“These blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work, why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men” (James Bond in Casino Royale)
Ian Fleming
Is it luck, chance, divine intervention? Or is it because women are actually much better leaders, particularly at times of crisis? The countries which have performed best in the face of the Coronavirus epidemic are mostly led by women. In these countries the leaders quickly identified the nature of the problem they faced, they quickly identified their options, picked the most effective and rapidly worked on implementation.
So step forward Mette Frederiksen, the Danish PM; Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor; Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwan president; Iceland’s PM, Katrin Jakobsdottir; Norway’s PM, Erna Solberg; the Finnish PM, Sanna Marin......and the star performer, Jacinda Ardern, PM of New Zealand.
These are the countries that acted early. They focused on testing and tracing, and, if necessary, they shut down. They have had their reward in terms of relatively low numbers of cases and deaths and some return to what is being called the new normal.
New Zealand became the first country worldwide to declare itself Covid-19 free until the UK exported a couple more cases to them.
The boys did get a look in with Austria and South Korea also doing well but they tend to be the exception.
When you come to the countries with “strong men” populist or authoritarian leaders, the picture is much grimmer. In Brazil President Jair (“little flu”) Bolsonaro is still calling the epidemic a “hoax”, President Donald (inject disinfectant) Trump downplayed the risk for weeks before he found the magic bleach cure, Belarus is doing little and one leader in Africa called on his people to go to church and pray the virus away.
In the UK Prime Minister Boris (“take it on the chin”) Johnson now only lags behind the USA and Brazil with the highest number of deaths in a single country worldwide. In the US deaths now exceed the Vietnam War total and the U.K., with about 1% of the world’s population, heads towards 20% of the deaths. More people have now died from the virus than died during the Blitz in World War II.
It may have all been chance but perhaps women are more risk-averse, are more cautious and do not see tens of thousands of deaths as a fair exchange for the survivors’ prosperity. Perhaps they are able to combine caution, when they see risk, with speed of action in responding.
We will never know, of course, but perhaps in the U.K. if Yvette Cooper, Rachel Reeves, Caroline Lucas or Lisa Nandy had been PM there would have been less of the gung-ho male-dominated groupthink that led to shortages of protective equipment and ventilators, lack of testing and the abandonment of contact tracing, earlier banning of mass gatherings and a shutdown at least a week earlier. It might have prevented the discharge of 25,000 NHS patients to care homes when testing was either very patchy or non-existent.
Would a female leader have allowed to have happened the amount of mixed messaging that characterized the Government’s response to the epidemic? It started with the Prime Minister advising the nation to wash its hands regularly and properly at the same that he was bragging about having shaken hands with Coronavirus patients during a hospital visit. It continues three months later with the Prime Minister telling the nation it was out of “hibernation” at the same time as distancing rules and other personal safety measures remain in place. Mixed messaging delivers beaches where “the smell of weed, urine and excrement” is “horrific” according to a retired carer when he joined a litter-picking group on Bournemouth beach.
I just wonder if the UK’s handling of the epidemic would look mighty different if Yvette, Caroline, Rachel or Lisa was in charge rather than a man whose favourite election catchphrase was “do or die” and default insult is “girly swot”.
I do not know about you, but I would feel much safer if we had a female leader at this time of crisis despite what James Bond thinks.
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