Women in Power, Under Fire: What a New Book Means for Namibia’s Historic Presidency
Namibia’s fifth president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the first woman to hold the office, was sworn in on 21 March 2025, the 35th anniversary of independence. Days later, Lucia Witbooi became the country’s first woman vice president and Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila the first woman speaker in the National Assembly, making Namibia the first country in the world with […] The post Women in Power, Under Fire: What a New Book Means for Namibia’s Historic Presidency appeared first on The Namibian .
Namibia’s fifth president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the first woman to hold the office, was sworn in on 21 March 2025, the 35th anniversary of independence.
Days later, Lucia Witbooi became the country’s first woman vice president and Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila the first woman speaker in the National Assembly, making Namibia the first country in the world with women in the top three leadership positions.
As I wrote then, this was a victory for democracy, and for the generations of women and girls who had “irrefutable proof that leadership is not a male-only domain” – but that the new president was, and is, “a visionary leader rather than a magician”.
That caution seems newly urgent in light of Linda Robinson’s book, ‘Women in Power: Fighting for Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism’, published under the Council on Foreign Relations imprint.
The publisher describes the book as “a groundbreaking work of scholarship that explores the deep connection between attacks on women and attacks on democracy”.
Endorsements and interviews on the book’s official page, and a cursory reading of parts of the book (I have not read the entire text and make no claim to give a full summary), Robinson makes the case that misogynistic authoritarianism, weaponised digital disinformation and sexualised smears have become central tools used to push women out of power.
