Female leaders make a real difference. Covid may be the proof
What do Erna Solberg, Sa n n a Marin, Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Mette Frederiksen have in common apart from all four being female prime ministers (of Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark, respectively)? The answer is that their countries have much lower rates of Covid-19 infection than male-led neighbouring nations such as Ireland, Sweden and the UK.
Are those facts connected? There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest they may be.
Alongside an overview of gender parity in 100 countries by digital bank N26, it has also noted that Finland, with a population of 5.5 million, has had just over 370 deaths, a rate of around 60 deaths per million people. The UK death rate is more than 10 times that. Of course they are very different countries, but there have been similarly low Covid death rates in the other femaleled northern European nations. Norway has seen 57 deaths per 1 million, Iceland 73 and Denmark 135 compared to 412 in Ireland, 626 in Sweden and 820 per 1 million in the UK.
Other countries with a female leader, notably Germany and New Zealand, have also kept Covid infections low.
Analysis earlier this year, published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research and the World Economic Forum, suggests the difference is real and may be explained by the “proactive and coordinated policy responses” adopted by female leaders.
If there is a correlation between managing Covid and having a woman at the helm, the world would be a better place for knowing that and for other leaders being able to learn from it. The truth, as with everything to do with Covid, is that it is probably too early to make any firm assertions. Daily cases and deaths from the virus in Germany, led by chancellor Angela Merkel, are now rising. The country is closing its non-essential shops and imposing a harsher national lockdown from 16 December.
Those sceptical that individual women in positions of power are very different from men don’t have too far to look. The legacy of Margaret Thatcher as the first female UK prime minister continues to be fiercely debated; but it’s widely agreed that she did little for women’s rights per se. Former home secretary Theresa May created the toxic “hostile environment” that ended in the Windrush scandal. The present UK home secretary, Priti Patel, avows an authoritarian stance that is even harsher than the law and order policies of the 1980s, while her personal style as a leader has led to the resignation of the government’s own independent adviser on ethics. Not much of an advert for female leadership. Depressingly, as Catherine Bennett has written, there are always women prepared to do men’s dirty work.
What really counts is getting to what used to be called the tipping point, generally reckoned as having more than a third of positions of power held by women in any organisation.
UK public services, as in many other countries, still have more women lower down the pay scale and fewer women in senior positions. Research shows that the glass ceiling is still firmly in position for civil servants, NHS staff, local government workers and charities.
Even in Finland, for instance, where most government ministers are women, activists wanting reform on cultural issues have said that having the youngest female leader of a country – prime minister Sanna Marin – counts for little until change has the support of the system behind the prime minister.
This isn’t, in the end, just about women. It’s about parity and about politicians of all genders creating systems that are fair and just for their citizens. This year has highlighted more than any other how existing inequalities, whether gender, race or class, leave people vulnerable to crises. Across Europe, domestic abuse has risen during the pandemic, and Covid has also had a huge impact on the lives of working women. That’s because unpaid care and family responsibilities still fall overwhelmingly on women. More women than men work part-time, creating not just a gender pay gap but a gender pension gap as well.
Human systems will function better when they are more like what nature writer Robert Macfarlane, in his book Underland, describes as the hidden infrastructure of forests. Research has found that forests are supportive communities, connected under the Earth’s surface by a “wood-wide web” of connection, sharing resources and nutrients.
Many women know how hard they still have to work to attain equality with men. And many will also acknowledge that it’s networks, peer support, mentoring, mothers, sisters, friends that enable them to get through.
There are signs of change. The N26 equality survey notes that despite many losses for women this year, Germany has approved landmark legislation setting a legal quota for gender in boardrooms, while more recently (and visibly) Kamala Harris becomes the first female US vice-president on 20 January, 2021, not to mention that more than 23% of US congress members are now female. There is still clearly room for improvement, but all is not lost. Politicians have the opportunity to move in the right direction.
• Jane Dudman is the Guardian’s public leadership editor
a congressman-elect, has been talking about his plans for tackling inequality and systemic racism in the country. He is a supporter of the “defund the police” movement, and has openly called out former president Barack Obama on his analysis of the electoral liabilities of supporting the proposals.
Advocates for the “defund the police” movement have argued broadly that there needs to be a serious reallocation of money and resources to police forces. But conservative critics have used the proposals’ name to mislead voters to think advocates literally want to take all funding away from police forces, which has led some moderate Democrats to distance themselves from the slogan.
Obama, in an interview with Snapchat’s Peter Hamby, said: “If you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan like ‘Defund The Police,’ but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.”
Similarly, earlier this month in a meeting with civil rights leaders, echoed Obama’s criticizing, blaming the Defund the Police slogan for Democratic down ballot losses.
In a rare move for a soon-to-be congressman of the same party as the popular Obama, Bowman sent out a fundraising email saying he was “disappointed” in the 44th president’s comments.
“The problem isn’t America’s discomfort with snappy slogans. The real problem is America’s comfort with Black death,” Bowman wrote in the fundraising email. Similarly, he said that even referring to it as something other than “Defund the Police” is wrongheaded.
“Well that’s the problem right? We are always acquiescing to the center, to right, and to Republicans on what we should say and how we should say it. My problem is white comfort with Black death,” Bowman said. “I am personally tired of white comfort with black death. So when I hear presidentelect Biden say that, when I hear [congressman] Connor Lamb say that I don’t – even former president Obama – I don’t hear the real conversation around why the hell doesn’t America feel uncomfortable with Black death.”
Bowman has been more active in shaping his place on Capitol Hill than most Democratic congressional nominees or congressmen-elect. Bowman’s district leans so heavily Democratic that whoever wins the primary is the all but certain favorite to win the general election. After he won the primary Bowman endorsed and sent out fundraising emails for like-minded candidates around the country.
Bowman has already been thinking about where he would like to have a legislative impact. He’s hoping to get a spot on the House education and labor committee and a spot on the House committee on transportation and infrastructure. He has aligned himself with Ocasio-Cortez and is likely to be an addition to the set of young firebrand progressive lawmakers nicknamed “The Squad”.
Ocasio-Cortez, the most famous member of the Squad, recently said she didn’t see an overarching vision in the series of cabinet appointments Biden has made so far. Bowman concurred.
“Well I think president-elect Biden’s goal is diversity and I see some racial diversity. I see some gender diversity. I see some ideological diversity and I think president-elect Biden will lead to the best answers and the best solutions for our country,” Bowman said, going on to directly address Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks. “I don’t fully disagree with that.”
There hasn’t been the truth, the reconciliation, the healing that needs to take place to deal with our history and legacy of racism
Jamaal Bowman