The Day: Women should run the world, claims historian

Women of the world: A new documentary series explores the history of gender inequality © BBC

Women of the world: A new documentary series explores the history of gender inequality © BBC

Despite women’s liberation and the global rise of feminism, there is still a clear gender imbalance in politics. Which is odd since there is so much evidence that women would do it better.

If women were in charge, the refugee crisis in Europe might have played out a little differently, argued the historian Dr Amanda Foreman this weekend. ‘It’s not in the female make-up to stand there idly by while women and children die like flies on the beach.’ This, she said, is why Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has been most compassionate towards the desperate families seeking a new life, and has argued for a shared housing responsibility between nations.

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The Sunday Times: America, the land of unleaders, lets in a brutal new world order

Photo: davide ragusa

Photo: davide ragusa

RIGHT now, is there any American child who says: “Mom, Dad: when I grow up I’m going to be a leader”? Movie star, lawyer, software designer, maybe. But leader — as in the person who makes things happen — nooo. That’s not the American way any more.

Instead the United States has unleaders. They carry the seals of office but they don’t wield them because that would be problematic. To the unleader, anything that implies the existence of a vertical relationship bears the stigma of imperialism and God knows what else. Forget about driving, shaping, changing or simply taking responsibility for events. That’s 20th-century talk. Unleadership is a state of being rather than the act of doing.

It is not a new phenomenon. The average 19th-century American politician barely rated on the leadership scale. Aside from Abraham Lincoln and a handful of others, most US presidents before the 20th century were a sorry lot of party hacks and political hucksters.

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The Wall Street Journal: The Special Vilification of Female Leaders

Photo: THOMAS FUCHS

Photo: THOMAS FUCHS

Thirty-five years ago this Sunday, Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to be elected British prime minister. She wasn’t the first woman to be at the head of what had often been “Her Majesty’s Government,” of course, but only Thatcher had fought her way to parliamentary power via a general election. Standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street, she acknowledged the sexual and political revolution that had taken place. To her naysayers, Thatcher offered the famous prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony…where there is doubt, may we bring faith.”

During her 11 years in office, Thatcher repaid her Tory supporters’ faith, eradicating any last doubts that a woman could govern as well as a man. But her wish to bring harmony was in vain. Judging by the names she was called, Thatcher attracted a unique hatred among some Britons that was hard to separate from the fact she was a woman. After Thatcher’s death in 2013, a vociferous minority campaigned to propel the song “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead” to the top of the official U.K. singles chart. It stopped at No. 2.

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