"The level of participation of women in decision-making and sharing of power between men and women is still unacceptably low and calls in question the basic principles of democracy."

Gertrude Mongella, Secretary General of the Fourth World conference on Women:

• The first woman Prime Minister to be elected was Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1960..
• Of the world's Members of Parliament, approximately 13% are women. In February 2000 Sweden had the highest percentage of women in parliament - 42.7% compared with the United Kingdom with 18.4% and Ethiopia with 2%. Some countries still have no women in parliament.

Liswood : "Women have not been socialised to see themselves as leaders, you think about the major fairytales and stories and myths and legends that young girls grow up with,in the United States it's Cinderella .. she's waiting for her prince to come and rescue her. He's the hero, he's the leader and she's sitting at home talking to the mice so it's there's not a sense that she can be a leader .. she should be a leader. So the young girl doesn't grow up seeing that."

• Some ways in which this situation can be improved have been suggested by the women in power:
• Use quotas or positive discrimination and skills development to increase number of women
• Provide more role models

In Iceland, the President, Vigdis Finnbogadottir found that, after eight years, young girls thought that only women could be President.

Liswood : "she realised there were children under 8 years of old who thought only a woman could be president of Iceland, the boys had to ask if they could be President of Iceland. well that's how you see what can be in the world, what's out there for you."