This article is written by Jossif Ezekilov, Gender, Women, and Democracy Program Officer at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Alan Greig, Co-founder of the Challenging Male Supremacy Project

The current Covid-19 pandemic has shown us just how wrong the persisting gender biases are when it comes to political leadership.

From Germany to New Zealand to Taiwan, women leaders have led the best responses to the pandemic, utilising an adaptive, informed, and empathetic style of leadership. This is in contrast to the “dominant” and “authoritative” stereotypically “male” leadership style that is still the norm in most societies.

To achieve equitable political participation, now needed more than ever, we need not only to eliminate these false gender biases and norms, but also the systemic power imbalances that these norms create. This requires men to step up and take practical action as allies to women.

Nowhere is this more true than in the political realm, where sexist power imbalances and misogynistic practices are both significant and impactful. Women are better represented in global politics today than they were 10, 20 and 30 years ago; however, there is still a vast gender gap in political participation. At the current rate, it will take 95 years to achieve gender parity at the political level. Further, even in countries where parity in representation has been achieved, it has not led to the large-scale shifts in gender norms necessary to realise women’s empowerment.

Man, we need you

Unfortunately, few men in politics actively work to challenge these patriarchal norms.

In fact, many leverage them to maintain their power and privilege. NDI’s No Party to Violence compendium report found that more than half of all women in political parties across three countries reported experiencing at least one form of violence perpetrated by members of their own party. Such acts are designed to silence politically active women and prevent them from meaningfully engaging in political spaces dominated by men. They also impact women from marginalised backgrounds, in particular, as evidenced in Brazil, where the 2018 assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco underscored the threats to politically active women who are black, members of the LGBTI community, or are from poor neighbourhoods or land conflict areas.

Even in the most progressive, liberal societies, exploiting sexist biases about gender is still used as a deliberate tactic in order to control political outcomes, This is most evident in the continuing rise of hyper-masculine “strongman” politics, whereby male leaders deliberately utilise and amplify such biases to gain political power and assert authoritative control. The continued appeal of such regimes serves as a stark reminder that the persistence of patriarchal norms poses a threat to democratic resilience and good governance.

Even if men empathise with the inequalities faced by women in politics, they are often reluctant to take action to address it out of fear of ostracism by their male counterparts

The current pandemic provides a poignant illustration of this. Countries with “strongman” leaders have generally addressed the pandemic by repressing democratic spaces, silencing expert opinion, and promoting disinformation leading to unacceptably high death tolls.  Even in non-authoritarian states, a lack of equitable representation and an inability of many male policymakers to recognise and prioritise gender inequality begets a “tyranny of the urgent” approach to pandemic response that neglects the disproportionate impacts to women and other marginalised communities. Whereas, due to their faster response and more coherent policy delivery, countries with women at the helm have reported far fewer deaths from Covid-19 — as much as six times below the global average.

While it can be argued that these success stories benefit from geopolitical advantages (most are rich countries with established social welfare systems, for example), it is hard to discount the leadership style of these women leaders as insignificant. Whether it is Jacinda Ardern’s human-centered response and reassuring addresses to the public, or Angela Merkel’s reliance on policy derived from diverse information sources, such actions draw a stark contrast to their Western male counterparts, many of whom more readily embodied stereotypically male leadership norms, to inferior results. Data on women’s leadership more broadly supports this notion. When women hold public office, they are more likely to prioritise public goods — community infrastructure, education and health — and expand political space for other women, minorities, and traditionally marginalised communities. As a recent McKinsey report noted, "parity is powerful," and the need for it is more apparent now than ever.

Ditching the “strongman”

Promoting the right, and indeed desirability, of equal political participation for all genders is an easy message to affix to a political slogan, throw into a speech, or write into an op-ed.

But it is much more difficult to put into practice in the political sphere, which is too often viewed as a zero-sum game to attain and maintain power. Even if men empathise with the inequalities faced by women in politics, they are often reluctant to take action to address it out of fear of ostracism by their male counterparts. How can we even start conversations with men to open up seats at the table for women, when the proverbial “old boys club” seems more beneficial to maintaining their positions of power and privilege?

NDI's latest manual — Men, Power and Politics — provides a new approach towards initiating this conversation, in an effort to transform gender norms and engage men as allies in closing the gap in political empowerment between women and men. It does so through targeted facilitated discussions on gender norms in politics with male activists, political leaders and civil society partners. Such discussions are conducted in partnership with local women’s rights groups, and as part of comprehensive efforts to achieve more inclusive political systems.

There is nothing that prevents male leaders from demonstrating the same level of empathy, coalition building, and inclusion that women leaders do — except the gendered stereotypes assigned from an early age to men and women

The approach, already piloted in several countries, provides experts in the democracy and governance field with the tools to create programs aimed at transforming the gender norms that presently underpin the gap in political empowerment between women and men. It does so by giving facilitators and program implementers the tools necessary to make male activists, political leaders and civil society partners understand their own disproportionate power and privilege, and the impact this inequality has on themselves, their families and their communities. These tools will also provide these men with an opportunity to examine how they can use their power and privilege to promote gender equality and inclusive governance.

The final goal is to create male agents of transformational change who will move beyond zero-sum political calculations to a recognition of the power of inclusive governance. Getting there is not easy, and requires continuous engagement with men to follow up on commitments made. By making men confront the reality of inequitable gender norms, and their harmful impacts not only on women’s lives but men’s lives as well, this approach provides an important platform for change. As men working in the gender field can attest, it is difficult to retreat back to the status quo once one realises that to do so is to participate in the oppression of half of the population.

The power of parity

Men should not support women’s political participation because they are some magic missing ingredient that can be sprinkled in to achieve better governance.

Women’s equitable political participation is a human right that all leaders have a mandate to guarantee. Further, there is nothing that prevents male leaders from demonstrating the same level of empathy, coalition building, and inclusion that women leaders do — except the gendered stereotypes assigned from an early age to men and women. However, doing so requires recognising and deconstructing the aforementioned patriarchal norms (along with other forms of systemic discrimination) that bestow political power as a male privilege.

Joining the fight to make politics more equitable is therefore not just a way for male politicians to fulfil their duties to their constituents; it is also a way for them to become better leaders as well. — Jossif Ezekilov and Alan Greig

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