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(Source: Newslaundry)
It has been almost a year since the first coronavirus case was reported in China. Since then, the disease has wreaked havoc globally, bringing countries around the world to their knees. As we complete 7 months since the imposition of lockdown, some countries have already successfully eradicated the virus, removing the need for any restrictions. Let’s look at the performance of leaders across the world in handling the pandemic. What is immediately obvious is that women leaders have outdone their male counterparts. We aren’t the only ones saying it, the research proves it!
Whether it was New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Germany’s Angela Merkel, or Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-Wen, all of them have been prime examples of how a country should deal with a pandemic. A study of 194 countries by Supriya Garikipa, of the University of Liverpool, and Uma Kabhampati of the University of Reading, found that “being female-led has provided countries with an advantage in the current crisis.” The study revealed that agile policy measures adopted in the initial three months of the pandemic in female-led countries saved nearly two times more lives than those run by males despite having a similar number of cases. It is important to highlight here that women were less willing to take risks with their lives, and more willing to take risks with economies. This shows that they might have had an economic downturn, however, a much larger number of lives were saved.
“Our results clearly indicate that women leaders reacted more quickly and decisively in the face of potential fatalities,” said Supriya Garikipati.
We see how, male-led countries like the US, Spain, Italy, Brazil, and the UK fared extremely badly in the pandemic, recording one of the highest death tolls in the world. While, women-led countries like Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, Iceland, and Finland recorded far fewer deaths and lower death tolls. However, we also need to note that not all women-led countries did well and not-all male-led countries performed badly. The Czech Republic and Greece, both run by men recorded lower deaths as well.
“Our findings show COVID-outcomes are systematically and significantly better in countries led by women, and, to some extent, this may be explained by the proactive policy responses they adopted,” said the World Economic Forum.
According to John Hopkin University’s Covid-19 tracker, Germany had more than 9,000 deaths while the UK had more than 41,000 till August 20th, 2020. New Zealand had 22 deaths, while Ireland had more than 1,700. The study argued that these results might be due to “the proactive and coordinated policy responses” adopted by female leaders.
To understand what these women leaders excel let’s look at some aspects. What makes a good leader? What did they do differently? Let’s look at what each of these countries did.
New Zealand
“It was time to go hard and go early.” remarked Jacinda Arden when asked about her policy decisions.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden imposed a lockdown long before cases began to spin out of control. The government was quick on its feet and communicated the rules to the public effectively, sending emergency text messages to residents as a warning before the lockdown. Moreover, the country also ramped up its testing capacity to 8,000 tests per day, one of the highest rates per capita in the world at that time.
(Source: Stanford University)
Bangladesh
By the end of January, the government of Bangladesh evacuated Bangladeshi citizens from China and put them in quarantine. Unlike other nations, Bangladesh adopted a tiered system of lockdown as cases started to be reported. It started with educational institutions, then non-essential businesses and services, while others were asked to expand their online services.
Germany
Angela Merkel, a scientist herself adopted providing weekly data-driven updates to the public in order to instill confidence in lockdowns and also deployed a handful of prominent scientists to communicate with citizens to weed out rumors and misinformation. Germany started freeing up intensive care beds and pushed back elective surgeries as early as the beginning of March. Thus the hospitals in Germany were not overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients and people from neighboring countries like Italy and Spain were also treated there. The Government also instilled a live-dashboard of all available ICU beds in hospitals countrywide.
Denmark
Denmark went into a lockdown on March 12, it was one of the first European countries to partially open its society way back in May. Public gatherings were limited to 10 people, the workforce was told to stay home and educational institutions, restaurants, and borders were still shut. There was also a ban imposed on events and festivals until September.
Janne Rothmar Herrmann, a researcher pointed out that Denmark made major changes in the Epidemic Act, transferring power from the regional Epidemic Commissions to the Health Minister. The Minister was authorized to access a person’s home with police assistance without a prior court order, “He was also entitled to use police assistant to isolate, examine or treat a person who is infected or believed to be infected.”
(Source: The Conversation)
Taiwan
Even though Taiwan has close proximity to China, where the outbreak first appeared, Taiwan turned out to be a model in the fight against Coronavirus. Till 20th August, Taiwan had only 486 infections and 7 deaths for a population of 23 million in comparison to the state of New York - with slightly fewer people - which had more than 5.5 million cases and more than 32,500 deaths.
Taiwan began implementing the onboard quarantine of direct flights from Wuhan as early as December 31st, 2019. They established a response team for the disease and activated the Central Epidemic Command Center, and to cater to the increasing demand for masks, the government introduced maps with real-time updates about mask inventories nearby. Another thing that significantly aided Taiwan’s response to the pandemic was the digitization of healthcare records of its citizens. Health officials harnessed this data to send alerts to doctors about patients at higher risk of Covid-19 based on their travel histories.
Does Gender Really Play a Role?
Well, it is difficult to say either yes or no. But what we do see is that gender plays an important role in how policies are made and implemented. We’ve rarely seen the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump ever wear a mask. He has complained about Governors imposing lockdowns, asking them to reopen businesses. However, a conservative journalist, David Marcus argued in an article that he was “projecting American strength.” If Mr. Trump were to wear a mask, it would be a signal that the US is so powerless against the invisible enemy sprung by China, that even its President is hiding behind a mask. Medical accessorizing is generally not seen so crucial to great-power conflict, however, Mr. Marcus’s analysis is quite in line with the idea of the “strong American leader”, one who projects power, acts aggressively, and above all shows no fear, thereby cowing the nation’s enemies into submission.
Source: The Guardian
However, this has often acted as a barrier for women in politics. “There is an expectation that leaders should be aggressive and forward and domineering. But if women demonstrate those traits, then they’re seen as unfeminine. It makes it very difficult for women to thrive as leaders.” said Alica Evans, a sociologist at King’s College London who studies how women gain power in public life.
Even the former President of the United States of America, Barack Obama said that he was “absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything.”
We also see how the policies of men are likely to lead in a “task-oriented” style and women in an “interpersonally-oriented” manner. Women, therefore, tend to adopt a more democratic and participative style and generally have better communication skills.
This has been in evidence during this crisis in the decisive and clear communication styles adopted by several women leaders, whether it be Norway’s prime minister Erna Solberg speaking directly to children or Ardern checking in with her citizens through Facebook lives.
Despite strong patriarchal bias in institutions, we see that most women-led states have done comparatively much better than states led by men because of their timely, strategically, and inclusive approaches. Timely intervention and an emphatic approach over a strongman approach during these uncertain times have proved to be effective in combating the virus and saving countless lives. However, we cannot ignore the fact that there are a lot of male leaders who too adopted phenomenal approaches in tackling the pandemic.
Aanya Wig is a B.A. (Hons.) History student at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is currently working as the Campus Coordinator with The Jurni, a London-based Travel and Culture Magazine, and has previously worked as a journalist with The Quint. She is also the founder of Aghaaz & Girl Up Rise, two student-led social entrepreneurship projects to empower women.