She Rules Trivia Quiz

Answer: Germany

Angela Merkel is arguably the best known of the ten ladies you'll meet in these questions. She was born in Hamburg (then West Germany) in 1954. A few months later, her father obtained a job in the state of Brandenburg (then part of East Germany) and so the family moved to what was then another country. Angela studied physics in Leipzig (East Germany). She married Ulrich Merkel in 1977 and took his surname. When the marriage ended in 1982 and Angela remarried Joachim Sauer in 1998, she stuck with the surname of her first husband - which is not the habit in Germany.

In December 1989, a month after the Berlin Wall came down and while reunification of East and West Germany was being prepared, Merkel joined the new party Democratic Awakening. This East German party merged with the Christlich-Demokratischer Union (CDU, a centrum-conservative party) after both countries were reunited. In 1990 Merkel was elected to the Bundestag (parliament). She was appointed Minister of Women and Youth (1990-1994) and later Minister of Environment and Nuclear Energy (1994-1998). After the CDU was in the opposition for several years, Merkel's party won the 2005 election with a narrow margin over the SPD (socialist party). The CDU and the SPD then formed a government, with Merkel as Chancellor (function comparable to a Prime Minister).

Merkel won the subsequent elections in 2009, 2013 and 2017 and thus could stay on as Chancellor for her fourth legislature.

Merkel is especially known for her call to receive and integrate immigrants: "Wir schaffen das" ("We can do it").

Answer: Erna Solberg

Erna Solberg was born in Bergen in 1961. She studied sociology, political sciences, statistics and economics at the University of Bergen.
Solberg joined the Conservative Party and was first elected to the Storting (parliament) in 1989. From 2001 until 2005, Solberg was Minister of Local Government and Regional Development. In this function she vented anti-immigration sentiments, which earned her the nickname "Jern Erna" ("Iron Erna"). But truth is that during the period 2001-2005 more immigrants were accepted in Norway than in the period 2005-2013 under a socialist-green government.
After eight years of opposition, the Conservative Party won the 2013 election and Solberg ascended to the function of Prime Minister. In 2017 her party won the elections once again, and so Solberg remained Prime Minister.
Harald V is King of Norway since 1991.

Answer: Namibia

Saara Kuugongelwa was born in 1967 in Namibia, near the border with Angola. In 1980 her family fled the struggle for independence and settled in Sierra Leone. Between 1991 and 1994, Saara studied economics at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
Saara is a member of SWAPO, the Namibian party that holds a 75% majority in the Namibian parliament.
She returned to an independent Namibia and was almost immediately appointed to the National Planning Commission (which in fact oversees a number of different ministries in Namibia). Saara rose to the office of Minister of Finance in 2003 and to Prime Minister in 2015.
Mister Hage Geingob is President of Namibia since 2015.

Answer: Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in 1945 in the then British colony Burma. She graduated in politics in Delhi in 1964. In 1988 she founded with some others the National League for Democracy (NLD), a social-democratic party. When the military organized a first general election in 1990, the NLD won with a large majority. But the military refused the election result and installed a dictatorship that ruled the country for over twenty years. In 2010 the NLD did boycott the elections. But in the 2015 election the NLD crushed every resistance, and Aung San Suu Kyi (as leader of the largest party) was appointed First State Counsellor of Myanmar - a position similar to Prime Minister.
Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 because of her non-violent struggle for establishing a true democracy in Myanmar.
Since 2018 his excellency Win Myint is the President of Myanmar.

Answer: Serbia

Brnabic was born in Belgrade in 1975. She completed an MBA in Kingston-upon-Hull and worked for Continental Wind Serbia. Brnabic joined the Serbian majority party SNS (Srpska Napredna Stranka - translated as Serbian Progressive Party).
The SNS entered the governing coalition in 2012 and procured the President. In 2016 the SNS appointed Ana Brnabic to her first post in the government, as Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government. In 2017 she rose to the office of Prime Minister, and briefly combined this with the office of Minister of Finance.
The Serbian President since 2017 is Aleksandar Vucic.

