Chile’s first woman president has claimed that at times of crisis she and President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, the only other woman leader in Latin America, are less likely to panic than their famously macho male counterparts.

Speaking during a visit to London, President Michelle Bachelet bemoaned the sexism in her region, which she said continued to hamper the advancement of women.

She is in London to attend a conference hosted by Gordon Brown for centre left leaders, including Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister and Helen Clark, the New Zealand Prime Minister.

“Yes I think women still have to prove themselves and have requirements put on them that men do not,” said Ms Bachelet, who visited the Queen at Windsor and will spend the weekend with the Prime Minister at Chequers.

“I have never seen a male candidate or president having his clothes or hair discussed... There is a banalisation of women.”

Ms Bachelet, 56, has had an extraordinary political career. She was arrested and tortured, along with her parents, during the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet and then fled into exile where she qualified as a doctor. She returned home in 1979 and was elected president in 2006, after serving as defence minister.

She insisted that she was not “whining” about the problems of being a woman leader, simply observing a truth that applied to her region and beyond.

She said that “a strong woman” was invariably called “a woman of steel”, where as “a soft woman” was usually dismissed for “lack of leadership”.

“I remember (former Chilean) President Lagos once was so touched by something his eyes were teary and the press said ‘oh, what a sensitive man’. When I do it, I am called hysterical,” she said.

She added, however, that female leadership had a lot to offer the region, once dominated by strong men.

When Colombia and Ecuador nearly went to war last month in a dispute over a cross-border attack on rebels by Colombian forces, Ms Bachelet and Mrs Kircher were involved in trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the dispute. In the event the situation was defused after repeated diplomatic interventions.

Mrs Bachelet said that she and Mrs Kirchner laughed about it afterwards. “Christina (Kirchner) said they usually think that women are hysterical,” but this time the two South American leaders found the opposite was true.

“It was very funny,” she said. “We were the ones who called on everybody to be cool. It is a paradox that women are pretty rational.”

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