While Hillary Clinton fought hard and failed to become our first woman President, in Latin America, the land of machos, eight women have already achieved the highest political honor of their lands. Here are their stories.
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María Estela Perón was president of Argentina between 1974 and 1976.
Also known as Isabelita, she took over after the death of her dictator husband General Juan Domingo Perón, while being his vicepresident. She was deposed during a military coup. She remained under house arrest for five years and was allowed to exile herself in Madrid afterward.
She was Perón's third wife. His second wife was the famous Evita, who inspired the Broadway play and movie.
Lidia Gueiler Tejada was a Bolivian human rights activist.
She was the Bolivian version of the Speaker of the House, when she was sworn in as President and held office for seven months, between 1979 and 1980. She was deposed by a military coup and was exiled for years in Paris.
Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was elected in Nicaragua in 1990.
She was the first woman to finish her presidency in Latin America. Doña Violeta, as she was known in her country, was also the first president of Nicaragua after the regime of the Sandinistas. She is credited with bringing peace to the embattled Central American nation.
Michelle Bachelet is the first person elected twice to the presidency of Chile.
She was first president between 2006 and 2010, and she is holding the job again since 2014. She also became a medical doctor and expert in military studies, while being a single mother.
After her husband died, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner took his place in Argentina's politics.
She was elected president in 2007 and was then reelected in 2011.
Mireyla Moscoso is famous worldwide for being the president when Panamá took full control of the Panamá Canal.
She served her fellow Panamenians from 1999 to 2004.
Laura Chinchilla was the president of Costa Rica between 2010 and 2014.
Before that, she had been the vicepresident. She lead the Observation Mission deployed by the OAS to Mexico to observe the June 2015 federal election.
Chinchilla also headed the first Electoral Observation Mission that the OAS deployed to our country, observing the November 2016 elections.
Dilma Rousseff was Brazil's first woman president from 2011 until she was impeached in August 2016.
