UKC

An obviously awful tragedy, but it has shown how a female Prime Minister can show true leadership in a crisis, unlike some.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Whereas our equally female prime minister was about as much use as a biscuit space station after Grenfell. 

If that’s supposed to teach us anything I don’t think I follow what it is?

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Almost looks like some genders are better suited to some jobs than others...

In reply to Pan Ron:

What, like being New Zealanders?

In reply to Pan Ron:

Not really given the evidence here, it would seem given similar situations, the two women mentioned would show very different competencies.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Can I just clarify that my original post was meant to make the point that being female is no barrier to being an outstanding leader. I find it hard to see how it could have been read any other way.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

It just seems like a very odd statement. Why would anyone think that being a woman WOULD be a barrier to being an outstanding leader?

In reply to climbingpixie:

any sane person wouldn't think it would be a barrier. But I'd hazard a guess that there's probably a few billion people on the planet who think otherwise.

However, I think being human is a barrier to being an outstanding leader. In fact I think it's a barrier to being a decent human.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Not having a go, just explaining the other interpretation:

The idea that you even need to make the point suggests that that is even in question. ‘Isn’t she good, even despite being a girl?’ 

It’s kinda like when people ‘of a certain age’ say something nice about someone and drop in their race as part of the description. As a younger person for whom ‘perhaps we shouldn’t be racist?’ no longer counts as cutting edge thinking it stands out. 

In reply to mullermn:

Indeed.

Or even unnecessary mentions of a person's age.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Never underestimate the power of stupidity!

In reply to bleddynmawr:

Jacinda has been good in many ways, but her constant insistence that the recent events were caused by somebody from "somewhere else" -- NOT ONE OF US NZs -- concerned me right from her very first message.  She has been trying to distance NZ from the narrow-minded racial intolerance that she claims exists elsewhere but not here in our loving all-welcoming country.

This recent revealing article is a little more realistic and honest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-47632769/nz-shootings-comic-asks-s... 

Which references this:

https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/18-03-2019/this-is-us/

Anybody who has spent a significant period of time in NZ (particularly South Island) might recognize some of this.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The age reference was directly relevant to my illustration. It’s a simple fact that within the lifetimes of people still with us now, racist attitudes were entirely acceptable and commonplace. Not even necessarily malicious, but it was an accepted line of thinking that race was an acceptable thing to discriminate over.

Attitudes have changed in the mean time. A large number of people who have lived through that change of attitudes adapted their thinking, another group adapted their behaviour but not so much their internal thinking (which is difficult to do), and obviously some people fail to adapt to that sort of change and out of date attitudes persist.

The connection I was drawing was with the second group, who still pick up on someone’s race as a distinguishing factor when talking about them even if the topic is not race related. 

Younger people, who have the advantage of never having to grow up in a world where categorising people based on race was ok don’t do this. 

Sexism is going through a similar arc. Most of us have existed in a time where it has been quite acceptable to categorise people based on their sex. This has/is becoming unacceptable; the new perspective is that it should be irrelevant to the way you treat an individual. As a result, picking out someone’s sex when it’s not relevant to what you’re saying about them is going to be a quirk that a subset of our age group has but kids born now are unlikely to share.

The OP (whose comment was meant positively, I’ll repeat that I’m not having a go at him) didn’t mention any of the myriad other characteristics that NZ’s PM has as reasons to celebrate her handling of the issue - her hair colour, choice of leisure activities, education, car she drives - anybody would think you were nuts if you said ‘it has shown that a person with brown hair can show leadership in a crisis’.  Why is her sex relevant?

Try saying ‘it shows that white people can show leadership in a crisis’ and I think you’ll see the parallel I’m drawing.

ps, just to head off any comments from the hard-of-thinking, I am not saying old people are racist, or that young people can’t be. 

In reply to bleddynmawr:

In defence of the OP, whilst I agree that the sex of a person should not be relevant, in reality it is and is a live issue in many arenas still, and female leaders are less common than male ones. I know nothing about the NZ political scene, but assume that, as with every other country, it is male dominated. So one may argue that she has a harder job because of that.

