Chile's Feminist President It’s over two and a half years since
the appointment of Michelle Bachelet as Chile’s head of state –
how has her presidency impacted women’s rights and gender
equality? By Rochelle Jones On January 15 2006, Michelle
Bachelet was elected as Chile’s first ever woman president. A
single mother and self-confessed agnostic in a socially
conservative country dominated by the Catholic Church, Bachelet
represented a beacon of hope for women in Chile and indeed Latin
America. Bachelet is not only the first female president in
Chile’s history, she is notably “the first female president
anywhere in Latin America who rose to political prominence
without being linked through marriage to a high profile male
leader.” Her accession to power was met with an outpouring of
emotion by Chilean women who celebrated this moment as the
beginning of a tide of change. Over two and a half years into
her term of office, has this tide swept over Chile as was hoped,
and have women’s rights surged forward as part