March 22, 2021 - 11:54am
The United Kingdom is now vaccinating more than one per cent of its population every day. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Boris Johnson is not in fact a woman.
You may doubt that the Prime Minister’s sex is a salient fact in this matter, but then that’s because you weren’t paying attention last year. In 2020 we were treated to a succession of articles and op-eds suggesting that countries with female leaders were notably successful in their response to the Covid crisis. For examples see the Guardian, the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Guardian again, the Independent, CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times again.
It’s true that in the early stages of the pandemic quite a few of the countries that had got off lightly also happened to have female leaders — for instance, Germany, New Zealand and Taiwan. However, other relatively successful countries had male leaders — for instance, Israel, Japan and Australia.
That didn’t stop the commentators from breathlessly essentialising these outcomes to the sex-based qualities of leaders like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern. It may be that there are some differences between male and female leadership styles on average, but the idea that these were more important than factors like geographical isolation, population density and long-standing governmental capabilities was always nonsense.
In any case, the pipeline of nonsense has run dry. In 2021, comment editors are no longer interested in the idea that female leaders are better in a crisis. Here are three reasons why:
For a start, the ‘analysis’ behind the argument doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. The sample of female-led countries is too small on which to base any robust statistical argument.
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SubscribeThe pandemic and the performance of various leaders may have been an indication that we are actually experiencing full equality in this regard. Male and female leaders can perform well or they can perform badly. Performance is determined the qualities/capabilities of that person as well as external circumstances etc. In all likelihood, it is not determined by that person’s genitalia. This probably won’t please feminists as it means a slight redundancy and less to talk about.
On the annual non-event of International Women’s Day, I found myself thinking that a true milestone had been reached in 2020. Ursula von der Leyen showed us that, yes, girls too can a) get into jobs for which we are not qualified and to which we are ill-suited by crooked means, and b) stay in those jobs far past the point where it becomes painfully obvious we are causing a huge amount of harm due to our own incompetence.
Men have no monopoly! Now if that isn’t equality…
Kristi Noem! Governor of South Dakota, never locked down, never required masks, employment grew during covid, as did wellbeing, and no worse cases than the States who locked down!
I agree with your comment overall, but one sentence: “In all likelihood, it is not determined by that person’s genitalia.”
Genitalia affects hormonal levels. In case of women, hormonal levels constantly change, and later in life they experience one profound hormonal change, all of which for many years adversely affects female emotional stability and balance. As a result, feelings for them often outweigh logic.
My life experience confirms that, female leaders (and employees in general) are less balanced emotionally than their, on average, more logical male colleagues.
“later in life they experience one profound hormonal change, all of which for many years adversely affects female emotional stability and balance.”
On the contrary, some women sail right thru menopause. You are perpetuating a myth that the experience is the same for all women. It is not.
No, they are no different. This is why I am very keen to see more women in leadership positions across politics and business. It will soon disabuse those who think that women are, somehow, morally or intellectually superior to men. The fact is that a certain type of person, of both sexes (or all sexes for the woke among you), seeks power and you should be very wary of all of them.
It could (should!) be argued that wanting to be a politician, and certainly wanting to be PM or President should automatically disqualify anyone from the role!
Quite. As Groucho Marx once replied on being offered a club membership, “I don’t care to join any club which would have me as a member.”
As Douglas Adams wrote decades ago.
But it is older than that. It used to be a condition that only someone who did not want to be Pope could become a Pope. For example, Pope Gregory (590) who did his best to avoid it.
I’m not saying this because I attach any importance to the Papacy, only that we’ve known for a long, long time who is unsuitable for power, yet, 1431 years later…
[Also, the rule above didn’t last long as the long list of wicked Popes attests.]
I do not hold with the view women and men are the same excepting physically. A grouse grows to maturity and the male goes to a lek where he struts and the females watch, and 90% of mating is done with 10% of the males who do a better show. The females then build a nest and rear the young wile the males do nothing but wander off and eat.
These sexist roles were not taught in school by gender stereotypes, but by biology, by innate sexual dimorphism in both physiology and behavior..
Yes but humans do not lek – nor do 99.n% of all animals.
We humans are more than capable of doing what our brain tells us to do, not our genitals.
That didn’t stop the commentators from breathlessly essentialising these outcomes to the sex-based qualities of leaders like Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern.
Well, no; when identity is your only tool, everything is defined by skin color or genitalia. Everything.
Look at the Liberal/Lefty MSM Quoted. May as well have “Flat Earth Weekly’ quoted as saying how dangerous it is to sail off the edge of the world.
The MSM spiel about women leaders was pushing the narrative that something gentler and less aggressive, involving empathy and listening might occur in the way policy was formulated and realised. I remember when Sue Vinnicombe was pushing this stuff at Cranfield. Audiences were just too polite to push back using rationality. It was underpinned by the contradictory hypothesis that women are the same as men, whilst being apparently radically different. We knew it was nonsense then, we know this is nonsense now..
I was thinking this very thing a couple of days ago: there seems to be a fanatical gleam growing brighter in the eyes of Ursula vd L with each passing week.
