Wednesday, April 15, 2020

The Men Don’t Get it.



I have a terrible confession to make but I’m something of a misogynist and the thought of women in positions of power fills me with dread. I guess it had something to do with having a female battery sergeant-major, who while outwardly pleasant, was insecure and petty. The battery was run politically. Our “specialist extra” (extra as in extra duties, the standard punishment for those holding rank) was wonderfully empty but at the somehow some people would always have significantly more duties than others. As one of her fellow sergeant-majors said, “You never signed on paper, but you signed in her heart.” While the batteries were not a bed of roses, they were run with a degree of honesty. Ours could politely be known as the battery of three bitches (the battery commander, I suspect was a repressed homosexual – forty plus year old man with a five-digit salary and still living with his mother and the second in command was a girl who looked like the ninja turtle and that’s insulting to ninja turtles).

My experience in national service scared me from dealing with women and to a lesser extent, repressed homosexuals in position of power and if you look at the Asian experience, particularly the South Asian variety, the record of women in power hasn’t been good, as I wrote in a posting this time last year. The prominent leaders in this part of the world who came topower like Indira and Sonia Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, the Begums of Bangladesh,Aquino and Aroyo and Megawati were ruthless abusers of power who were as bad ifnot worse than the men who they succeeded and succeeded them.

Thanks to Covid-19, I’m now being forced to change my views on women in leadership. If you look at a map of the countries that have kept their infection rates in control are all run by women. The most prominent in New Zealand’s Jacinda Arden, who followed up her commanding performance after the Christchurch shooting last year, with another master class in leadership. Ms. Arden communicated clearly and concisely and acted swiftly. At the time of writing, New Zealand has a grand total of 1,072 cases and 9 deaths (by comparison, Singapore which has been hailed by the international media as a master class in managing the virus has seen 2,918 cases and 9 deaths).

Ms. Arden is not alone. In Taiwan, a country that isn’t allowed to be part of any world organization and is next door to the bogeyman of this situation – China, President Tsai Ing Wen has presided over 393 cases with 6 deaths. Hong Kong, which is China (though my Hong Kong family and friends will protest vigorously), has seen 1,010 cases.

The pattern of women in charge doing a better job at keeping COVID-19 cases down has also moved Westwards along with the centre of the pandemic. Finland, which has a 34-year old Prime Minister who was raised by two women, has seen 3,065 cases with 56 deaths.

Now, if you argue that all these countries are small and remote places, you need to look at Germany, which is Europe’s most populous state and the world’s fourth largest economy (read – country that counts), where there have been 130,072 cases. While this is higher than France and Britain (both run by men – though Boris barely fits the bill), Germany has had 3,194 deaths from the virus compared to France (14,967) and Britain (11,329).   

The contrast could not be starker than with the countries run by men, particularly the men claiming to have large amounts of testosterone. The most tragic case is in the United States, the world’s greatest economic and military power. The only thing you can say about the US situation is that it shows that Donald Trump has kept his promise that there would “so much winning, you’d get sick of it.” America is by far and away “winning” in terms of number of cases (587,337) and in the number of fatalities (23,649). The Trump, who enjoys playing for the global media, has been busy solving America’s problems by blaming everyone (media, China and Obama) while he’s playing “War President” three months after the first signs emerged.

In fairness to Trump, he’s not the only world leader compensating for something. Brazil, which is run by the self-styled “Trump of the Tropics,” Bolsonaro, has seen a mere 23,753 cases and 1,355 deaths.

In Asia, the situation isn’t much better. Thailand, which had a revered monarch who was the living example of power through personal morality and now has a monarch who is busy hiding in Germany with a hareem of 20 women has seen 2,613 cases and 1,405 fatalities. India, which has a Prime Minister that bases his power on his ability to muscle through things has seen a mere 10,363 cases and 339 deaths (that is if you can believe India’s statistics – and virus figures aside, Modi’s lockdown has displaced millions). Since New Zealand has been mentioned, one would be extension have to mention Australia, run by Mr. Scott Morison. Australia has seen 6,400 cases and 61 fatalities.

It is clear that the girls have done a better job at managing this virus than the boys, especially the boys who depend on being macho. The following article from Forbes provides us with some reasons as to why the girls have been doing better.  


If I could hazard a guess as to why the girls have been more successful in managing the pandemic, could probably lie in the fact that women as a rule of thumb have been less ego driven. Tradition has dictated that women play a supporting role rather than front role. Wives, for example are supposed to support their husbands. Men, by contrast, are supposed to stand out and lead, whether it’s the household, the unit, the company or even the nation.

This “traditional” role has helped women focus on the job at hand rather than on themselves. Margaret Thatcher, the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was said to run the country like a bossy housewife. She watched the purse strings and knew how to keep the boys in line. Mrs. Thatcher knew what she wanted and was smart enough to know when she needed to let people get on with it. The Falklands War was the prime example. She knew her objectives. She allowed the military to do what it needed to do.

If you look at the way Angela Merkel or Jacinda Arden have managed the crisis, you will have note that they have acted decisively and quickly. Communication to the masses has been credible because they’ve been courageous enough to tell the truth and spill the bad news. There is a sense of how they are merely preparing us to face the painful issue, thus making us more inclined to follow their instructions.

By contrast, the men cannot help but make themselves the centre of the issue and the weaker the man’s character, the worse the problem. Think of the infamous phrase “We have it under control,” as the cases began to spike and “It’s a hoax to get rid of me.”

The men don’t get it. You become a hero by actually solving the problem not by trying to being the problem. You lead by actually doing the work to solve the problem rather than talking about it.

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Maira Gall