The other day I read an article about Mia Mottley, Barbados’ prime minister. The article was using her as an example of “a raft of strong women” leaders, across the Caribbean and South America. The article also concluded that the world could learn a lot from these women. True, but if you look into it deeper, you’ll find out that there may be something even bigger than that: Women are more fit to lead in the 21st century than men are! Read on.
There have been a number of world-class leaders in the 20th century that were female, and not from Central/South America: Golda Meir (Israel), Indira Gandhi (India), Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan), not to mention the illustrious Margaret Thatcher (UK).
Most of the female leaders of the 20th century ‘dressed like men’, meaning they left aside their female dimensions, and pretty much behaved like men. Since the years 2000, however, we are seeing female leaders that embrace their femalehood, the most illustrious of them being Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand (but let’s not forget Angela Merkel from Germany). Now, why do I say that women are more fit to run the world in the 21st century?
Well this brings me to a point one of my close family members once mentioned. She has this theory (or it may be a commonly known one that I did not know about) that over the 100 centuries or so that humanity has developed its dominant civilization, the division of tasks has been for men to go “hunting” to bring the ingredients of survival (which later became work and profession), and women spent time on societal and communal tasks.
Now when you look at it, hunting requires focus and single-mindedness on “success”. Consequently, men developed the instinct of carrying out limited tasks that require focus and were regularly rewarded with a catch, gold coins, a pay slip, as it evolved throughout humanity. Women, on the other hand, had to deal with a myriad of things, so they had to be open and flexible. We call it ‘multi-tasking’ now. On top of that, their challenges did not have a reward system like a catch or a payment, so they had to learn the art of subtle negotiation and discretion.
I think you get the crux of the argument now: the world in the 21st century requires leaders (political, business, community, etc) capable of handling multiple dimensions and issues simultaneously (and more and more quickly) and because of centuries of social conditioning and obligation, women are likely to be more fit to excel in this. So I’m ready to be led by women.
Paris, February 3, 2022
Zeejay