Last week Sylvie Goulard was appointed defense minister of France by Emmanuel Macron and his Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe. Aamna Mohdin wrote that this is in line with a wider trend of women commanding defense:

• Sri Lanka and India first broke the mold with female heads of states (and de facto defense ministers) in the 1970s.
• But progress was slow. Around the turn of the millennium Finland was the only western country with a female defense minister.
• Since 2002 though 18 EU countries have had female defense ministers.
• With the change of leadership in France, the majority of G7 countries now have a female defense minister.
• There is still a ways to go: a woman has never held the top military spot in countries with the largest defense budgets: The United States, Russia, and China.

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