My message to women is: Women: We can do it. We are capable of doing almost anything, but we must learn we cannot do it all at once, we need to prioritize.

There has been a cultural shift. It is difficult to measure all that right now, but Chilean women have seen my presidency as a source of pride. Women are performing in jobs in Chile now that 20 or 30 years ago nobody would have dared to imagine.

For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.

I made an effort to ensure social safeguards. But our economy has to grow - and Chile, with a population of 17 million, cannot depend entirely on its domestic market. Which is why the decision to focus on exports, made at the beginning of the democratic era, was the correct one. We are continuing to do so. For a long time, Chile has been successful in combating poverty. But now we must focus more on fighting inequality.

It was said that Chile was not ready to vote for a woman, it was traditionally a sexist country. In the end, the reverse happened: the fact of being a woman became a symbol of the process of cultural change the country was undergoing.

Women say that my election represents a cultural break with the past - a past of sexism, of misogyny.

In some places women have all the rights they deserve and in others there are big restrictions - in some countries they even mutilate women.