US is on trend with Harris
The assumption that female leaders are gentler and more compassionate is a form of sexism that can distort expectations of governments with female leaders.
Kamala Harris, flanked by her husband Doug Emhoff, is sworn in as the 49th US Vice President by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on January 20, 2021, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP
This week, the four-year-old Egg bluntly refused to go and bath.
“I don’t have to listen to you,” she told me. “Do you know who is the boss of this house? Mom. That’s who!”
From the corner of my eye I could see the lovely Snapdragon, my present wife, nod approvingly.
Egg confessed that she is unsure of where I fit into the pecking order in our dysfunctional family, but it’s above the tortoise.
She’s not sure of the dogs. Of course, my home is not the only place on earth with a female leader.
Just ask the Americans. Joe Biden has just been inaugurated as president of the US, but the history of the moment belongs to Kamala Harris.
Every single one of the 48 vice-presidents before her have been men. And the 46 presidents have all been male.
Which is a disgrace, particularly if you consider that many of them have less than spotless reputations when it comes to their treatment of women.
The feminine touch Harris brings to Washington is nothing to sniff at, if you’ll excuse the pun.
More than a third of the men who have occupied the Oval Office have been accused of sexual misconduct.
In the rest of the world, female leadership is nothing new. Iceland’s premier Katrin Jakobsdottir is the latest in a long line of
female prime ministers.
Angela Merkel has been chancellor of Germany since 2005. Norway and Denmark have female leaders. So do Bangladesh, Lithuania, Finland, Serbia and several other countries.
The danger is that we tend to measure them either against a misogynist yardstick or more lenient standards simply because
they are women.
The assumption that female leaders are gentler and more compassionate is a form of sexism that can distort expectations of governments with female leaders.
Margaret Thatcher, architect of the pointless Falklands war, is proof that women are just as capable of perpetrating bloody idiocy as male leaders are.
Others, however, shine in leadership roles. Take the great Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand leader.
Will Harris be a Thatcher or an Ardern? Only history will tell. But I’m all for giving her every possible chance.
If Biden and Donald Trump are the cream of American men, there’s no other option.
Dirk Lotriet.
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