Of course, the media outlets that push the ‘women will create a more civilised politics’ meme are the same ones that push the ‘EU is a moral superpower’ BS; and it will take more than reality to change their propaganda stance.
When MacArthur was given the Re-building of Japan he forced a Constitution through giving the vote to women, as he said they would never again be a militaristic empire if women had the vote. (He also forced the feudal system of the farmers being tennants of the elite to be broken and land distributed to the tenant farmers to stop the rise of Communism there, as he said, people who own their own means of production will not give it to the State.) He was correct on almost everything, how terrible his kind are gone.
It is really simple. Women are completely equal to men, in every way, except in those traits where they are superior. There are none where men are superior, of course (not even on average). Although, women are also subjugated by men, and disadvantaged. All clear, really.
In a nutshell!
Most male vs female differences are on aggregate, not absolute. Groups like politicians, nurses, engineers have already filtered for most of the differences. Women may on average be less interested in engineering than men, but female engineers are a lot more interested than the average man. The same is true for politicians, to become one you need to be driven, arrogant and not overly principled, traits that may be more common in men, but which certainly aren’t lacking in female politicians.
For a comparison that doesn’t try to match widely different countries or geographies, look no further than our own UK. Let’s put Maggie Thatcher beside Theresa May.
With Biden’s rapidly diminishing faculties the world is about to get a strong dose of female leadership. What could possibly go wrong?
the world is going to get a dose of a woman who: A) Dems themselves summarily rejected during the primaries and B) was picked solely due to her skin color and sex. The latter is not a high water mark for women; it is objectification by a different application.
No delegates, Kamala harris,unpopular with Democrat Voters
I have worked with Women, for women and above women.
I found no real difference- both sexes had some very clever and some less clever ambitious ones. Why are all ambitious people more stupid than wiser souls ?
Yes, the inverse relationship between ambition and intelligence is a huge problem that causes all manner of death and destruction.
The two women running the EU vaccine shambles are not helping the cause,
It was argued for thousands of years that women leaders are different, and therefore women could not be leaders. It’s therefore surprising, and dangerous for their cause, when Feminists claim that female leaders differ from male. Better all round to judge leaders as individuals, not members of a group.
Thank you Peter Franklin for that piece of straight talking common sense.
In my experience people who want to be at the top – whether it be business or politics – have more in common with each other than with the rest of their sex.
Never mind Boris not being a woman, his predecessor was! So if Covid had struck less than a year earlier good old Blighty would have been bless by a female leader.
Does anyone seriously think Theresa May would have managed any better? Given the chaos of her last few months, I’d suggest we’d have been in a far worse position: just as many dead and seeing the numbers climbing up again as they are on the continent.
I always think that people that strive for power are probably the least suitable to hold it; whether that’s a man or a woman matters not.
This is the strongest argument for hereditary privilege – in confers power and influence by lottery, and you might just occasionally get someone who isn’t a villain. Having to climb the greasy pole guarantees that you’ll get one.
Women are coming from a past where they were seen as inferior for jobs like running a country. Now, little by little, they are coming back nearer to equality – but they are still catching up.
There is a whole lot of difference in psychology between a state of ‘being there’ and a state of ‘catching up’. With the latter, you have to keep proving that you have the b**lls to do the job, you have to be more forceful, more dominating, more masculine, or else you may fail.
When women have relaxed into the senior roles and they have nothing to prove – then they will be better than men. They tend to see all around the problems and will choose the right path rather than wavering between all of the possibilities (as with BJ).
I am just curious whether the last sentence is referring to one US First Lady’s comment about male thinking when a BJ is in progress. Is that what you were referencing?
I think it is about Boris Johnson, and he is the ultimate Vacillator who always ends up fallowing the pack. May would have done a MUCH better covid job than that glib popinjay.
And your evidence is?
A rather patronising post (work it out for yourself). BJ may waver at times, but in terms of vaccines he (or his govt/appointees, whichever you prefer) got it right. The chief executive of Valneva a (French) pharma company whose vaccine is entering mass production (in a plant set up in Scotland) spoke recently about how the British vaccine taskforce recognised the potential of his Covid vaccine proposal, bunged him 96 million euros, ordered 40 million doses and set up a factory to make it. The EU gave him very little notice.
Anyway, the point I’m making is that the UK vaccine taskforce was led by Kate Bingham, who did an amazing job and deserves a lot of credit for the success of the UK vaccine rollout.
The Oxford University/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine was developed by a team led by Professor Sarah Gilbert of Oxford University. The vaccine was tested across the globe and is being mass-produced in India to supply vaccines to the world. I read an interview with Prof Gilbert recently where she described cycling to work at 4am every day; talked about her (adult) children joining the vaccine trials…
There is no shortage of women succeeding in senior roles, if you care to inform yourself.
And of course there are plenty of women in senior roles, like Ursula von der Leyen who (like many men in senior roles) are completely f***ing up.
The ’50’s called.
They want their sexist stereotypes back.