The Female Factor: Family Vaults Women to Leadership in Asia

“I am not a woman prime minister,” Indira Gandhi liked to say during her many years as India's leader. “I am a prime minister.” But the question, here in Asia, is whether there really is such a thing as a woman prime minister.

More women have reached the pinnacle of power in Asia in recent years than in any other part of the world, and their example has shown that in general, women leaders can be hard to tell from men.

Rather than earning their positions independently, almost every one of them has risen to power through a family connection.

“If you look at the record, you don't see a huge difference,” said Paula R. Newberg, director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. “We are talking more symbol than substance.”

Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, who became the world's first female elected head of state in 1960, has been followed by female leaders in India, Pakistan and Indonesia, by two each in Bangladesh and the Philippines, and by Mrs. Bandaranaike's own daughter in Sri Lanka.

Two are in power today, and both are known for their toughness and combativeness: President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh.

“Most surprising — given widespread stereotypes about Islam — is female leadership in the heavily Muslim states in Southeast and South Asia,” said a 2005 report, “Dynasties and Female Leadership in Asia,” written for the German Science Foundation.

“Except for Afghanistan and Brunei, women lead, or have led, governments or opposition groups in all predominantly Islamic countries in this region (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan).”

But taken together, experts say these leaders have done little to advance the causes associated with women's rights; they have not, with a few possible exceptions, governed differently from men, and they have not broken a path to the top that other women have followed.

“When I first got interested in this subject about 30 years ago, my supposition was that perhaps women would have a different perspective,” said Guida M. Jackson, the author of “Women Who Ruled” and “Women Rulers Throughout the Ages,” which explore the record worldwide. “I was looking for no more war and all the other stuff.”

What she found instead, she said, was that “they are just as egomaniacal, in many cases, or just as intent on holding on to their own power and to heck with the next bunch that comes along as anybody else.”

And the rise of female leaders does not seem to reflect any change in the patriarchal nature of Asian societies. Rather, it demonstrates the power of a name and the persistence of political dynasties, whether they involve women or men.

“There is no doubt that the rise of female leaders is linked to their being members of prominent families: they are all the daughters, wives, or widows of former government heads or leading oppositionists,” according to the German report.

An exception is Han Myung-sook, who attained her position as prime minister of South Korea from 2006 to 2007 without a family connection.

Two of the less aggressive women leaders were forthright about their roles.“I know my limitations, and I don't like politics,” said Corazon Aquino, who became president of the Philippines in 1986 after the assassination of her husband, the opposition leader Benigno Aquino. “I was only involved because of my husband.”

Megawati Sukarnoputri, a daughter of the founder of Indonesia, Sukarno, made a campaign virtue of her passive style, declaring, “So what's wrong with being a housewife?”

This is not to say that the role of women has remained static in Asia. Women are advancing in many nations as business executives, politicians and diplomats, and in professions like law.

Society in many places is becoming more Westernized, with a breakdown in family structures that liberates women from traditional roles in the household and accords them greater respect in the public arena.

But there still seems to be a glass ceiling that holds back women from reaching the very top purely on their own merits, and a political context that may limit their room to maneuver as leaders.

Perhaps if their number reached a critical mass, female leaders would have more leeway to pursue policies that favor the equality of women, the nurturing of families and a less confrontational style of leadership, said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, director for programs and research at the Habibie Center, an independent policy institute in Indonesia.

But they are still anomalies in a man's world, she said, battling to demonstrate their strength to potential adversaries and to the male allies who may seek to manipulate them.

“You need to be more manly, you need to show that you don't cry in public, that you are tough enough to order the military around,” Ms. Anwar said.

“This is still a man's world, and you have to adapt to the men's environment rather than influencing the environment,” she said. “There have to be more of you. If you are just one person, and the rest of them are men, then it's difficult.”