KEY POINTS:
When former prime minister Jenny Shipley was in the United States a month ago, a group of reporters asked if she thought that country was ready for a woman president.
"I felt like saying something that probably couldn't have been printed," she says.
Today marks a decade of
New Zealand being run by female Prime Ministers.
It is 10 years since Mrs Shipley was sworn into office after taking over leadership of the National Party from Jim Bolger.
On Monday, Prime Minister Helen Clark will mark her 8th anniversary as Prime Minister.
Both Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley point to the 1990s as the time when New Zealand was having the same debate the US is now having.
There, Hillary Clinton is battling it out to try to get into the Oval Office, and Australia is just getting used to having Julia Gillard as its first female Deputy Prime Minister.
Helen Clark said things were "terribly tough" after she took over Labour's leadership in 1993. Many people found it almost incomprehensible that a woman might actually win an election.
Now she thinks most people consider it "perfectly normal to have a female Prime Minister".
Jenny Shipley agrees that New Zealand has "matured".
"I honestly don't think it's a big deal any more. We are over that hurdle now.
"If you stand on Lambton Quay or Queen St I don't think the gender issue is something people spend more than a nanosecond reflecting on. It is yesterday's story."
But there were challenges first, both at home and abroad.
Jenny Shipley was the first female leader to attend an Apec meeting and remembers speculation about whether the Sultan of Brunei would acknowledge her. He did.
"But I did understand it was an issue and prior to hosting Apec in Auckland I visited over half the leaders coming because I was aware I was younger than many, and also female. So I wanted to get that off the agenda."
Helen Clark has also experienced being the only woman at international meetings - most recently at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Uganda.
"I quite enjoy it actually. Everyone is very polite. And I've now got the advantage of being not only the only woman but also the longest serving so I'm in quite a strategic position."
Jenny Shipley thinks the fanfare about women taking on such jobs is no longer a novelty.
"But I'm very proud that Helen and I, between us, have been able to make New Zealand a country that can say it's had two women Prime Ministers in a decade. That's a great notch to the country's belt."
Helen Clark also considers the roles she and Mrs Shipley took as ground-breaking, "because we make it possible for others to aspire to do these things".
"Women have achieved just about everything there is to achieve here," the Prime Minister says.
"It's just a question of making sure it wasn't just a brilliant one-off and making sure it's something women can aspire to do in the normal course of events. I think people would expect women to get a fair shot in future.
"But I suspect we are a bit away from the time when you would get woman prime ministers half the time because there's not the base of women's representation in Parliament that would achieve that yet.
"About 30 per cent [of members of Parliament are female] so the odds are that you're still more likely over the long term to have male prime ministers than females."
However, she thinks the resentful murmurings of "women running the country" have subsided and the challenges of being female rather than male are now often practical ones.
"Men have a suit and they wear their suit day in and day out, changing the tie. Whereas women always have to think, 'What's the temperature, is the event outside or in, what's the appropriate clothing'. We also tend to have a lot more hair to get out of the way on a windy day."
* FEMALE LEADERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Ireland: Mary McAleese
Born 1951 Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Elected President of Ireland in 1997, succeeding Ireland's first woman President Mary Robinson, and re-elected unopposed in 2004 for her second seven-year term.
Finland: Tarja Kaarina Halonen
Born 1943 Helsinki, Finland.
First elected President of Finland in 2000 and re-elected for her second six-year term in 2006.
Philippines: Gloria Arroyo
Born 1947 Lubao, Philippines.
She is the Philippines' second female President, after Corazin Aquino, elected in 2004.
Mozambique: Luisa Dias Diogo
Born 1958, Mozambique.
Elected as Mozambique's first woman Prime Minister in 2004.
Germany: Angela Merkel
Born 1954, Hamburg, Germany.
Elected Chancellor of Germany in 2005, she is Germany's first female leader.
Liberia: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Born 1938, West Africa.
Elected Liberia's second female President in 2005.
Chile: Michelle Bachelet Jeria
Born 1951 Santiago, Chile.
First woman President of Chile, elected in 2006.
Switzerland: Micheline Calmy-Rey
Born 1945 Valais, Switzerland.
The second female President of the Swiss Confederation, she was elected in 2006, assuming office in 2007.
India: Pratibha Patil
Born 1934, Nadgaon, Maharashtra, India.
Patil is India's first woman President, elected in 2007.
Georgia: Nino Burjandze
Born 1964, Kutaisi, Georgia.
Acting President of Georgia until elections in 2008.
