Women lead many of the nations dealing best with coronavirus – proof a level playing field can help us all

Women leaders can and should come with a variety of politics, abilities and styles – just as men do – but if they are the best candidate they should be given a chance

When it comes to coronavirus, what’s the difference between the US and New Zealand? Or the UK and Germany?

Their responses to the crisis have been at variance, with New Zealand pursuing a – so far – successful elimination strategy, including very strict lock down conditions, while Germany has ramped up testing, numbers of critical care beds and levels of PPE.

Meanwhile, both the UK and US were seen to meander their way to social responses, testing is getting almost nowhere and levels of PPE in both countries are troublingly low – putting frontline healthcare workers at risk and almost certainly causing unnecessary deaths.

So why have the responses been so different? Some have argued that the difference is the countries that are doing best on defeating the coronavirus outbreak are led by women and that women’s unique leadership style is what matters when it comes to this crisis.

I’m not so sure. Women do tend to have a different leadership style. But this doesn’t come from biology, but from socialisation. Girls are treated differently from before birth and – of course – this affects the ways in which they interact with the world and people around them.

Women and men may be socialised to have different leadership styles, but that doesn’t mean that women are magical maternal creatures ready to heal the world with all the PPE they keep in their special lady places.

Yes, Jacinda Ardern is an excellent communicator and Angela Merkel has long been known as “mutti” (German for mummy) and seen as the benevolent matriarch steering Germany through this and many previous crises with a calm, maternal air.

But the truth is these women are also steely and determined politicians who had the ambition and drive to get to the top of their profession. The other truth is that they did so in countries where their sex didn’t ultimately stop them from doing so.

In the UK, it’s true we’ve had two female prime ministers. But the last time we elected one with an actual majority was 33 years ago. The second spectacularly lost the majority her male predecessor had won. Admittedly, that was in a campaign so incompetent that I shudder to think what her leadership would be like in this crisis. But that’s the point. May’s XX chromosomes didn’t imbue her with special powers.

However, the question is more interesting when turned on its head. What is it about Germany and New Zealand that hasn’t been true about the UK and the US? They have been willing to look past a person’s sex, to elect the most competent candidate. Has that happened elsewhere?

While in the UK, the choice at the last election was between two men, the most stark example of this not happening is in the United States.

The difference in pitches offered between the technocratic, qualified, experienced Hillary Clinton and the erratic, charismatic and deeply out of his depth Donald Trump was stark. The failing of Donald Trump as this crisis took hold in America has cost lives. Not even the most fervent of Hillary-haters can believe she would have approached this pandemic in the same way. There are people dead today because America couldn’t see past its prejudices about Clinton to elect her.

Women leaders can and should come with a variety of politics, abilities and styles – just as men do. Just as there is a gulf between the leadership styles of Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump, so too there is a world of difference between Jacinda Ardern and Angela Merkel.

But what matters is not the gender of the leader but the ability of the country to elect the best candidate – whatever their sex. It is not femaleness that has mattered to New Zealand and Germany, but their ability to see, recognise and value the competence of their female leaders.

Even a slightly more level playing field between the sexes in the approach to the qualities being looked for in leadership has led to significantly better outcomes. Not because they elected women, but because they didn’t actively choose not to.