Rise of far-right in France after Paris Attacks

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111. Women have done at least as well as men leading European countries

There has rarely, if ever, been a time when one woman directly succeeded another, but there's certainly no reason why one couldn't. Women have led in Ireland, the UK, Norway, Finland, Turkey and now Germany. They have led even in Pakistan and India, and done no worse than their male counterparts. The most recent in Argentina and Brazil have not done so well, but gender is no guarantee for success. I think it is major progress that much of the world realizes it no hindrance, either.

I'd certainly feel better with Ursula von der Leyen as the next chancellor of Germany than a faceless bureaucrat like SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, despite her party allegiance. There has been some grumbling inside the CDU that von der Leyen belongs in the SPD anyway. She was bumped from her post as "Family Minister (formally, Minister for family, seniors, women and youth)" because some in her party thought she fought just a little too hard for the people she was supposed to be looking out for. Since the end of the Soviet Union, the post of Defense Minister in Germany was supposed to be an end-of-the-road political posting, but von der Leyen has been looking out for the Germans in uniform with the same energy she showed as Family Minister. The conservatives who thought her political career would die there miscalculated badly.