Sharing Power

About the Book

After Barbara Frechette arrived in Colombia in 1994 as the wife of the United States ambassador, she witnessed the fascinating rise of powerful women leaders during the uncertainty of a dangerous drug war that raged for years. Fascinated as to how and why women progressed with such extraordinary speed in Colombia despite facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Frechette asked seven influential women leaders to analyze this paradoxical development.

In this re-released version of her original comprehensive study of a women’s movement in Colombia that sprang to life after women won the vote in 1957 and blossomed in 1998 when two of the women in this book ran for president, Frechette offers captivating chronological leadership profiles of outstanding women and the family influences, leadership styles, and religious roots that inspired them to seek to better their nation, despite death threats and risks of political exile.

About the Author

Barbara Frechette has a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a major in English literature from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington and advanced studies in economics and journalism from American University and the University of Maryland. When she was a technical writer she married Myles Frechette and accompanied him in his 35-year Foreign Service career. She was editor of the American Foreign Service Women’s Newsletter and published an article about the role of the Foreign Service spouse in the American Foreign Service Journal. While in Colombia, her article about women leaders was published in Semana, the nation’s leading newsmagazine. In 1999, the profiles in Sharing Power were published in Colombia as El Poder Compartido.

Now retired from the Foreign Service, she and her husband live in Bethesda, Maryland near their two children and five grandchildren to whom this book is dedicated.