In Brundtland's family, politics was seen as important: her father, who was a doctor, twice served as a government Minister. At the age of seven, she was enrolled as a member of the Norwegian Labour Movement (children's section).
As a young woman she was deeply involved in feminism - fighting for the rights of women and particularly concerned with the abortion debate - an issue she pursued on a global scale later in her career. She trained as a doctor, won a scholarship to Harvard to study public health and then returned to work in both Norway's Ministry of Health and Oslo's school health service, where she applied her medical experience to push for political change.
In 1974, she attracted public attention by campaigning for a reform of the abortion laws. As a result she was suddenly asked - at the age of 35 - to join the Norwegian government. The call came as a surprise to her and she had little time to make her decision.
" I think a decisive moment has been when I was asked as a 35 year old to become a member of the Norwegian government. At that time it came as a surprise to me and I had to decide within a few hours whether to say yes."
She became Cabinet Minister with responsibility for the Environment and was to
help drive an abortion law through parliament.
In 1981 Brundtland was elected Prime Minister at the age of only 42 - Norway's youngest Prime Minister and the first woman in the post. One of the first things she did was to introduce a 40% quota of women in to the cabinet.
"I always saw it as necessary and important to improve the participation of women in society. The greatest achievement to date must be creating a cabinet, a government in Norway, where nearly half of the Ministers were women. And that started on a policy programme of focusing on families, children and the empowerment and increased opportunities for women."
Brundtland believes that it's critical for countries to be represented by an equal balance of men and women so that policies reflect the full range of issues.
"women have not at a reasonable pace entered into the political arena and other arenas of society without a deliberate push, it has not happened by itself. So that's why you have to make democratic decisions, to make greater equality in society, otherwise it just doesn't happen - and women and women's backgrounds and women's contributions are not given the place that they deserve in society. That's why you have to make these kind of moves. The country deserves to be represented by the people which means in this case half of them should be normally women".
Brundtland gained a reputation for speaking out. In 1994 she spoke out at the World Population Conference in Cairo. Her speech was considered highly controversial as she spoke with great forcefulness and passion on the need to decriminalise abortion.
"Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers suffering or dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children living in misery. None of us, none of us, whatever our religion can disregard that abortions occur and that where they are illegal or heavily restricted the life and health of the woman is often at risk. Decriminalising abortions should therefore be a minimal response to this reality and a necessary means of protecting the life and the health of women."
Some of those attending the conference felt that the speech was very insensitive. Looking back now she can see that at the time what she said was probably too radical for many people:
"That was the most radical I said, and at that time that was too radical for many people. But generally I talked about the needs and the rights and the roles of women in a very direct way which made an impression."
Like Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the UK, Brundtland has a reputation for toughness. She thinks that, to be a leader, you need to be forceful and that no-one thinks twice when men display these leadership qualities.
"I
don't think you can be a leader without being forceful. If you don't have a
determination, if you don't have a perspective and a direction in your mind
about what is your vision, what do you want to try to get support to be able
to do, then you are not a leader. So you will not find women leaders who are
successful who are not able to speak up, who are not able to tell what they
want and why. And the thing is that when men do this, nobody is surprised that
they are forceful. But when they see a woman in Norway and a woman in England
doing it, they take note - but the main fact is we were both leaders, and we
were women but you cannot lead without leading."
"There simply isn't enough time to be a mother a wife and a politician at the same time. My husband and children have to take a back seat."
Brundtland is quite unusual in that she succeeded in combining politics and power with a family: she has had four children. She was only able to do this because her husband took on much of the childcare and was very supportive. She feels that she has made a sacrifice to some extent but that it is only fair for parents to share the responsibility for children:
"Well I do feel I made a sacrifice for my own sake because
you do miss some of the points that you would have had if you had been home
every day. Being a woman leader and having those kind of positions that I've
had was not easy to combine with being the mother of 4 children. And without
having a husband that from the beginning expressed that he was willing to
take on a much bigger part of that total parent responsibility in the home,
I could not have done it. But as I told him at that time, I had taken on a
bigger part than he had in the first 13 years of our family life and he agreed
so he took on a bigger role as a father than many other fathers did at that
time."
Brundtland has this advice for would-be politicians:
"I think you have to follow your own values, your own sentiments about what is important in life. If you feel you have something to say about how society should develop, the democratic way to do that is to get involved in activities which are political in character whether it's inside a political party or in some kind of NGO activity."
Haleh Afshar, Professor of Politics and Women's Studies at York University, sums up Bruntland's significance as a role model for other women.
"I think women in global positions of power can do a great deal … I think it is important to see women who've become heads of big organisations - and particularly women who have had families, who have lived the real lives of women, to see them come out of it and achieve. It's a very good example to the rest of the women who also want to do all the things women do but would also like to be successful."
In 1998 Brundtland became Director General of the World Health Organisation - the WHO. She had been Prime Minister of Norway for 11 years until her resignation in 1996. In her new role, she has made sure that women's perspectives are reflected in the WHO agenda and that more women staff the organisation.
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