Should women run the world?

I received a message this morning from a friend – he is someone that I usually discuss politics and world affairs with – but this morning, randomly, he positioned the idea that for him, women holding power would lead to the world being a ‘better place because they are interested in social issues that improve life, not power issues that create wars.” I feel super lucky to have men like this in my life, who are thinking and saying things with a deep sincerity which translates into how they act and behave.

Immediately, I thought of titans such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was president of Liberia between 2006 and 2018, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace and the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. She is also the first woman to be elected head of state of an African country. She surely must be one of the leading lights. Alongside her would sit the likes of Diane Abbott, Mia Mottley, Angela Merkel, Lady Hale and Angela Rayner. These women and millions more like them around the world demonstrate that leadership is something women do and do well. There is also evidence that women’s empowerment and gender equality are aligned with peace and stability in societies – so it seems it’s a good thing for everybody?

People will argue that women are now moving into leadership roles more often than before; however, at the current rate, we will have to wait for more than 120 years before Gender Equality is reached. We must question, then, why it is not happening more often: why are women not being supported into positions of power and more widely propelled into leadership roles? Bigger brains than mine have grappled with this and would offer up the notion of entrenched gender bias (particularly when it comes to all the nuanced ways gender intersects with race, class, and sexuality), lack of role models, challenges of work-life balance in particular when there is an expectation that women remain responsible for caring for children and elders, and the lack of access to networks as solid reasons.

I have no reason to question any of these theories; however, what I am interested in is what we, as individuals, can do around what seems to be an intractable situation. The ‘what’ will be different for each of us and is likely, on occasions, to feel insignificant – supporting women and sharing what wisdom I have is what I have leaned into. Others may be able to speak out against inequality, fight for equal pay, create networks to bring women together, share the caring and domestic workload… The list really is endless. However, we must start with simply stepping up for ourselves – as the great Maya Angelou said, “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”