By Nethmini Medawala
Last week, Sri Lankan-born 32-year-old Cassandra Fernando was elected to the Australian Parliament representing the Labour Party.
She is an immigrant, who migrated with her parents when she was just 11 years old. She worked her way through and contested in a country that offers her no political patronage. Sri Lankans here are celebrating her victory, congratulating her and appreciating her for bringing glory to the motherland.
While I am incredibly happy for her, it begs the question as to why we don’t see the same support for women when they run for political office or when they become politicians in their own country.
From deliberate mudslinging to sexualising, demoralising, and demeaning female candidates before, during, and after an election using all available communication methods is not a new chapter in South Asian politics. We rarely vote for a woman as we are unsure whether she is ‘fit for the job’.
Should women leaders emulate men?
If being fit to become a politician equates to being loud, corrupt, violent, disrespectful, vile and simple-minded, that assumption will hold water. Contrary to popular belief, a leader doesn’t have to be a political strongman.
Although there is a great deal of public interest in ensuring more women become leaders, thereby reversing their under-representation in the ranks of power, too many suggested solutions are founded on the misconception that women ought to emulate men. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, writing to the Harvard Business Review, says: “The real problem is not a lack of competent females; it is too few obstacles for incompetent males, which explains the surplus of overconfident, narcissistic, and unethical people in charge.”
Countries benefit immensely when they have leaders who are empathetic and intelligent, respect and strengthen institutions, create an environment for dissent, respect the rule of law and justice, and prioritise the nation’s interest before their own. That is exactly the type of leadership we lack. As voters, we dream of a leader like Jacinda Ardern while eagerly voting for the ones who enabled the downfall of Sri Lanka.
In the midst of the current economic crisis and political turmoil in Sri Lanka, a new Prime Minister and a Cabinet of Ministers were appointed. By its composition, the new Cabinet seems to be an uncles’ club with little to no legitimacy. The nomination to appoint a female deputy speaker – at least as a tokenistic gesture – was fatally defeated in the Parliament, which too has less than 5% female representation.
When discussing female leadership in the corporate world, we come across the term ‘glass cliff’. The idea is that when a company is in trouble, a female leader is put in charge to save it. Despite how bad the situation is and though the chance of failure is high, women use it as an opportunity to prove themselves. Women are generally more aware of the feelings and aspirations of their followers, concerned about their well-being, and want to ensure the confidence of followers in their actions.
Avivah Wittenberg-Cox writing to Forbes says: “Companies expect talent to fight for power. That’s what men do. Women don’t. They fight for purpose. That’s why men sit atop the corporate world and women are now reaching the top of the public and non-profit sectors. Most companies expect women to play by the existing rules if they want to ‘get to the top’.”
Unfortunately, these rules women should play by are made to fit a world that thrives on patriarchy.
Are women better qualified to give leadership to a nation during a crisis?
Recent studies have found that states and countries with female leaders had lower Covid-19 infection and mortality rates. While it might not be the sole factor, women are likely to have coordinated policy responses – willing to make tough calls, such as issuing stay-at-home orders, and express more empathy for the well-being of their constituents. Most notably women leaders were more likely to ‘know what they don’t know’ and listen to trusted experts.
In a digitalised world where information travels faster, the expectations of leaders and their performance are discussed openly and publicly. Leaders in the public sphere need to exhibit the right leadership effectiveness traits if they want to perform well, especially as shortcomings are magnified during a crisis. The successful leader will provide direction, drive collaboration, and inspire others to give their best, which is precisely what you need to navigate a crisis successfully.
Camille Cottais in a commentary made on behalf of the Grow Think Tank in 2021 says: “Power, long thought to be neutral, is fundamentally gendered: the marginal place of women in democratic institutions is not random, but the result of both a conscious and unconscious exclusion of women in politics. The hegemonic masculinity and domineering leadership exclude women from power and maintain the patriarchal order. Women in politics are less listened to, are frequently cut off and their physical appearance is constantly commented on, judged and even mocked to discredit them. Compared to men, they must be irreproachable, they have no right to make mistakes. Politics thus remains a masculine institution, a social universe of men, in accordance with the preferential attribution of the public and political sphere to men and the private and domestic sphere to women.”
