Will you bugger off to play golf? And other questions more pertinent than pregnancy | Van Badham | Opinion
It only took seven hours for the new leader of the New Zealand Labour party to be publicly subjected to hoary stereotypes of sexist nonsense.
I despair that that’s unlikely to even be a record. But there’s Jacinda Ardern, 37 years old. Preselected unanimously and seizing the political opportunity of her life. The great hope of a party whose hopes have long been dormant. A young woman already with a reputation for international leadership ... reduced, on a radio broadcast to the question: “Is it OK for a PM to take maternity leave while in office?â€
It was in the context of: “If you are the employer of a company you need to know that type of thing from the woman you are employing … â€
Oh, Jesus Christ. Or any god, of any faith â€" preferably, a great, avenging thousand-breasted, snake-haired goddess stirring from the planet’s molten core â€" please, come save us. It is 2017 and a woman’s reproductive capacity is, just one more time, being pushed to the forefront of her consideration. No, actually, if you are the employer of a company you do not need to know “that type of thing†beyond that pregnancy discrimination is illegal under at least four New Zealand laws.
This preoccupation with the potential of a female leader’s womb is a long-held cultural fixation that in more primitive times, at least, could be ascribed to superstition, or â€" and even then somewhat shakily â€" to the demands of hereditary monarchy. In 2017, this reduction to biology is just plain creepy. Like being asked if you fear that your breasts will spontaneously lactate over a cabinet meeting, or sessions of parliament be interrupted by the inevitable horde of bears attracted by the scent of prime ministerial menstruation. Madam, your commitment to legislative reform is very sound, but are you not afeard your labia will indent upon the furniture?
Queen Elizabeth I did a dandy job of repelling conquest, invasion and the Spanish Armada unburdened by pregnancy or child-rearing. Queen Victoria ruled the widest empire the Earth has ever known, for decades, and gave birth nine times. The only obstruction to women’s capacity to lead is the willingness of those around them to accept their command. Seats of power really can be adjusted to accommodate differences in physicality; Franklin D Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, Winston Churchill was obese and John Curtin a chain-smoking alcoholic and yet their own democracies entrusted them to their leadership of nations during war.
What infuriates is that the messages about women in leadership aren’t even consistent. The first female prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, was maligned for her choice to remain “deliberately barrenâ€, as if it made her less likely to understand the demands of family life. Similar criticism has been levelled at the fearsome Angela Merkel and â€" the as yet, undefeated â€" Theresa May. As opposed to Hillary Clinton, of course, whose own political career was sidelined as she devoted dutiful years to the raising of a child, only for it to be implied she had grown too old to be president by those supporting a male opponent older than her and, arguably, not in such great shape himself.
Recent history suggests there are more pertinent questions for a media commentator to ask of a potential leader. Questions like, “Are you likely to bugger off to play some golf while your aggressive rhetoric provoking the North Koreans to believe a US invasion is imminent leads the world to the brink of nuclear war?â€, perhaps. Or “Will you lead Britain into a needless referendum on leaving Europe merely to satisfy internal tension in your party, and when your side loses, exposing the world’s eighth largest economy to structural calumny, will you stroll off humming?†Maybe, “Are you so incapable of commanding your party to accept a free vote â€" not even a binding one â€" on marriage equality you are literally considering making the legal right to marry something decided by whoever turns up on a mail-in basis?â€
To her great recommendation, Ardern soundly demolished her interlocutor with confidence and precision, dispatching both his question and his global reputation back to the darkness of the age from which it sprang. I’d vote for her, and I hope New Zealand does, too â€" if only for the world to be taught, just one more time, that one can choose to be pregnant or not, with no impact, negative or positive, on an ability to launch policy, prepare legislation, negotiate agreements and allocate resources to a citizenry.
There are certainly already legions of penis-bearing, bloviating nitwits who’ve been elevated far beyond their leadership capacity, with far less interrogation.
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