Women of Brazil Advance Slower Than The Economy

With the recent seating of Dilma Rousseff in the office of president of Brazil, the country has seen dramatic changes.  Rousseff (who has been mentioned in previous posts), is the first female president of the country.  She is an accomplished economist, onetime Marxist militant and handpicked successor to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.  At one time, many wondered if she would be able to fill Mr. da Silva's shoes.  She has proven in her time in office that she can stand on her own two feet.  At the helm of the world's seventh-largest economy, her position is being looked very closely because of the current economic crisis globally but also as a representative of what women are capable of.  In her 11 months in office, she has un-apologetically appointed women to high profile positions like minister of institutional relations and chief of staff, with a third of her cabinet being women. However, even with her progressive thinking and placement of women in very influential positions, women in Brazil overall are not progressing as quickly.  Women have progressed in the areas of education, health and in the professions and technical fields.  However, their economic and political power has not seen the same rate of increase; in fact, it is growing quite slowly, as they are behind in managerial and senior positions.  It was found in the Executive Opinion Survey conducted by the World Economic Forum that executives rated Brazilian women's ability to rise to positions of senior leadership in business at 4.06 on a scale of 1 to 7.  Women only hold 9 percent of parliamentary positions which is very low compared to the world average.  Hopefully with Rousseff leading the way, women in Brazil will be able to close the gap in workforce.