As of 2020, the worldwide parliamentary representation of women was at 25% and 51 countries out of 193 had more than 30% female representation in their respective parliaments. At the level of heads of state and governments, women account for just 10% of leaders worldwide.
Yet, Sri Lanka with less than 5% of women in Parliament still boasts about the Bandaranaike mother-daughter duo who reached the pinnacle of power after the assassination of their respective husbands.
Nankyung Choi in her article titled ‘Women’s political pathways in Southeast Asia’ explains the connection of female representation to their family dynasty in developing Asian countries.
The political dynasty literature focuses on elite women in Asia’s contemporary political history. Its underlying reasoning is that women’s political pathways in the region have been “historically distinctive and exceptional”.
In South Asia, “the most important political posts open to women have been so because of familial ties to prominent male politicians. So, patriarchal political culture does not pose an obstacle to women from privileged families.” Elite women politicians have exhibited a stubborn unwillingness to challenge the prevailing patriarchal gender ideology.
Average women succeed in navigating their way through their societies’ challenging, unfavourable institutional, and cultural settings in a variety of ways. There are several barriers that make women’s political participation and representation in South Asia extremely challenging. These can broadly be categorised to be gender-based stereotypes, lack of financial means, and wrongful perceptions of what a leader should be. Plenty of literature on the barriers faced by women has been made available over the past couple of decades.
While laws need to be brought to regulate campaign finances to give everyone an equal platform to contest, countering gender stereotypes should continue in full force.
However, the most important thing we can challenge is the idea that women need to emulate men. In fact, given that gender differences in leadership potential more often favour women than men, it would be more logical to ask men to emulate women (Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, 2020).
So, if we are lucky, we will get the opportunity to be led and inspired by an empathetic leader who leads the way to transform Sri Lanka’s destiny, during our lifetime.
(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law and a member of the Progressive Women’s Collective)
References:
- Avivah Wittenberg-cox, 'Data Shows Women Make Better Leaders Who Cares?' (Forbes, 6 March 2021) <https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2021/03/06/data-shows-women-make-better-leaders-who-cares/> accessed 25 May 2022
- Camille Cottais, 'Hegemonic masculinity in politics and the exercise of a patriarchal leadership: examples of Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron' (Generation for Rights Over the World, 13 August 2021) <https://www.growthinktank.org/en/hegemonic-masculinity-in-politics-and-the-exercise-of-a-patriarchal-leadership-examples-of-donald-trump-and-emmanuel-macron/> accessed 25 May 2022
- Cindy Gallop, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, '7 Leadership Lessons Men Can Learn from Women' (Harvard Business Review, 1 April 2020) <https://hbr.org/2020/04/7-leadership-lessons-men-can-learn-from-women> accessed 25 May 2022
- Garikipati S and Kambhampati U, “Leading the Fight against the Pandemic: Does Gender 'Really' Matter?” (SSRN January 12, 2021) <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3617953> [Accessed May 25, 2022]
- Nankyung Choi, ‘Women’s political pathways in Southeast Asia' [2019] 21(2) International Feminist Journal of Politics <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14616742.2018.1523683?needAccess=true> accessed 25 May 2022
- Rachel George, Emma Samman, Katie Washington, Alina Ojha, ‘Gender norms and women in politics: Evaluating progress and identifying challenges on the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Platform’ (Overseas Development Institute, August 2020)
- Zenger, J. and Folkman, J., 2020. Research: Women Are Better Leaders During a Crisis. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/2020/12/research-women-are-better-leaders-during-a-crisis> [Accessed 25 May 2022].