Problem with Merkel is she’s very strong on the international scene (telling people to f**** off and putting her foot down when it comes to protect Germany’s interests) and extremely weak and indecisive at home. She seems to be somewhat of a feminist icon outside of Germany, but I’m not entirely sure she deserves that position: she has never endorsed or even discussed ANY feminist policies at all. The only time she tried to play the *feminine* card was when she realised that she would need the female vote.

She’s all about consensus rather than confrontation (although that’s absolutely not her image internationally). Pretty good article on her here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,650888,00.html

*goes to check google* Yikes!

And this despite it being the Left that started fighting facism long before the ‘patriots’…

“My conclusion: Forbes are conflating “power” with “fame”? Because more five year olds in the USA have heard of Oprah than of Angela Merkel.”

Probably a bit of that mixed with a bit of most ‘top lists’ are inherently going to show bias along national/geographical/ideological/awareness lines.

Reminds me of a bit of Transmetropolitan (apologies if I don’t quite get the quote 100% right)

Spider Jersualem: “I showed some kids a map of the world and asked them to point to the USA. They pointed at Russia ‘because it’s the biggest'”

The amount of google results for the phrase “liberal pansy” is certainly an interesting one.

Bah. :(

Do I get points for, er, trying? :D

Sigh.

EDIT: mind you, Merkel is number 4 on the Forbes 100. Which isn’t bad. I’m just a bit discombobulated that Oprah’s ahead of her at number 3!

My conclusion: Forbes are conflating “power” with “fame”? Because more five year olds in the USA have heard of Oprah than of Angela Merkel.

*goes off to reflect on How To Define Power (before I fall down a comment-hole of “madam, to expostulate / What majesty should be…” etc!)*

” is that the female heads of state we have pre-Rousseff just aren’t heading up nations that are big enough to rival the big powers?”

I’d say Germany counted as a pretty major power, so sadly it looks like it’s the cyncial option : (

Oh, and to bring up the Forbes Power Women 100, it remains rather a point of interest that various women who *aren’t* heads of state come first on it. There are First Ladies and TV presenters before one gets anywhere near the Johannas of the world. Also Lady Gaga. If it were men, surely there’d be presidents and tycoons way before Bono?

Trying to work out if a partway explanation for this, aside from cynical responses, is that the female heads of state we have pre-Rousseff just aren’t heading up nations that are big enough to rival the big powers?

This is a point – I haven’t really got a sense of what Rousseff’s aims are, being not especially clued in on Brazilian politics. So while it’s nice to see a woman in the post, I don’t actually know a lot about her except that she is, according to Wikipedia, a socialist.

So, for any readers who are curious about her, here are some basic links (I have no idea about bias levels, though):

The Indy

The Beeb

The Staggers

The Grauniad

More Graun

Amusingly, she has already been nicknamed the “iron lady”, although only, so far for her apparent temper.

I’m quite keen to do a wholly-positive post on ‘other people’s Presidents’ now :)

I have friends with strong views on Angela Merkel, and am keen to find out more about Johanna Sigurdardottir. I mostly know about her policies on strip-clubs, but last thing I heard she was proposing a massive debt-relief program which is going to send the IMF into spasms (probably a very good thing!)

Well, yeah, but you’re comparing them to a female head of government who got elected a month ago, who hasn’t taken office yet, let alone on set policy gender issues, instead of comparing them to a female head of government with a good track record on gender related policy issues. I’m just saying if you wanted a point of comparison to make our mob look bad, there are stronger ones.

It’s an article on *UK* *Senior* female politicians :)
(“We in the UK…”)

And I did say it’s only a trend, there are exceptions. It’s just that they’re mostly low-ranking exceptions who haven’t had a chance to dictate policy.