I read it that the OP was celebrating this and highlighting it as a positive thing

much as we would like to get to a place where everyone really is blind to race, sex etc. we are nowhere near that at present, and to pretend that we are is unhelpful

In reply to dh73:

I can see the perspective, but I don’t personally agree. I think if you keep dwelling on the difference all you’re doing is perpetuating the thinking that (in this case) having a female capable of being a leader is exceptional.

I know my wife has argued within her profession against the creation of special women only versions of the various awards they hand out each year. Her reasoning is that it just prepetuates the idea that women can’t compete in the same space as men. 

In reply to mullermn:

I understand your point and agree with most of it except for this:

My experience of younger people is different from yours, I think. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Fair enough, obviously I can’t back that up with anything empirical. All I know is that in my experience the probability that a question like ‘how was your trip to hospital?’ will prompt a full racial profile of every person the responder interacted with (alongside comments about how nice they were) rises in direct proportion to which generation they belong to!

In reply to mullermn:

but this approach would only work in certain areas of life - such as the world of work - and not in every area.

Would our elite female athletes (of most sports, but lets take running as an example) be happy to compete in men's races? Presumably not as almost no women would ever win a race or come within the top 50%. With one or two notable exceptions, and all else being equal, men out-perform women in all sports (certainly those that rely to any degree on strength). The reason for this is obvious and due to biological differences. so when for example we applaud Paula Ratcliffe and say that her running times are exceptional, the unspoken sub-text is "for a woman." Her marathon times would not be  good for an elite man

I am not really sure what point I am making here, other than a blanket "men and women are entirely equal in every respect" approach is too blunt an approach. women are naturally better at some things in life than men - I don't have a problem with that and will just focus on those things that I am naturally better at. vive la difference

In reply to mullermn:

I can't back my comment up either, but I'd be interested in the outcome of the following:

take a group of twenty-somethings and, without signalling the purpose of your question, ask them the following:

"Who is Will Smith?".

If you are right, the fact that he is black won't be mentioned by the majority.

In reply to mullermn:

None of the 'old' people I know, including myself, have never done anything of the sort!

In reply to Lusk:

Well we’ve never discussed any hospital visits you’ve had so that doesn’t invalidate my comment. Seriously though, I am not trying to say ‘older people are all racist’ so please don’t take that interpretation from this thread. 

In reply to dh73:

Yeah, I agree. I think the dust has not really settled on this aspect of the discussion and society hasn’t really concluded what is acceptable to align to physical sex and what isn’t. 

Athletics is probably one of the clearest cut examples of where equality doesn’t work though, precisely because it’s designed to test the specific physical characteristics of a person that sex has a heavy correlation with. 

Leadership, which is basically an intellectual thing, is a lot more clear cut at the other end of the scale (I would think).

In reply to climbingpixie:

Really, are you suggesting there aren't many people who think this way?

I know there shouldn't be, but I'm pretty certain this is STILL a widely held belief, sadly.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

She's fantastic, from what little I know about her, I was a fan before this tragedy, but she handled it better than I could have imagined anyone could do, male or female.

In reply to The New NickB:

I should have added a smiley as there's clearly an irony-detection failure going on.

I saw a comment saying "this is why we need more women prime ministers" being retweeted by NZ's previous female PM as well.  Given all the views on how gender makes no difference to one's aptitudes to a role, it was surprising to see this kind of comment getting posted.

In reply to dh73:

It's a bit the opposite over there.  There has been a female PM (1 or 3) for more than half of the last 20 years.  The gender equality issue appears much less of a political issue than it is here.  The closest I can equate it to would be comparing the discussion around homosexuals or transexuals in Thailand compared to the UK.  The attitude in NZ is more of "big deal, not fussed" when it comes to the gender in politics.  In fact I think her election, pregnancy, and stay-at-home-husband, was more newsworthy outside of NZ than it was in NZ.

In reply to krikoman:

Of course there are still dinosaurs out there who think women aren't suitable leaders but I would hope that by now we can just ignore them, rather than feeling like we have to argue the point. By drawing attention to her sex, in the way the OP does, it legitimises that viewpoint and makes it appear that we still need to make the case that women can be good leaders.

In reply to climbingpixie:

Do you not think they we're just making the comparison between our female Pm and their female PM, we haven't had a lot of luck with female PMs (depending upon your standpoint) with female PMs in this country.

