative Assembly for the Labor Party. On 26 February 2003, she was ejected from the Lower House chamber for breastfeeding her 11-day-old baby, Charlotte Louise. A section of the Parliamentary rules, namely Standing Order 30, states: "Unless by order of the House, no Member of this House shall presume to bring any stranger into any part of the House appropriated to the Members of this House while the House, or a Committee of the whole House, is sitting." As there is no age limit to ‘strangers in the House’ (non-elected persons), only MPs and certain parliamentary staff are allowed in the House during sitting times.Subsequently, the Speaker of the House set aside a room in which female MPs can feed their children without violating the Standing Orders.
  • Lucy Horodny

    Lucy Alesia Horodny (born 4 March 1957) is an Australian politician and environmentalist. Horodny, who is of Ukrainian descent, first made her name as an activist for the Wilderness Society. She entered politics in 1995, running as a Greens candidate for the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly and was immediately successful at the first ever run of the new party: She subsequently defeated liberal independent Helen Szuty, and took her place as one of two Green members in the Assembly, alongside Kerrie Tucker.Immediately after the 1995 election, Horodny and Tucker caused some controversy among sections of the left wing when they supported the installation of the conservative Kate Carnell as Chief Minister – though they often clashed with Carnell and her party in parliament over social and environmental issues.In her one term in the Legislative Assembly, she was a strong advocate for environmental causes, both inside the ACT, such as the preservation of the Black Mountain area (which had been threatened by the Gungahlin Drive Extension), and outside, such as her attempts to save Tasmania's environmentally sensitive Tarkine wilderness area from logging and development. She also advocated for several progressive causes, such as a bid to legalise voluntary euthanasia in the ACT (which only narrowly failed). She also vocally opposed the demolition of the Royal Canberra Hospital, preferring that the buildings be reused, and later, once the demolition became inevitable, opposed the government's preferred method, implosion, on environmental grounds. Horodny adopted a child in 1997, and announced soon after that she would take a year off from work and step down at the coming election. She was replaced in the Legislative Assembly by conservative independent Dave Rugendyke.
  • Mikaela Valtersson

    Mikaela Valtersson (born 6 January 1967) is a Swedish Green Party politician. She was a member of the Riksdag from 2002 until 2011.
  • Tonie Nathan

    Theodora Nathalia "Tonie" Nathan (February 9, 1923 – March 20, 2014) was an American political figure. She was the first woman, as well as the first Jew, to receive an electoral vote in a United States presidential election. She was the 1972 vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party and running mate of John Hospers, when Roger MacBride, a Republican elector from Virginia, cast the historic vote as a faithless elector.
  • Martha Scanlan Klima

    Martha S. Klima (born December 3, 1938) was first elected in 1982 to represent District 9, which covered a portion of Baltimore County, Maryland, USA. She unsuccessfully ran for the State Senate in 2002. She was defeated by Jim Brochin.
  • Mary Fitzpatrick
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    Mary Fitzpatrick

    Mary Fitzpatrick (born 20 February 1969) is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who has served as a Dublin City Councillor since May 2019, and previously between 2004 to 2014.In 2011, prior to the general election she was appointed Fianna Fáil party spokesperson on Housing and Urban Development, despite not being a member of the Oireachtas.
  • Anna-Karin Hatt

    Anna-Karin Hatt (born 7 December 1972) is a Swedish corporate leader and former politician. Since 2015, she is the CEO of Almega, the employers’ organisation for the Swedish service sector. She is also a member of the board at Alecta, Ratio Institute and the publicly held real estate company Castellum. She served as Minister for IT and Energy from 2011 to 2014, having previously served as Minister for IT and Regional Affairs from 2010 to 2011. She also served as the party's state secretary in the central coordination office of the Government of Sweden from 2006 to 2010.
  • Charlotte Cederschiöld

    Ulla Margareta Charlotte Cederschiöld (born 28 September 1944 in Gävle) is a Swedish politician and was a Member of the European Parliament until 2009. She is a member of the Moderate Party, part of the European People's Party - European Democrats group. She sits on the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. She is also a substitute for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, a member of the Delegation for relations with Russia and a substitute for the Delegation for relations with the United States. She has been married to Carl Cederschiöld since 1972, with whom she has two children Sebastian (1974) and Anna (1981). She is a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.
  • Jane Lomax-Smith

    Jane Diane Lomax-Smith, AM (born 19 June 1950 in the United Kingdom) is an Australian politician and histopathologist (morbid anatomist). She was in Local Government for 9 years, as a councillor for three terms and Lord Mayor of Adelaide for two terms. She was elected to the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Adelaide representing the Labor Party from 2002 to 2010, and throughout this time was a Minister of Education and Tourism and a range of other portfolios. In 2010-2011, she was the Interim Director of the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus). Since 2011, she has been the chair of the Board of the South Australian Museum.