Girls Can Do Anything Inspirational Women - Sirimavo Bandaranaike
In our Girls Can Do Anything Gallery of Inspirational Women, we've tried to pick out mainly contemporary figures who are relevant to our lives now. But one or two historic women have made it to the gallery, including Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
Here's why we chose her:
Girls Can Do Anything is illustrated by Ali Pye and published on 2 August 2018 by Scholastic. Pre-order your copy here.
Here's why we chose her:
Sirimavo
Bandaranaike – Politician (Sri Lanka)
The world's first female prime
minister
Sirimavo
Bandaranaike was prime minister of Sri Lanka on three separate occasions:
1960-65 1970-77 and 1994-2000. She was the world’s first female prime minister
and took the country through major socialist reform that resulted in the island
becoming a republic.
You
might be surprised to learn that there have been over 113 female prime
ministers and presidents and several more acting up to the role since the
1940s. Something I find quite amazing given the reluctance of many nations to allow women to occupy other positions
of responsibility or power.
Saudi Arabia
have only just lifted a ban on women driving cars and in many countries girls
still don’t have the right to attend school.
According to The Guardian, in South Sudan nearly three quarters of girls
still do not attend primary school. So the fact that across the world we’ve had
ANY women in the ultimate position of power is a bit of a miracle. Of course the UK didn’t get a female Prime
Minister until 1979 and the United States has never had a woman at the helm, so
I guess there’s still some way to go yet.
If
you’re interested, there’s a full list of female heads of state here