Sanae Takaichi becomes Japan’s first female prime minister: a historic first that redefines what progress means

On 21 October 2025, Japan's political sky tore apart. Sanae Takaichi a 64-year-old conservative veteran, a self-proclaimed fan of Margaret Thatcher, and a woman both contentious and historical, was voted in by parliament as Japan's first female prime minister. The nomination was welcomed as a seismic, long-overdue moment in a country widely criticized for its gender divide; it was also a reminder that the presence of a woman in power does not change policy or ideology on its own.

Takaichi herself took a frank tone:

This moment is part of a broader cartography: a map of countries that have witnessed women take the highest seats, and a map of those that still haven't. It is a map of firsts and paradoxes: dynastic firsts, revolutionary firsts, conservative firsts, reformist firsts. The fact that a woman holds the highest office usually means progress, but it also compels us to demand:



In the late 20th and early 21st century, a more subdued, wider wave came: democratic transitions, gender quotas, civil society activism, and shifting social norms yielded more women in cabinets, legislatures, and to a growing extent at the top.

Nevertheless, progress is incomplete: as reported by UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union up to 2025, few nations have ever had a woman serving as head of state or government, and the overall number of women in top positions remains small. The map is filling up, but it remains incomplete.

A "first" may be ceremonial, cosmetic, or catalytic. A dynastic succession (a common path in many nations) can install a woman in power without widening opportunities to others. Or a woman who struggles through grassroots groups and the bias of institutions can open gates wider. Think of two different realities:

Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Indira Gandhi entered the settings of long-standing political dynasties and personal authority, but they remapped political expectations in their countries.

Sanae Takaichi arrives in 2025 with a radically different calculus: she is a conservative who espouses hardline security policy and socially conservative stances even as she holds an unprecedented symbolic position in Japanese politics. Her individual agenda makes it difficult to assume that every female leader will promote gender-progressive policies.

That tension is the frame for contemporary female leadership: women must be represented, yet representation alone is not enough. True change demands structural transformation of voting rules, childcare policy, party pipelines, and cultural change that make women's presence normal rather than remarkable.

"When a woman rises, she doesn't just break a ceiling, she redraws the sky

As Japan inaugurates Sanae Takaichi, its first woman Prime Minister, the moment is more than a national landmark; it's an international reverberation. For centuries, women have been informed that power belongs to another realm. But repeatedly, history has observed them stepping through those taboo doors sometimes with whispers, sometimes with a roar remaking nations and the definition of leadership itself.

Takaichi’s rise is emblematic of the new contradictions of feminism: a conservative nationalist becoming the face of progress in a country that had, until now, never been led by a woman. Her premiership is both a victory and a paradox — proof that female empowerment, in the real world, doesn’t always follow ideological lines. Sometimes, simply being there is a revolution.



Asia, where some of the world's oldest civilizations were born, was also the home of the first woman to become the head of a democratic country, Sri Lanka's Sirimavo Bandaranaike, in 1960. Her rise was unconventional, being achieved in an era when women's suffrage itself was still novel in many nations. Her triumph paved the way for others such as Indira Gandhi in India, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, and Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, women who governed not as appendices to their male forebears but as figures at the center of their countries' fates.

But Asia is still a country of contradictions. In the same area where women were once queens and prime ministers, millions of them still fight for the rights of even the most basic workplace. Gender inequality is still sewn into the social fabric. As one scholar, Amartya Sen, once noted, "The progress of women is not just a matter of fairness, but of freedom, the freedom of a society to reach its full potential.

Takaichi’s Japan represents the evolution of this paradox: a modern democracy finally seeing a woman at its helm, but through a conservative voice that doesn’t neatly align with the progressive feminist wave. It reminds us that representation comes in many shades and empowerment, by its very nature, defies uniformity.




Europe has traditionally been portrayed as the epitome of equality, and none more so than the Nordic countries, with prime ministers such as Sanna Marin (Finland), Kaja Kallas (Estonia), and Mette Frederiksen (Denmark) becoming international icons of youthful, empathetic leadership. They governed through compassion, bringing people together, and a distinctly feminine approach to statecraft, one that emphasized cooperation rather than conflict.

As Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand emotionally discussed her resignation with the remark, "I no longer have enough in the tank," her statement was heard throughout the globe not as vulnerability but as candor. It was an affirmation that leadership could be human.

