For Africa’s first woman president, it’s a boys’ club unlike any other

Johnson-Sirleaf’s victory propels her into an old boys’ club unlike any other. From the Cape to Cairo, from Dar es Salaam to Dakar, men have dominated African politics from the earliest days of the anticolonial struggle.

Indeed, when supporters of Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a onetime United Nations official and Liberian finance minister, marched through the broken streets of Monrovia in the final, frantic days of the campaign for Liberia’s presidency, they shouted and waved signs that read, “Ellen—she’s our man.”

The impact of Johnson-Sirleaf’s victory goes well beyond Liberia, a nation still trying to recover from more than a decade of civil war. Despite the large role women played in many national struggles for independence, they were largely relegated to the sidelines in the post-colonial era. The most ambitious women often went abroad, and some, like Johnson-Sirleaf, rose to prominence in international organisations like the UN and the World Bank.

But in recent years, African women have gained power and visibility. In 2004 a Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Muta Maathai, won the Nobel Peace Prize, while Nigeria’s finance minister and feared corruption fighter, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has emerged as one of that country’s most respected officials.

Women have also made gains at the ballot box. The prime minister of Mozambique, Luísa Dias Diogo, is widely seen as a likely future president. In Rwanda, there is a greater proportion of women serving in Parliament than in any other nation; they occupy nearly half the seats.

Indeed, Africa leads the developing world in the percentage of women in legislative positions, at about 16 per cent.

Liberia’s presidential election came two years after the nation emerged from a brutal decade of civil war under Charles Taylor, who went into exile in 2003 and is now in Nigeria.

Johnson-Sirleaf, who has been known as Liberia;s Iron Lady since she ran against Taylor for president in 1997 and was jailed for more than a year under the former dictator Samuel Doe, will have no trouble fitting into the all-male club of African heads of state, said Yassine Fal, a Senegalese economist who has known her for years.

“She is fearless,” Fall said. “No men intimidate her”. —NYT