Women Who Seek to be Equal With Men Lack Ambition

Intelligent, sensible, caring, understanding, personable, genuine, loving, literate, compassionate, empathetic, honest, having integrity, hard working, incredible: these are just some of the positive character traits of two women who are very special to me in my life. I could name them and talk more about them, but I am not going to do that. Firstly, these ladies may get embarrassed by my talking about them, and you may not wish to hear about two special ladies who you have not up until now heard of, and will probably never get to know either.

Many of the traits mentioned above, I believe, are common with many other women of a similar age, and probably other ages as well. Why do I believe that? Well, any evidence I have is anecdotal, but it is evidence I have collected over the last twenty or so years. Up until two years ago, when I retired, I ran personal and professional development programs for post-graduate professionals. In my classes I had many outstanding students with positive attributes.

It has never been my full-time job, but photography has been, and still is, a passion of mine, and I have conducted many photo shoots for models and actors wanting to add to their portfolios.

Women have not been the sole gender with whom I have worked in any of my roles, but would encompass well over half of my participants. Yes, the remainder were men and also included some transgender participants and one who was self described as being gender-fluid. Of the hundreds of people with whom I have worked, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number I would not want to work with, or meet with, again. The overall majority have impressed me greatly. But looking at the attributes I have listed in the first paragraph above, I reckon the women are ahead of the rest.

Jacinda Ardern

Of the many women I admire, is Jacinda Ardern. She is currently the Prime Minister of New Zealand, and is the only head of any government in the world, in my opinion, to whom the fourteen attributes I mentioned at the start of this short story, would apply. I challenge you to list some of the well known male world leaders and see how many of these positive traits you could genuinely attribute to them.

At the tender age of only thirty-nine, Jacinda Ardern is the youngest world leader, and along with Angela Merkel in Germany, is one of the few women in the role.

What really put Jacinda Ardern on the world stage was her rapid and compassionate reaction to the white supremacist attack on a Christchurch mosque in March, 2019. Photographs of the Prime Minister dressed conservatively wearing a head scarf, comforting the Muslim mourners, appeared in papers and news reports throughout the world. Ardern said at the time, “We were chosen for the very fact we represent diversity, kindness, compassion . . . , a home for those who share our values, refuge for those who need it.”

Jacinda Ardern showed great leadership qualities by: quickly sharing information about the massacre whilst ensuring that the perpetrator received as little publicity as possible, reassuring the Muslim community that they were valued members of New Zealand society and that there was no blame.

Compare this with how you think some other well known male world leaders may have reacted.

Fifty lives were lost in this massacre, and Ardern wasted no time in getting New Zealand’s gun laws changed. The Christchurch shootings were a year ago. Australia had its own shooting massacre twenty-four years ago at Port Arthur in Tasmania. Following the Port Arthur massacre at which thirty-five people lost their lives, the Australian government under the leadership of the then Prime Minister John Howard, also introduced strict gun ownership legislation.

Firearm homicides in Australia before the Port Arthur shooting were already low compared with countries such as USA, but with our National Firearms Legislation in place, now twenty-four years later they are less than a quarter of what they were prior to Port Arthur. It is assumed similar statistics will apply to New Zealand following Jacinda Ardern’s intervention.

It is curious that there are thousands of deaths from shooting, many from mass shootings, in the United States every year, but the current President of that country seems to have no intention of getting stricter gun laws introduced.

But, I digress. Let me get back to discussing Jacinda Ardern.

Jacinda Ardern obtained her Bachelor degree in Communication Studies from the University of Waikato in 2001. Ardern is New Zealand’s second female Prime Minister. She worked as a researcher for the first Helen Clark, before going to the United Kingdom to work as a policy advisor for the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Perhaps Ardern is appreciated more internationally than she is in New Zealand. Her position of Prime Minister of that country is tenuous. She is in a coalition government which is in power with a very slim majority. It could very easily be toppled at New Zealand’s elections later this year.

However, if she loses the position of Prime Minister, it will not be the last that we hear of Jacinda Ardern. With her genuine dignity, grace, intelligence and diligence we are sure to see more of her on the world stage. At times of crisis she can make rational and fair decisions.

As one of two only female New Zealand Prime Ministers, she is also only one of two female world leaders who have given birth whilst in office. The other was Benazir Bhutto.

Jacinda Ardern’s leadership in New Zealand is truly the exemplar that other world leaders should follow.