Delia Parodi

Delia Parodi (1913 – 1991) was an Argentine politician and the first Argentine woman to hold a prominent elected post.

Delia Delfina Degliuomini was born to Italian Argentine parents in Ingeniero Luiggi, a small La Pampa Province town, in 1913. Her family relocated to Buenos Aires in 1917 and lived in modest circumstances. She was able to attain secondary education, however, and shortly afterwards met Juan Carlos Parodi.

The couple operated a small business and in 1944, Delia Parodi was hired as a stenographer in the Department of Labor by its new appointee, Colonel Juan Perón. Parodi assisted Perón in his fundraising efforts dealing with the devastating 1944 San Juan earthquake, and became close to Eva Duarte (who would soon be Perón's fiancée and most influential adviser). Following Perón's election to the Presidency in 1946, Parodi was transferred to the Province of San Luis, where she participated as an enumerator during the 1947 Census. The experience earned her a promotion as a local ombudsman in the Las Cañitas section of Palermo (today an upscale ward in Buenos Aires).

The enactment of female suffrage in Argentina in 1949 and Parodi's neighborhood work earned her a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in 1951 as one of the first 22 women in Congress. The first woman to make a formal speech in the Argentine Congress, she was active in intellectual property and consumer rights. Following the First Lady's death in 1952, she was elected titular head of the Peronist Women's Party, and represented her country in the Inter-Parliamentary Union. On April 25, 1953, she was unanimously elected First Vice President of the Chamber, becoming the first Argentine Woman to hold an elected leadership position in any branch (to date, she remains the highest-ranking woman in Argentine Congressional history).

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