Photo Feature: The Women Who Run The World

Quint Lens curates a series of photographs of elected female representatives voted into power across the world.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Photo: Reuters)

On 20 July 1960, the world’s first female leader was elected to power. Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike as the Prime Minister of the country on that day; 56 years later, elected female leaders are far from the stuff of myth and legend, and yet, we have a long way to go before we accept them as the more meritorious, people’s choice wherever they do win, without stressing on the fact that they are in fact, female.

On this occasion, Quint Lens curates a series of photographs created by Reuters of elected female representatives that have been voted into power across the world, as an ode to what they represent for women’s movements, and to the slow but sure shift in perspectives towards women.

Norway’s Prime Minister and leader of party Hoyre Erna Solberg speaks during an election vigil in Oslo, after the regional elections in Norway, in September 2015. (Photo: Reuters) 

French President Francois Hollande (L) greets the President of Mauritius, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, as she arrives for a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France in March 2016. (Photo: Reuters) 

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine signs the Paris Agreement on climate change at United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, US in April 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet reacts after delivering her annual address at the National Congress building in Valparaiso, Chile in May 2015. (Photo: Reuters) 

Newly sworn in President of the mediterranean island Malta Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca (55) waves to the crowd gathered outside the Presidential Palace in Valletta in April 2014. (Photo: Reuters)

Then-incumbent leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf casts her ballot during presidential elections at her home village of Fefee in Liberia in November 2011. She won the elections and is the current president of the country. (Photo: Reuters)

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaks during a media conference in Dhaka on 6 January 2014. Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League won a violence-plagued parliamentary election whose outcome was never in doubt after a boycott by the main opposition party. (Photo: Reuters)

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) meeting in Taipei, Taiwan in May 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic of the opposition HDZ celebrates her victory in Croatia’s presidential runoff election on the stage at her campaign headquarters in Zagreb, 11 January 2015. Croatia’s conservative opposition won a narrow presidential victory capitalising on popular discontent over economic decline and setting down a marker for parliamentary elections later in the year. (Photo: Reuters)

Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szydlo attends a debate on the state of the rule of law and restrictions to press freedom in Poland, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France in January 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite. (Photo: Reuters)  

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye. (Photo: Reuters) 

Nepal’s President Bidhya Bhandari. (Photo: Reuters) 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Photo: Reuters)

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May. (Photo: Reuters)

(All photos and caption text have been taken from Reuters.)

Quint Lens is a selection of the most vivid imagery created by our in-house pool of talent, and from across the web, created and curated with an eye on for that Quintessential twist. In this section, you can find some of the most refreshing camera and mobile photography documenting current news events, the history and everyday culture of India and the world, heartbreaking stories that can only be conveyed through pictures, celebrations and revolutions; basically, anything that simply needs to be CliQed!