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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