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Don’t ask whether women are better leaders, ask when women leaders will be the norm

Thursday March 22 2018
women

Women of strength: American media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel (right). PHOTOS | AFP

By ELSIE EYAKUZE

This year it was a happy event to observe International Women’s Day from the sidelines — because if you bring it up the week after, that means you got to celebrate it for at least two weeks in a row!

By the tone of celebrations around this year’s International Women’s Day, it could be gaining traction around the world, a trend that I hope will only go from strength to strength. Speaking of strength: Oprah Winfrey and Angela Merkel.

There is a long-standing debate about gender and leadership, with the question being, “do women make better or worse leaders than men?”

To be honest this question is a terrible one for two reasons: It entrenches the idea of gender as binary and emphasises the need to focus on the differences between men and women, real or constructed. And we really don’t have a reasonable way to answer that question since, for all intents and purposes, women would have to be over-represented in leadership for at least two millennia before we could make a reasonable comparison.

That said, as Angela Merkel wins her fourth term as Chancellor of Germany, I stand somewhat conflicted.

She is a formidable leader and the kind of woman any parent can point out to their children and say: See, that’s what awesome looks like. However, a fourth time? That’s my beef with her.

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Where do my arguments about term limits go when Merkel, our fearless Chancellor... is hanging around for a rather longish time? She has been through about five French presidents by now. In African terms, that roughly translates to how Dennis Sassou-Nguesso has been through roughly four Congo-Kinshasa presidents.

In an era where popular and unpopular autocracy is on the rise, even we feminists must be vigilant against the need for a Forever Leader of any kind. Even if she’s single-handedly rocking the box-cut female suit with frumptastic aplomb.

Oprah

What about Oprah, you ask? There is literally only one person in the world who can get away with putting themselves on the cover of their own magazine named after themselves and not come across like a complete lunatic.

She isn’t really a person at this point so much as a phenomenon, and the very epitome of deep-voiced wisdom in an era of almost cartoonishly bad world leadership.

However, this thing about Oprah running for president? Whoa. A singularly bad joke to make. The last time people cracked jokes about a celebrity getting into the White House, President Donald Trump happened and now we’re all suffering the consequences.

Presidents should be celebrities, like Obama. Celebrities should not be presidents, like You Know Who.

If anything, the female leadership that has been most inspiring to witness this year has been very grassroots. Tanzania is currently engaged in a rather fierce debate with herself about what the immediate future looks like.

It is a nuanced debate that has so far managed to slip and slide its way past the clutches of tribal politics and partisan capture and whatnot. It is a highly collective, diverse and participatory movement and at its core it is extremely feminine.

I say feminine because so much of the instigation and more importantly the incubation of this moment in our history has come from women. Who are quietly and not so quietly being competent at it.

When the moment passes and men try to put their faces on the front page of history, again, I will be happy to sit back and remind them that nope. Not really. The importance of women in politics is part of the emergence, the subtlety, the daring.

There is a long-standing debate about gender and leadership, with the question being do women make better or worse leaders than men? It is a moot point, but if you press me I think the answer would be: Yes. Happy women’s day, week, year, life.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. E-mail: [email protected]

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