But even here in Europe, advancement isn't linear. Power remains transactional, weak, and cyclical. For each Marin who succeeds, there's always a threat that the next election can swap her out for a man. Representation can appear robust on paper, but figures themselves cannot break up old networks.

Equal representation in leadership isn't merely heads in parliament; it's changing the cultural perception of what power is.

From everywhere in Africa and Latin America, women's political power tended to arise out of crisis revolutions, wars, and transitions that called for a new type of strength.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female president, came to power in Liberia after decades of civil war. Under her leadership, the nation's democratic foundations were restored, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.

In Chile, Michelle Bachelet went from imprisonment and exile under a dictatorship to presidencies twice. She prioritized social reform, education, and equality. The same in Argentina, where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner transformed populist politics; and in Brazil, Dilma Rousseff exemplified tenacity in a political climate that challenged her at every turn.

Their tales tell a pattern of women ruling countries not from the comfort of stability, but from its wreckage. They ruled not easily, but by grit. And yet, their authority is in jeopardy. In areas where political instability is prevalent, the gains women experience can disappear as quickly as they begin.

In the Middle East, each woman who rises to leadership bears the burden of symbolism. Women such as Tansu Çiller in Turkey and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan (standing astride South Asia and the Middle East) became symbols of potential in areas where tradition would normally have women keeping silent.

Their ascension was revolutionary, but their reigns too often disclosed the boundaries of that revolution. Lacking substantive legal reforms and institutional backing, women's leadership may be performative: a gesture toward progress in patriarchal systems that are only incrementally changed.

As writer Fatema Mernissi once put it-

The United Kingdom is an intriguing case study of feminine power. It has given the world some of the most recognized women leaders in the world, Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Liz Truss, each of whom symbolized a different era of Britain's problematic relationship with female dominance.

Thatcher, the Iron Lady, was more than a leader; she was a presence. Her approach was uncompromising, her ideology unyielding. She remolded Britain and the world's imagination of what it meant for a woman to be in power. But as she herself famously asserted, "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't." Her reign broke barriers, in doing so, remade power in masculine terms, creating a contradictory precedent for women who came after her.

May, taking over the Brexit mayhem, ruled by fatigue less passion, more glum, symbolizing inner strength amidst turmoil. And Truss, with her 45-day lifespan, was a tale of caution of ambition exceeding political gravity.

Britain, proud as it is of its democracy, has yet to make female leadership a normalizing reality. Even now, its power corridors continue to be old, closed, and recognized evidence that symbolic advance without structural change is a halving of victory.

As of 2025, over 30 countries have had women serve as heads of state or government. Yet, major economies like China, Saudi Arabia, and the United States remain without one. Progress, while visible, is far from universal.

Women in office today, from Italy's Giorgia Meloni to Barbados' Mia Mottley and Japan's Sanae Takaichi, show that leadership comes in many guises. Some are right-wing, some left-wing, some centrist. Collectively, they are the most politically diverse generation in recent history. And yet, the objective remains the same: to normalize women's leadership.

In November 2022, there was a moment that summarized the spirit of progress and the continued plight of women in leadership positions. At a joint press conference in Auckland, New Zealand, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin were asked by a reporter: "Are you two sitting down together just because you're roughly the same age and have got a lot of common material there?"

This discussion was not just a comeback; it was a statement. It highlighted that leadership is about ability, vision, and responsibility and not about gender or age. These leaders were not gathering because they were women of a specific age; they were gathering because they were leaders of states, responsible for the destiny of their countries.

Their reaction reminds us that though representation is important, it is the content of leadership that ultimately produces results. Having women in office is not sufficient; we need to see their leadership valued on its own merits and contributions, rather than solely on demographic attributes.

As we look back at this moment, let us be reminded that real empowerment is the capacity to lead without being categorized by gender or age. It is in the bravery to defy stereotypes and the resilience to redefine leadership. The way forward is where all leaders are measured by what they do and what they see, not by what society labels them.

From Tokyo to Colombo, from Monrovia to London, each woman who has sworn into office has brought along with her the dream of millions. They are not only politicians, but living refutations of the centuries of exclusion.

The narrative of female leadership, therefore, is not so much about power; it is about advancement. It is the narrative of humanity's protracted fight to view equality not as charity, but as reality.

In the end, Sanae Takaichi’s face joining the gallery of world leaders is not just a photo-op. It is a punctuation mark in history, one more woman rewriting the map, one more reminder that the world’s most revolutionary act is still, simply, a woman leading.