Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, has quickly stepped out of the shadow of her charismatic predecessor Lula. After one year in office, she is more popular than any former president was at this stage. She has surrounded herself with powerful women, who are now calling the shots in Brasília.

The epicenter of Brazilian power can be found on the fourth floor of the Palacio do Planalto in Brasília, the nation's capital. Liveried waiters elegantly carry trays of coffee through the hallways of the presidential palace, high-ranking officials wait in anterooms and air-conditioning units hum in the offices.

Planning Minister Miriam Belchior rushes past on her way to visit Chief of Staff Gleisi Hoffmann, with whom she will discuss a multi-billion-real investment program to combat poverty. On the way she is greeted by Ideli Salvatti, the woman who manages the government's relations with Congress. Two floors down, Press Secretary Helena Chagas is talking on the phone. In the front office, several women are reviewing the day's newspapers.

Wherever you look in this white marble palace, there are female ministers, female advisers, female experts and female undersecretaries. Only the waiters and the security guards in the entrance hall are men. Thanks to President Dilma Rousseff, everything else at government headquarters is firmly in female hands.

Rousseff is the first female head of state of Latin America's largest country, and she's appointed women to many of her government's most important posts. Ten of them sit in the cabinet. All but one of her inner circle of advisers are women. This isn't because of quotas. "Given a choice between a man and a woman with the same qualifications, she prefers to hire the woman," says Gilberto Carvalho, who runs the presidential office.