Julia Gillard's rise to the top job in Australian politics has not been a smooth one.
When she entered parliament in 1998, the Welsh-born Gillard was mocked for her nasal voice, her hairstyle, her dress sense and her failure to embrace domestic life.
But the unmarried and childless Gillard rose above it, and today, after becoming Australia's first female prime minister, said: "I'm aware I'm the first woman to sit in this role but I didn't set out to crash my head against any glass ceilings."
Her toughness and willingness to stand up for herself is perhaps derived from her working-class background. Born in Barry in 1961, she counts Welsh Labour leader Nye Bevan as one of her political heroes.
As a baby she contracted a severe lung infection and spent weeks in a oxygen tent in hospital, prompting her parents, Moira and John, to look for warmer climes.
They decided to join the thousands of other "Ten Pound Poms" moving to Australia, and arrived in Adelaide in 1966. Her father worked as a nurse and her mother cooked at a refuge for women.
At high school, Gillard was a high achiever and was not afraid to stand up to men in authority - at one point she lambasted her physics teacher for favouring male students.
A straight-A student, Gillard studied law and arts at the University of Adelaide, and became a prominent figure in campus politics, appointed president of the Australian Union of Students in 1983.
Her career began in a well-known legal firm, before she moved into politics as chief of staff to Victoria's then opposition leader, John Brumby.
Identifying herself as member of Labor's left wing from the start, it took three bids for pre-selection to the Australian Labor party before she was elected in 1998.
She became deputy prime minister after Kevin Rudd's 2007 election victory, and took on the portfolios of employment, workplace relations and education, leading to her being dubbed the "minister for everything".
As Gillard's profile has grown, she has been attacked for not marrying her partner or having children.
In 2007, Liberal senator Bill Heffernan called the deputy leader "deliberately barren" and said having children would help her understand the community better.
Gillard, who lives with her partner of four years, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser, discussed the issue of children during a television interview in 2008, saying she was "full of admiration for women who can mix it together, working and having kids, but I'm not sure I could have risen to the top job amid a wave of party discontent.
"There's something in me that's focused and single-minded and if I was going to do that [have a family], I'm not sure I could have done this [have a political career]."
