Thank you for your response, which has made me reflect on my own thinking about gender.
By: Tracy Brighten
Tags: Leadership Skills, Gender Roles, Gender Equality, Gender

Thank you for your response, which has made me reflect on my own thinking about gender. I don’t think the author was arguing that women are better, but that character qualities and life experience of women equips them to handle humanitarian crises with the care, compassion and selflessness lacking in male leaders with macho traits.

I don’t think women are getting a special shout in this piece because they are women per se. Ardern and Merkel have been more effective in this crisis by showing traits more usually associated with being female. As women, they have grown up having to fight for roles that are dominated by the traditional male. But we are well aware that men have had to fight too — it wasn’t long ago that Liberal Party Jeremy Thorpe had to lead two lives. One to appease the public and his political peers and the other to be himself.

I also think the author made it clear that “macho” is the traditional view of masculinity embodied by Trump, Johnson and Bolsonaro. I don’t see all men as macho and I don’t see machismo being problematic in all situations. However, it is problematic for national leaders who need to bring people together for the common good. Machismo is a state of mind that can come from feelings of insecurity and inferiority, which could make it more extreme and dangerous.

I don’t think other politicians in the same party as Trump or Johnson would behave in the same way. They would certainly follow the party line, but the behaviour of these men is unique to them. That’s why they managed to secure these top positions. Neither has the political background, but there was enough discontent with the status quo that a populist was able to capture the public imagination and unbelievably, their trust and votes. Politics at this level seems now to be more about personality and less about ability. Crazy.

Rather than put women on a pedestal, I think this article challenges the dominance of the traditional male in leadership roles. The author could have made it clearer that gender does not define the best leaders but character traits do. In my view, the traits of compassion, selflessness, honesty, self-awareness, humility and cooperation are key.

I can see where you’re coming from about equality in 2020. If we want equality, why are we highlighting the achievements of marginal groups? We need to do this because the scales are still tipped heavily in favour of the white straight male. We need to provide role models for marginal groups to show what is possible. Gender at birth does not in itself define your character and it should not define your life opportunities. We need to normalise that attitude, starting with parenting that allows children to develop in ways that feel natural to them. It’s okay for our daughters to have trains and dinosaurs and our sons to have dolls and teddy bears. Pink and blue baby clothes should be history. Why would we want to limit our children’s experiences?

While I don’t agree that “most people are decent beings”, I agree that they could be. This crisis has revealed people’s nature to be decent beings when they aren’t distracted by the material trappings and trivial problems of ‘normal’ life. It’s interesting that the people who are often invisible in society — our cleaners, transport workers, refuse workers, food retail workers as well as those underappreciated in healthcare, social care and education are now those we depend on day-to-day. I hope we emerge from this pandemic with a clearer idea of how we must value people, nature and the environment equally.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Akshay. What I love about @Medium is reading and sharing views and ideas. This platform is a place where everyone has a voice and is heard.