Women's Leadership

Leaving women out of COVID-19 decision-making is not just bad for women — it’s bad for everyone. Research shows that achieving gender parity correlates with better outcomes in the pandemic overall, yet a new analysis found that only 3.5% of COVID-19 decision-making bodies have an equitable number of men and women. What does this mean for healthcare? We spoke to a panel of experts to find out.

Past outbreaks of diseases such as Zika and Ebola have taught us the same lesson time and time again: In situations of crisis, women’s rights and needs are pushed aside because they are seen as a bonus or privilege rather than a necessity.

The trajectory is always the same — women make up the vast majority of care workers and are also overwhelmed with informal care duties, yet their contribution to decision-making is lacking. According to recent research, only 3.5% of 115 COVID-19 decision-making groups across 87 countries contained an equitable number of men and women. 

Click here to read the full article published by Medical News Today on 4 December 2020.

Click here to listen to the discussion with the panel of experts.

With the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic top of mind for most of our leaders, economic recovery plans are being studied and analyzed by researchers.

As with any plan, success hinges on certain conditions being put in place. The one we consider most important is the gender balance in positions of power and influence within our societies. 

Gender parity leads to collaboration and a blending of visions, and paves the way for the adoption of more comprehensive and inclusive solutions than if they’re conceived from only one perspective.

A recent study that looked at the performance of 194 countries in their fight against COVID-19 found that women-led countries were generally more successful in fighting the pandemic than those led by men. However, it’s worth noting that there was already a balanced representation of both sexes in the countries’ key roles of power and influence, suggesting that leadership environments with gender parity lead to healthier, stronger and more consensual decisions. 

Click here to read the full article published by The Conversation on 1 December 2020.

If Joe Biden chooses a woman as his secretary of defense, he would send an important and long overdue message.

President-elect Joe Biden has begun to announce his intended cabinet nominees, and it’s an impressive and diverse group: his picks include an experienced African-American diplomat for ambassador to the United Nations; the first Latino nominated as homeland security secretary; and the first woman tapped to serve as director of national intelligence.

Mr. Biden has remained silent, however, about whom he might select as secretary of defense. For years, the betting has been on Michèle Flournoy, an under secretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration who is widely viewed as one of the nation’s top defense policy experts. But although Ms. Flournoy — for whom I worked from 2009 to 2011 — is reported to still be a leading contender, along with a number of other well-regarded women, there has recently been speculation that Mr. Biden may instead choose one of several men also said to be on his short list.

That would be shortsighted. If Mr. Biden nominates a respected and highly qualified woman as his secretary of defense, he would send an important and long overdue message — that the Defense Department’s old norms and biases were a disservice not only to women working in national security, but to the country.

Click here to read the full article published by The New York Times on 30 November 2020.

The boys’ club hasn’t gone anywhere, it’s just accepting a few new members.

To date, the Biden-Harris administration has named 17 women to top posts, some of them firsts, many of them contingent on Senate confirmation. Heading in the direction of gender parity in hiring has been regarded as another “audacious” Biden move, a turning point in the country’s history. The opening note of this administration is meant to portend a feminist future, even if it is headed by a white man in his seventies. After a primary that raised hopes that “America would end up with a revolutionary person in the Oval Office,” columnist Monica Hesse wrote in The Washington Post, “[i]nstead, we’ll end up with Joe Biden,” but “he still can be a revolutionary” if his Cabinet consists of at least 50 percent women. It’s not clear if the equality bar is set that low—a perfect half, nothing more—after the highs of the primary, or if it was always so slight.

If your political aspirations are mainly about getting a seat at the table, these appointments may feel worth lauding. But they are in many ways symbolic gains, a point that even some of those who celebrate such symbolism can accept. Their takeaway is that girls will see these women in these jobs and realize “they can do that, too”—not that they will also have the means to do it or that it will necessarily improve many other women’s lives. It’s a regression to the kind of individualistic, girlboss feminism we have been trying to pull away from but that still has a powerful hold on those who posit a commitment to “gender equality” largely confined to who holds the power, not what they do with it.

Click here to read the full article published by The New Republic on 2 December 2020.

Eight months ago, the tooth fairy flitted into New Zealand politics. During a national address, the country’s premier Jacinda Ardern declared that, although she was placing the population into a tight lockdown to combat Covid-19, “We do consider both the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny to be essential workers.” The video of her speech went viral. Was this just a piece of political theatre? Perhaps. But the humour, care and humanity it showed raise an intriguing question: have female leaders been better at rallying their voters to combat the pandemic than men? No doubt many readers will have their own views. And, as it happens, Covid-19 has hit the world when, for the first time in history, we arguably have a big enough sample size of male- and female-led countries to compare (this in itself is striking). If you look at the examples of female-led nations — New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Belgium (for most of the year), Taiwan and Scotland — the data is mixed but thought-provoking.

Click here to read the full article published by Financial Times on 2 December 2020.

The first female vice president, a Supreme Court justice and an incoming Biden administration with women in leadership positions — Sue O’Connell sat down with The Barbara Lee Family Foundation’s Amanda Hunter to talk about all of it.

Click here to watch the video.