In the Garden of Eden, it was a woman - Eve, her name was - who tempted Adam to eat the forbidden apple and doomed (man) kind.

But it was also woman, a humble maiden - Mary, her name was - who helped redeem mankind, having begotten a Son (Jesus) who was destined to save humanity.

Over the centuries, womankind had taken the back seat in many affairs of the State and society due to the cultural dominance of the male species - until the 20th century when Woman Power - came to the fore. Women's Liberation, it was sometimes called.

We have heard of the names of Evita Peron and the Queens and Princesses of England, Princess Diana being one of the contemporary influential women. Jacqueline Kennedy, former USA First Lady married a Greek Tycoon and was seen as a powerful woman.

Last October, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became the first democratically elected president of Argentina. Last year, Michele Bachelet of Chile became South America's first elected female president while Portia Simpson-Miller was elected first female prime minister of Jamaica.

In Peru, Lourdes Flores just lost one percentage point to yield the presidency to Alan Garcia. Au Suu Kyi of Burma, even while in detention has been consulted by the ruling junta to find a just and lasting solution to the political turmoil in that country.

In the most powerful nation in the country, the United States of America, the leading contender of the Democratic presidential race is the former first lady and New York Senator Hillary Clinton (wife of Bill Clinton). With all the international problems besetting Robocop (especially in Iraq), economic downturn and weakening of the American dollar, the chances of the Republicans losing the presidency are great.

Is the election of Hilary Clinton as America's first woman president a fulfillment of that long-awaited prophecy? One must recall that the USA had never elected anyone who's not white and male - as President and even as Vice President.

Even today, one of the most influential members of the Bush official family is a woman - Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice. Our own American ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney is as womanly as Wonder Woman and as native as American pie.

In democratically-casted India, the kingmaker and president of the largest political party (Congress Party) and who steered it to power is an Italian widow who has nothing but high school education. Shunning the Prime Minister post (which was hers for the asking), Sonia Gandhi instead endorsed an economist Manmohan Singh for the position today.

In Argentina and Costa Rica, the women constitute almost half of the legislature (40%) and 25% in Ecuador and 23% in Honduras.

Closer to home, Imelda Marcos was never elected nationally but she had power that was next to her Dictator husband Ferdinand and the Conjugal

Dictatorship ruled the country like their fiefdom for at least 16 years.

It was a shy widow by the name of Cory Aquino who rose to break Marcos' stranglehold of the country in the 1986 EDSA Revolt that followed a sham elections in that same year. In the Philippines today, a number of women legislators are now on their saddles; many more in local government posts. There was always a number of females in the Cabinet and the Supreme Court since after Marcos' departure in 1986.

The present president in fact Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is a pedigreed daughter of a former Philippine president, Diosdado Macapagal. Though veering more like to a Marcos than like a Cory, GMA is still considered as one of the most powerful women in the world today.

Definitely, the role of women outside the home has become more pronounced today than it ever was in the world's history.

According to the New York Times, the rise of women, the less educated, the less pedigreed, and the darker skinned people to positions of great expectations is part of the backlash against traditional, male politicians, who seemed to have generally made a mess of governance.

To be sure, there are qualified women as well as unqualified woman for political posts. Just as men.

It just occurs at a quaint time in history to make interesting political comment.

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