PANDEMIC DIARY

TURNING OVER THE REIGNS
May 7, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson (HCR), the historian and political commentator worthy of your attention, re-published her blog from “Letters To An American” on Mothers’ Day two years ago: “If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage.”

And, so it continues - carnage, destruction, pillaging, rape, bombing, sex trafficking, arms dealing, religious extremism - the origins of which have been variably attributed to “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (Jared Diamond) to Yuval Noah Harari’s projections on human development in the book “Sapiens” such as human’s capacity to imagine leading to beliefs (god, money, nation, and rights) that thusly lead to prejudice and discrimination (racial, political, sexual). To my observation, the only reality that all these arguments have in common is that the theories are based upon men acting upon men. Men who have established themselves as dominant, controlling, violent, quick to judge, impulsive, threatening and ultimately dangerous to themselves and the societies within which they prevail.

Mothers’ Day may have precipitated the thinking about its significance and meaning. However, Heather Cox Richardson has clearly framed a worthy argument. Women’s Liberation is simply insufficient to move the needle in favor of what Julia Ward Howe said, (President of The Woman Suffrage Association and who penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic), “Men always had and always would decide questions by resorting to ‘mutual murder’. “ With regards to the Civil War, “Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone know and bear the cost? ARISE WOMEN. We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands will not come to us reeking of carnage, for caresses and applause.”

It simply is no longer a generalization that men not only are not the best leaders, but appear to be on a path to the destruction of civilization as we know it. Currently, it is decisively clear that amongst the world leaders of the last half century, the most powerful, potent, useful and rational persons of importance in world politics have been women including Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway; Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia who received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Former Prime Minister of Denmark; Park Geun-hye, President of South Korea; Sonia Gandhi, President of India National Congress, who is advocating for a Woman’s Reservation Bill, “which seeks to reserve 33% of the seats in lower house of Indian Parliament to women.”

This may be a grandiose way of presenting a personal testimony to the necessity and value of women in my life, but also to the urgency needed to install more and more women in posts of power and influence. A 2021 article in Forbes Magazine states, “Over the past decades, scientific studies have consistently shown that on most of the key traits that make leaders more effective, women tend to outperform men. For example, humility, self-awareness, self-control, moral sensitivity, social skills, emotional intelligence, kindness, a prosocial and moral orientation, are all more likely to be found in women than men. Women also outperform men in educational setting, while men score higher than women on ‘dark side’ personality traits, such as aggression (especially unprovoked), narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, which accounts for much of the toxic and destructive behaviors displayed by powerful men.”

—Narcissistic leader are too focused on themselves to care about others.
—Psychopathic leaders are cruel and immoral, lack empathy and engage in reckless risk taking.
—Machiavellan leaders will engage in callous manipulation and exploit their charisma and social skills to take advantage of their followers.

Meta-analytic studies show that women “are more likely to lead democratically, show transformational leadership, be a role model, listen to others and develop their subordinates potential, and score higher on statistical measures of leadership effectiveness”. And, it appears that everyone knows these truths. In 1953 a Gallup Poll revealed a 66 percent preference for a male boss - today that figure is nearly at 20%. In her position as CEO of “20-First”, a global ‘gender balance consultancy’, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox points to “The mountain of evidence keeps growing. Women leaders outperform. Especially during a crisis. Companies with more of them do better. Countries led by women are managing the Covid crisis far better than their male counterparts.”

This may be a long way of saying that our future may depend upon more mothers and women and the next generation of young women participating and leading our political process in far greater numbers. We need women’s energy, wisdom, sense of community, intolerance of violence and vision. And, it is to women at large that I dedicate today’s blog.

I also confess, and without any external coercion, that were it not for Adele, our home would not be as warm, sane, and ordered as it is. Thank you for all your leadership.

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY.