Ramona Vijeyarasa is the architect behind the Gender Legislative Index, the first comprehensive IT-based tool to make legislation work more effectively to improve women's lives. Her work innovatively combines law, engineering, and data science to reinvigorate decades-long debates about the law's role in addressing gender inequality. A Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Ramona's research is informed by a decade working in civil society. Ramona was the 2020-2022 Women's Leadership Institute Australia Research Fellow, a Runner-up in the 2021 Letten Prize, and has research grants and awards from New York University, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

For a while now, women's rights advocates have argued for the representation of women at the highest level of government. But what does that representation mean in actual practice? Analyzing the lives of four female presidents and with the use of a Gender Legislative Index, Ramona Vijeyarasa focuses on the impact that women leaders have had on the ordinary lives of women. It is a pioneering work that will greatly contribute to our understanding of women's leadership and women's representation in politics.

• 1: Introduction: Women Political Leaders-Expanding Our Knowledge with New Eyes and New Purpose 2: A Framework for Analysing the Legal Legacies of Women Leaders: Key Concepts, Questions, and Approaches 3: How Presidents Shape the Law: A Taxonomy 4: Measuring the Legislative Footprint 5: The Instrumentalization of Gender by, for, and Against the Woman President: A Double-Edged Sword 6: Leading for Women: Bringing Women's Issues to the Legislative Table 7: Roadblocks for Women: The Woman Leader, Conservative Politics, and Regression on Women's Rights 8: Outside the Box: Crediting Women Leaders for Benefiting Women in Less Visible Ways 9: The President and the People: Women's Movements and Their Role in Fusing Gender Into the Legal System 10: Women Leaders in the International Landscape: Bastions of Gender Equality? 11: Conclusion: Going Beyond Women Presidents in South and Southeast Asia Appendix 1: 97 Laws Evaluated by the Gender Legislative Index Appendix 2: Additional Laws Considered in The Woman President Appendix 3: List of Key Informant Interviews

Ramona Vijeyarasa is the architect behind the Gender Legislative Index, the first comprehensive IT-based tool to make legislation work more effectively to improve women's lives. Her work innovatively combines law, engineering, and data science to reinvigorate decades-long debates about the law's role in addressing gender inequality. A Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Ramona's research is informed by a decade working in civil society. Ramona was the 2020-2022 Women's Leadership Institute Australia Research Fellow, a Runner-up in the 2021 Letten Prize, and has research grants and awards from New York University, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

For a while now, women's rights advocates have argued for the representation of women at the highest level of government. But what does that representation mean in actual practice? Analyzing the lives of four female presidents and with the use of a Gender Legislative Index, Ramona Vijeyarasa focuses on the impact that women leaders have had on the ordinary lives of women. It is a pioneering work that will greatly contribute to our understanding of women's leadership and women's representation in politics.

• 1: Introduction: Women Political Leaders-Expanding Our Knowledge with New Eyes and New Purpose 2: A Framework for Analysing the Legal Legacies of Women Leaders: Key Concepts, Questions, and Approaches 3: How Presidents Shape the Law: A Taxonomy 4: Measuring the Legislative Footprint 5: The Instrumentalization of Gender by, for, and Against the Woman President: A Double-Edged Sword 6: Leading for Women: Bringing Women's Issues to the Legislative Table 7: Roadblocks for Women: The Woman Leader, Conservative Politics, and Regression on Women's Rights 8: Outside the Box: Crediting Women Leaders for Benefiting Women in Less Visible Ways 9: The President and the People: Women's Movements and Their Role in Fusing Gender Into the Legal System 10: Women Leaders in the International Landscape: Bastions of Gender Equality? 11: Conclusion: Going Beyond Women Presidents in South and Southeast Asia Appendix 1: 97 Laws Evaluated by the Gender Legislative Index Appendix 2: Additional Laws Considered in The Woman President Appendix 3: List of Key Informant Interviews

Ramona Vijeyarasa is the architect behind the Gender Legislative Index, the first comprehensive IT-based tool to make legislation work more effectively to improve women's lives. Her work innovatively combines law, engineering, and data science to reinvigorate decades-long debates about the law's role in addressing gender inequality. A Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney, Ramona's research is informed by a decade working in civil society. Ramona was the 2020-2022 Women's Leadership Institute Australia Research Fellow, a Runner-up in the 2021 Letten Prize, and has research grants and awards from New York University, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

For a while now, women's rights advocates have argued for the representation of women at the highest level of government. But what does that representation mean in actual practice? Analyzing the lives of four female presidents and with the use of a Gender Legislative Index, Ramona Vijeyarasa focuses on the impact that women leaders have had on the ordinary lives of women. It is a pioneering work that will greatly contribute to our understanding of women's leadership and women's representation in politics.

• 1: Introduction: Women Political Leaders-Expanding Our Knowledge with New Eyes and New Purpose 2: A Framework for Analysing the Legal Legacies of Women Leaders: Key Concepts, Questions, and Approaches 3: How Presidents Shape the Law: A Taxonomy 4: Measuring the Legislative Footprint 5: The Instrumentalization of Gender by, for, and Against the Woman President: A Double-Edged Sword 6: Leading for Women: Bringing Women's Issues to the Legislative Table 7: Roadblocks for Women: The Woman Leader, Conservative Politics, and Regression on Women's Rights 8: Outside the Box: Crediting Women Leaders for Benefiting Women in Less Visible Ways 9: The President and the People: Women's Movements and Their Role in Fusing Gender Into the Legal System 10: Women Leaders in the International Landscape: Bastions of Gender Equality? 11: Conclusion: Going Beyond Women Presidents in South and Southeast Asia Appendix 1: 97 Laws Evaluated by the Gender Legislative Index Appendix 2: Additional Laws Considered in The Woman President Appendix 3: List of Key Informant Interviews