Pick and mix on women

Jane Caro (“Entrappings of high office”, September 1622) puts forward facts, some she qualifies as evidence, showing women in power are automatically seen as illegitimate; they are wrongly in a man’s world and will fail in leadership. It’s a credible proposition but there’s a lot of cherrypicking of evidence to outline the problem she presents as entrenched. So how does Angela Merkel “survive” in Germany? She is likely to win a fourth term. When she met Trump, their press conference showed a confident Merkel and a sulking Trump. Donald seemed lost when he couldn’t do his “You Jane, me Tarzan” routine with her. And Caro made no mention of Jenny Shipley or Helen Clark, both relatively successful prime ministers of New Zealand. The “failures” got the article’s focus.

– Des Files, Brunswick, Vic