Answer: Jacinda Ardern

Jacinda Ardern was born in 1980. She joined the New Zealand Labour party in 1997. In 2008 she was elected in her conscription of Waikato, and she has gained re-election in 2011, 2014 and 2017. In 2017 Jacinda Ardern became party leader of Labour, and (a few months later) Prime Minister of New Zealand. Officially New Zealand has the King or Queen of England (Elizabeth II since 1952) as head of state.

But acting day-to-day as head of state is the Governor General, and in 2016 Dame Patricia "Patsy" Reddy was appointed Governor-General. So on the day this quiz was written, New Zealand was one of the few countries with a female head of state and a female head of government.

Answer: Iceland

Katrin Jakobsdottir was born in Reykjavik in 1976. She graduated in Icelandic literature. She joined the Left-Green Movement and has been elected as member of the Althing (parliament) in 2007, 2009, 2013, 2016 and 2017. (Normally the Althing is elected every four years, but when it is dissolved prematurely, elections will follow).
Jakobsdottir served as Minister of Education, Science and Culture from 2009 until 2013. In 2017 she rose to the office of Prime Minister. The Icelandic President since 2016 is Mister Gudni Johannesson.

Answer: Mia Mottley

Mia Mottley was born in 1965 to a family that had already brought forth a mayor of Bridgetown (her grandfather) and an Attorney-General (her father). She studied law in London.
Mottley became a member of the Barbados Labour Party. In 1991 she entered the Barbadian Senate, when Labour was in the opposition. But as soon as Labour won the 1994 election, Mottley became Minister of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture. In August 2001 she took up the post of Attorney-General and Minister of Home Affairs. In 2006 she changed office once more: this time she became Minister of Economic Affairs and Development.
The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) was defeated by a narrow margin at the election of 2008, and so Mottley was relegated to the opposition. But in the election of 2018 the BLP reconquered the majority, and Mottley was appointed Prime Minister. She undertook this new office in difficult circumstances, for it was revealed only a few days later that the Barbadian state debt was much larger than affirmed by the previous government.
The official head of State of Barbados is the English Queen Elizabeth II since 1952. Since 2018, the day-to-day head of state is Dame Sandra Mason. So Barbados is another of the few countries with a female head of state and a female head of government.

Answer: Denmark

Mette Frederiksen was born in Aalborg in 1977. She graduated in social science at the University of Aalborg in 2000.
Frederiksen is member of the Social Democrats. She started her career as a consultant for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions. In 2001 she got elected as member of the Folketing (parliament), and she won her re-election in 2005, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019.
In 2011 Frederiksen became Minister of Employment, an office she swapped for Minister of Justice in 2014.
As the Social Democrats lost the 2015 election, Frederiksen was relegated to the opposition. But she led her party henceforth to the 2019 electoral victory. In 2019 she assumed then the post of Prime Minister.
The Danish head of state is Queen Margrethe II. So Denmark is also one of the few countries with a female head of state and a female head of government.

Answer: Sophie Wilmes

Wilmès was born in Ixelles (Brussels) in 1975. She graduated in applied communication and in financial management.
Wilmès joined the Mouvement Réformateur (MR, francophone liberal party). In 2000 she was elected on municipal level, and in 2014 she was elected to the House of Representatives (parliament). She was re-elected as Member of Parliament in 2019.
In 2015 Wilmès succeeded Hervé Jamar as minister of Budget. After the 2019 elections, she stayed on her post as acting Minister of Budget (in attendance of a new Belgian federal government). On October 27, 2019, Wilmès succeeded to Charles Michel as (acting) Prime Minister.
The government by Sophie Wilmès has no parliamentary majority: she can only count on about one third of the elected deputies. But as I said, negotiations for a new government are underway.