Women's Leadership

Downing Street has not used a female minister to lead its coronavirus press conference for more than six months, a tally by the Guardian has found, prompting accusations that Boris Johnson does not value the women in his team.

It has also emerged that the government has sent out no female minister as its main representative on the regular morning round of TV and radio interviews for five weeks – and has done so only once in the past two months.

Johnson has previously been accused of overseeing an “incredibly blokey” government, with the ministers and aides he most relies on being almost exclusively male – which critics say can affect perspectives on policy decisions. Of 20 cabinet ministers under Johnson, 15 are male.

Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 16 December.

It has been an unrelenting and rough year. We have faced a global pandemic that has sickened millions and caused over 300,000 American deaths, a national reckoning over systemic racism and racialized police violence, destructive wildfires and hurricanes linked to the climate crisis, and the pandemic causing economic devastation with record levels of unemployment, thousands of small businesses to close, hundreds of thousands of women to leave the workforce and worsening levels of food insecurity—and all of these factors have disproportionately affected women and people of color.

If we try to find a silver lining in all of this, it could be that these crises have dramatically exposed the many flaws, cracks and inequities in our systems, giving us a rare opportunity to rebuild in a way that creates new paradigms and values and cares for all members of society equally, as well as the earth.

I spent 2020 interviewing a diverse group of female thought leaders who shared their insights and expertise on where we must focus our efforts to ensure the world that emerges post COVID-19 is more just, sustainable and equitable. I went through these interviews and selected a small sampling to help illuminate the work ahead. There is no question that women, and particularly women of color, will need to be at the forefront to help lead the way.

Click here to read the full interview published on 15 December by Forbes.

By Jane Dudman,

What do Erna Solberg, Sanna Marin, Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Mette Frederiksen have in common apart from all four being female prime ministers (of Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark, respectively)? The answer is that their countries have much lower rates of Covid-19 infection than male-led neighbouring nations such as Ireland, Sweden and the UK.

Are those facts connected? There’s a growing body of evidence to suggest they may be.

Click here to read the full article published by The Guardian on 16 December.

In her speech after being declared vice president-elect, Kamala Harris repeated something her mother Shyamala said: “You may be the first to do many things, but make sure you are not the last.”

When she’s inaugurated on January 20, 2021, Harris — who already made history this year as the first woman of color nominated for vice president by a major U.S. party — will be the first Black American, the first Indian American, and the first woman to serve as the second-most-powerful person in the country. It’s a remarkable and significant milestone in our politics, but being The First should be neither a defining nor potentially damning characteristic of her tenure.

On the campaign trail, Harris often said her candidacy was about convincing voters of “what can be, unburdened by what has been.” As she joins Joe Biden as his governing partner, the political press corps tasked with covering their administration must not burden her with the weight of history.

Click here to read the full article published on 29 December by Nieman Lab.

Denouncing sexual violence, demanding abortion reform and destigmatising sex work –- once-taboo issues are finding public expression in Thailand as women take up leadership roles in a youth-led pro-democracy movement.

On the protest frontlines, they are urging for gender equality in a kingdom where workplaces and politics are still dominated by men.

On the night police tried to stop protesters from marching to the Thai parliament, activist Chonticha Jangrew remembers rallying them to push past the barricades.

“We cut the barbed wire, we approach the parliament as close as we can. We won’t back down,” she recounts herself saying during the November rally.

Click here to read the full article published by Hong Kong Free Press on 27 December 2020. 

In situations of crisis, language and communication matter — particularly at the highest levels of political leadership. But do men and women use language differently when they are in positions of power? A new study sets out to investigate, and MNT spoke to its authors about the implications of their research for global health policy.

Recently, there has been much discussion in the media about gender imbalance in the COVID-19 response.

Journalists and scientists alike have drawn attention to the unequal representation in decision-making bodies, the social impacts that disproportionately affect women or pose unique challenges for transgender people, and heightened effects on other marginalized groups.

In this context, a team of researchers set out to analyze another interesting aspect of COVID-19 politics through the lens of gender: political discourse.

The study found that, although all leaders talked about the economic impact of the pandemic, “women leaders spoke more frequently about the impact on a local or individual scale.” 

Furthermore, women leaders described more often “a wider range of social welfare services,” such as those tackling “mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence.”

Click here to read the full article published by Medical News Today on 23 December 2020.