Somewhat good news story of the week: small and stable Central American country, Costa Rica, has elected its first female president and apparently she won by an overwhelming majority, more than 20-points ahead of her nearest contender. The new president, Laura Chinchilla, apparently won on a campaign of continuing economic liberalisation that analysts believe is responsible for the stability of the country that has relatively high standard of living and the longest life expectancy of any country in Latin America.

The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.

“Today we are making history,” said Chinchilla, who will be the fifth Latin American woman to be elected president when she takes office in May. “The Costa Rican people have given me their confidence, and I will not betray it.”

The not so good news? Chincilla is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She’s not a woman who represents women or women’s rights. She’s a continuation of the same-old same-old power structures entrenched in Costa Rican society. The Christian Science Monitor mistakenly calls this election evidence of women’s rise in Latin America. But is it really the case if women are only electorally viable if they espouse more conservative values than their male counterparts?

Though there is a growing trend across Latin America of increased representation of women, largely due to affirmative action quotas implemented in more than a dozen countries in the region, I can’t help but feel that if it were up to these women, there would be no quotas or affirmative action. These women sound to me like the Sarah Palins of the Latin region. Is it really progress if, although she’s a woman, she supports and implements more socially conservative laws than we might get from a progressive like Morales or Chavez?