Time to recharge the batteries as Jacinda Ardern steps down

This article is written by Randi Davis, Senior Regional Advisor, Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNDP.

The views and opinions expressed here are my own and not the views of my employer.

Last week when Jacinda Ardern stepped down it quickly became a trending topic on social media, some expressing their shock and some in awe of her willingness to call it quits after five years in leadership. To me, it was just another demonstration of her rare, authentic leadership qualities–a willingness to demonstrate humility and accept that she “just didn’t have enough in the tank” to meet her own expectations. Notwithstanding the disappointment many of us feel, one can only contrast her actions with those of the many leaders around the world who cling to power for decades, putting their ego ahead of the needs of the people they serve.

Ardern’s decision has caused a vibrant debate on social media around the gender-based harassment she faced, whether we expect more of women in leadership and whether women leaders expect more of themselves. For me, it was a call to reflect on the state of women’s leadership and gender equality in an effort to understand what we need to do differently in the future to ensure there are more Jacinda Arderns across all spheres of society.

While progress has been made in the past decades, there is a lot more work to be done. Today, women leaders, like Ardern, are breaking all sorts of ceilings. Finland’s young Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, once vilified for dancing at a party, spoke with confidence at Davos to the security threats facing her country, while Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke about how finance can be used to advance foreign policy. However, despite outstanding women like these, the fact is that only 13 countries have a woman Head of State (15 Head of Government) and only 21% of government ministers are women.

The reality of progress is even worse if we look at women’s participation and presence in the economic sphere. According to Pew Research, the share of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies reached “an all time high" of a whopping 7.4% in 2020. Wealth remains largely concentrated in the hands of men; look at who the richest people in the world are, or at the recent data by the World Economic Forum which demonstrates that working women accumulate approximately 74% of the wealth men do upon retirement. These likely highly underestimate a global reality where so many women don’t figure in formal statistics due to their predominance in the informal labour market and the fact that a lot of the work they do is unpaid. Furthermore, it doesn’t account for the accrued loss resulting from the backslide in women’s labour force participation resulting from the pandemic. In the US alone, I have seen figures indicating that somewhere between 1-2 million women are still missing from the workforce.

My mentor, Under Secretary General Winnie Byanyima, talks about ‘dignity poverty’ which many women face in all forms and contexts. For far too many, this comes in the form of gender-based violence in the home, workplace and in the public sphere. And infuriatingly, too many women are seeing an erosion of the basic rights they once enjoyed, such as rights to education or to make decisions over what they wear or do with their own bodies.

Where does this leave us women’s rights advocates today? Our tank is running out too. Even when we make small gains, they are fragile and hard to sustain. We need new strategies based on shared values that unite people across geographical and ideological causes. We need to use our unified voice to counteract our disadvantaged political and economic status and be laser focused on strategies that bring about sustained institutional and behavioural change. This includes supporting leaders who will use their position to level the playing field for those who have been historically discriminated against–bold leaders who are ready to move us into the 21st century, not back to the 19th.

This isn’t the time to give up–the stakes are way too high! And fortunately, today we have more people fighting for their rights than ever before. We also have a host of solutions that are tried and tested. More importantly though–we have a crop of fearless young people who are fighting for the elimination of discrimination in all its forms and as Greta Thunberg has shown us, they are ready to speak truth to power. It’s time for the rest of us to recharge our batteries, think outside the box, mobilise behind them and be uncompromising in our demands. We may not have the financial wealth behind us, but together, we have power in numbers and the future on our side.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)