Isabel Martínez de Perón
María Estela Martínez Cartas de Perón (born 4 February 1931), better known as Isabel Martínez de Perón () or Isabel Perón, served as the 42nd President of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. She was the third wife of President Juan Perón. During her husband's third term as president from 1973 to 1974, Isabel served as both vice president and First Lady. Following her husband's death in office in 1974, Isabel served as president of Argentina from 1 July 1974 to 24 March 1976, when the military took over the government and placed her under house arrest for five years, before exiling her to Spain in 1981. She holds the distinction of having been the first woman to have had the title of "President", as opposed to a queen or prime minister.
Women in Argentina
Following President Juan Perón's enactment of women's suffrage in 1949, First Lady Evita Perón led the Peronist Women's Party until her death in 1952, and helped enhance the role of women in Argentine society. Women played a significant role as both supporters and opponents of the National Reorganization Process, Argentina's last dictatorship, in the late 1970s, and the establishment of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, an advocacy group led by mothers of the disappeared, was done by Azucena Villaflor de Vicenti and, mostly, other women, on the rationale that they would be less likely to be the targets of repression (Villaflor de Vicenti and her fellow founders were murdered by the regime in 1977). Women's rights in Argentina progressed in significant ways following the return of democracy in 1983. President Raúl Alfonsín signed laws in 1987 both limiting "Patria potestas" (the latitude given to a father regarding his treatment of fellow household members, particularly children) and legalizing divorce, helping resolve the legal status of 3 million adults living in legal separation. The Argentine quota law signed by President Carlos Menem in 1991 provides that one-third of the members of both houses of congress must be women, a goal achieved through balanced election slates. As of 2006, there were 29 women in the 72-seat Senate, 86 women in the 257-seat Argentine Chamber of Deputies, two female Supreme Court justices, and three women in the presidential cabinet. The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected in 2007; the runner-up in the crowded field was also a woman, Elisa Carrió.