Why a female leader will make a difference
ANALYSIS: History tells us female leaders approach their jobs differently and prioritise different issues – we are already seeing this in New Zealand’s third female prime minister.
New Zealand isn’t the first country to have a female leader, but not many have had three.
When females held the top job, it helped combat issues of gender diversity in politics, which filtered down into other sectors. It also inspired young women to strive for roles like prime minister, and chief executive.
We’ve already seen glimpses of this trickle-down effect since Jacinda Ardern took over the Labour leadership in August.
Ardern said she received feedback from young women who felt empowered after seeing her take on the top spot.
University of Auckland associate professor of politics Jennifer Curtin said women being elected as heads of government ‘‘disrupts what we see as normal’’.
This normalisation was a necessary change in order for people to concentrate on policy rather than gender.
The media still talked about female leaders in ‘‘gendered’’ terms - think Julia Gillard and Argentina’s Cristina Ferna´ ndez de Kirchner.
Eventually, voters would make decisions about candidates based on their policies and leadership values. But things needed to change before that happened.
Another flow-on from this was a change in social culture in politics.
Curtin said young politicians often got a leg-up, or shoulder-tap, through people they met at social gatherings geared towards men, like golf and after-work drinks.
And female leaders were still subjected to sexism.
Ahead of the election, Helen Clark told Ardern to ‘‘ignore the sexist attack and get on with the job’’, adding that it was ‘‘ridiculous’’ women in leadership positions were still subjected to genderbased attacks.
What do female heads of government do that’s different?
While women weren’t necessarily ‘‘more caring’’ or ‘‘nicer’’ in politics - think Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May they did govern differently.
Historically, women gave more attention to policy issues related to families, such as healthcare and social welfare. Even women who belonged to conservative parties were more likely than men - on either side of the political divide - to focus on those issues.
A strong focus on those types of issues had already been seen from Ardern.
During the campaign, she said reducing child poverty was the reason she got into politics. She then promptly appointed herself the Minister in charge of Child Poverty Reduction.
Mental health, child poverty, healthy homes and minimum wage rises were some of the key areas on the agenda for the Government’s first 100 days.
A study in India also found female village chiefs invested more in the public good than male chiefs.
Curtin said female political leaders spent more time discussing issues and they gave more speeches. That often resulted in their males colleagues following suit, which led to more public discussion.
‘‘What we know is having more women in politics makes a difference.’’
While female leaders had a tendency to focus on issues that affected families and vulnerable people once they were in office, not all campaigned on gender issues, Curtin said.
For example, Clark was a feminist leader during her time at the helm but she didn’t pitch to the female vote by focusing on things like the gender pay gap.
Are there ripple effects?
Sometimes it was hard to measure the impacts of gender diversification but this wasn’t the case when it came to women taking up political leadership positions.
A woman at the top created more gender diversity within politics, right down to the grassroots level.
For example, when a female governor was elected in the United States, the number of women standing for election would increase by 2.5 percentage points.
When a woman senator was elected, the number of women standing next time round would rise by almost 3 percentage points.
When a female takes the top spot, those effects were expected to be even greater, Curtin said.
‘‘Suddenly they have this role model … you might get more women potentially knocking on the door.’’
While there were more women stepping into the top spot across the globe, the change was slow-moving.
There had been no great leap forward for female representation in Labour and NZ First’s Cabinet line-up.
Women would hold seven of the 20 posts, which was broadly in line with the level of female representation New Zealand had had in Cabinet since 1999.
It had also been noted the Minister for Women, Julie Anne Genter, was a minister outside Cabinet, because of the governing arrangement with the Green Party.