IN recent times we have seen an unprecedented number of women being elected to high-level leadership positions in their countries. In several instances they have, in fact, become the first female leaders in their countries' histories.

In Germany, after weeks of protracted political haggling in the aftermath of that country's deadlocked recent elections, conservative leader Angela Merkel emerged as the new Chancellor after her Christian Democratic Party became the dominant force in the new coalition administration.

In South America, Michelle Bachelet was recently elected President of Chile. In a January run-off election, this democratic socialist routed her right-wing opponent in a generally socially conservative country. The daughter of a former Chilean General who died in custody after refusing to support Augosto Pinochet's military junta in the 1970s, Ms Bachelet was herself tortured by the dictatorship and subsequently exiled from Chile for many years.

In Africa last November a former World Bank employee made history when she became the first woman in modern times to lead a country on that continent after being elected President of Liberia. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's victory was a history-making event (the first elected female leader in contemporary African history, there have been female leaders in the past from royal bloodlines).

A long-time political figure in that country, while running for Liberia's Senate in 1985 she fiercely denounced the military junta then in power in Liberia and was sentenced to ten years in prison. Released after a short period, she spent more than a decade in exile in Kenya before returning to her native country in 1997 as an economist with the World Bank.

In Jamaica a similar precedent-shattering event took place when Cabinet Minister Portia Simpson Miller was declared the winner of an internal leadership race in the ruling People's National Party. She will be sworn in as the new PNP leader in April once incumbent P.J. Patterson steps down. As president of the PNP, Simpson Miller will then automatically become Jamaica's first woman Prime Minister.

With this convergence of events, are we seeing the rise of a new generation of women leaders who will be steering their countries into the first decades of the 21st century? Of course, this is not the first time we have seen vivid demonstrations of "Girl Power" in politics. At various times, strong female political leadership has seemingly simultaneously emerged in all four corners of the globe.

INDIRA Gandhi, daughter of that country's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who led India in the first years of the country's Independence from Britain, became its first woman Prime Minister in 1966.

She led India during turbulent times. In 1971, she took her country to war against the Muslim state of Pakistan over the issue of Bangladeshi Independence (Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, was physically separated from its sister state by India and had long aspired to be a sovereign nation rather than a poor and distant province of Islamabad: despite the fact it boasts an overwhelming Muslim majority, Bangladesh's population had always viewed Hindu-dominated India as an ally rather than an adversary).

At the end of the war, Pakistani forces had been crushed by the Indian Army and Bangladesh became an Independent nation and the third most populous Muslim country in the world. So sure-footed was her handling of the war, no wonder one commentator was moved to wryly remark that Indira Gandhi was "the only man in a Cabinet full of old women" (some of her male Cabinet colleagues had appeared on Indian TV at the time of the war's outbreak crying and obviously panic-stricken about the course the country had embarked on).

Indira Gandhi served as India's iron-fisted Prime Minister between 1966 and 1977 and again from 1980 until 1984, when she was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards following a military assault on a shrine sacred to that Indian sect.

Golda Meir, another formidable woman on the world stage, became Prime Minister of the state of Israel in 1969 and served in that position until 1974. A founder of Israel in 1948 and a former Foreign Minister, she led her nation during the 1973 Yom Kippur war when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise pre-emptive offensive against the Jewish state.

Although taken entirely surprise by the Arab invasion, Meir rallied her countrymen and Israel's military and by the time a ceasefire was declared events on the battlefield had swung in Israel's favour. Of course, Mrs. Meir will always be remembered with enmity by Palestinians as the Israeli leader who stated: "There is no such thing as the Palestinian people" (to be fair, the full context in which she made that remark was: "When was there an Independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.")

Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman Prime Minister in 1979 and had already earned the nickname "Iron Lady" from the Soviet media before coming to power for outspoken opposition to Communist totalitarianism. The soubriquet stuck. She too led her nation in wartime against both the guerrilla campaigns of Irish nationalists in their struggle to create a united Ireland and against Argentina over control of the disputed Falkland Islands (or the Malvinas as Argentina calls the territory).

Some people are of the opinion that she also made war on Britain's labour movement and its trade unions. In particular the miners' union when the Conservative Party, led by Thatcher, closed mining pits which were claimed not to be profitable.

This struggle went on for a year during which many British cities became the scenes of bitter clashes between police and workers before the strike was finally broken. Her strict economic policies, known as Thatcherism, had a polarising effect on British public opinion.

Supporters argue she was responsible for rejuvenating the British economy by forcing it to adapt to market demands. Opponents claim she was responsible for mass unemployment and a vast increase in inequality between rich and poor. Interestingly enough, though, the Labour government in power since 1997 has made no concerted effort to roll back the economic reforms of the Thatcher years.

In 1990 Thatcher to fell to a Parliamentary leadership coup co-ordinated by some disaffected elements within her own Conservative Party.

In Bermuda we have had our own strong female political leadership and the strongest of these women, in my opinion, was Dame Lois Browne Evans, who led the Progressive Labour Party throughout the hard years of bitter back-to-back political defeats during its long struggle to win the Government.

Called Bermuda's "Grande Dame of Politics", Dame Lois achieved any number of firsts in Bermuda. She was the first woman to be called to the Bermuda Bar, the first woman Opposition Leader under Bermuda's current constitution which came into effect in 1968, first female Opposition Leader in the Commonwealth and she probably would have become its first Prime Minister if Bermuda had the foresight to move to Independence in the 1970s.

Bermuda's first woman Premier was Dame Pamela Gordon. She was voted into that position by her Parliamentary colleagues from the then ruling United Bermuda Party in 1997 following the resignation of Dr. David Saul. After the 1998 General Election, though, Bermuda had its first elected female Premier when Dame Jennifer Smith led the PLP to its first victory at the polls.

However, she suffered the same political fate as Thatcher. After leading the PLP to a second victory at the ballot boxes in 2003, her own Parliamentary group conducted an election night coup to remove her from the leadership. Why have I provided this brief survey of modern women political leaders?

Well, we do seem to have entered another era when we are seeing the emergence of another generation of women leaders around the globe.

Unlike the male chauvinist contingent, I have never, ever believed women were not fit to rule or govern. Even if I did not have history on my side in this regard (as well as first-hand experience dealing with Dame Lois when she was at the helm of the PLP), I have always had a great deal of respect for the leadership qualities of women.

I was actually brought up by two women ? my mother and grandmother. My grandmother, in particular, was tough ? a fair-minded but discipline-oriented women.

It has been said that a woman cannot raise a boy child to become a man. I can report from personal experience that this is not strictly true. My grandmother did not raise a wimp. I can say that she taught me the basics of what it means to be a man.

I have no doubt that a woman can lead a nation just as well as a man and, in some circumstances, far better (does anyone, for instance, seriously believe the bright but very eccentric Michael Foot would have made a more competent British Prime Minister than Thatcher when he led the Labour Party between 1980 and 1983).

As far as I'm concerned, I will always open to the concept of "Girl (or "Woman") Power" in politics.