As for dinosaurs I'm not sure they can be ignored, and there are still plenty of them.

I'm agreeing with you in principle but not sure there still isn't a major issue, for women in the workplace.

In reply to krikoman:

The thing about dinosaurs is that eventually they die out. Do we want to model society on dinosaur-avoidance strategies or put more effort in to getting things right for the Paleozoic era (yes I had to look that up) when they’re not a problem?

In reply to krikoman:

I loathed Thatcher, but she was pretty effective in doing what she set out to do. You can't really say the same about May.

In reply to bleddynmawr:

She’s been amazing. Not sure how appropriate it is to use this tragedy to promote feminism though. 

For every JA there’s a TM. 

In reply to The New NickB:

It's a lot easier to push through your political agenda when you have a healthy majority. May forfeited hers when she called the snap election. How she must regret that decision.

In reply to Gone for good:

But she had the Daily Mail painting her as the new Thatcher. She believed her own hype, calledthe election and exposed herself to the electorate as barely human. Her lack of a majority is entirely down to her own failings.  

In reply to Gone for good:

Yes, of course being able to win healthy majorities was one of Thatcher's strengths. I feel like I must state again, I really loathed the woman.

In reply to mullermn:

That was my point, we shouldn't ignore them, we should call them out, but it doesn't mean they don't exist, in quite high numbers where I work.

In reply to The New NickB:

True on both counts

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I completely agree. Lacks empathy, no warmth, no attractive attributes, nothing that make you want to connect 

In reply to Pan Ron:

Also as a good pub quiz answer to have up your sleeve they were the first country to give women the vote.

In reply to yorkshireman:

Indeed.  Its a rather progressive country without really seeming to try.  Conversations with those on the right are as easy as with those on the left I've found.  Much more so than here.  Different history.  Closer to Scandinavia than the UK.

In reply to Pan Ron:

Probably to do with the total no if people, the education system and wealth.

looking after less than 5 million is far easier than 60 million plus. 

In reply to neilh:

I never get this numbers argument.  Surely there are economies of scale that make larger populations easier to cater for?  NZ needs one of everything, even for a small population, so is costly.  In fact it's a bloody expensive country fullstop.

In reply to neilh:

Why and how is it to do with the education system?

I don't feel very "looked after" by our prime minister!  I suspect I am far from being alone.  

In reply to Pan Ron:

So are the Scandinavian countries. NZ has more in common with those.

In reply to 1234None:

Exactly. NZ and smaller wealthy countries are probably easier to govern and run. 

In reply to neilh:

Not exactly.  I think the word "probably" indicates fairly strongly that this is opinion rather than fact.

To use the size of Britain as an excuse for our current PM's fairly obvious inability to act boldly, or compassionately, or show any true talent for leadership  (or all 3 simultaneously, as is often the case for the NZ PM), is a bit off the mark, I think.   I think it is more a case of personality of the leaders and several other factors (liberal capitalist country etc etc)  rather than the size of the country.

In reply to 1234None:

Precisely Well,said sir!

In reply to 1234None:

I do not disagree. But TM has a minority government and that is one of the reasons for her predicament. If not the main reason. If she had a majority of 50 or 60 , the politics would be different. 

It would have been the same if anybody else was Pm at the moment. 

Lets be real here , is NZ a major economy or political force like Russia ?

it is a nice backwater most of would consider immigrating to.nothing much happens that impacts on the globe. It is one of its attractions!

She has done an excellent job on managing this horrendous incident.

but comparing the 2 is like chalk and cheese. 

In reply to neilh:  TM was in a rather stronger position before she decided to call an election, so to a large degree she made her own mess to sit in.  And it is difficult to say that she's handled her dealings with parliament , her team, or the EU well or consistently, or with any sort of plan.

Luckily the EU are deciding for the UK now - so much for taking charge

In reply to wbo:

Reality is it is a poison chalice for anybody 

In reply to neilh:Yes.  But calling the election that she did within the two year time period, and losing a small but functioning majority  was a bizarre act of political self harm -  and absolutely her fault

In reply to wbo:

And at that point the opinion polls were in her favour.

She had technically at that time a very small majority I thing it was about 10/12 MP's.Do you really think it would have been any different now if she had not called an election , when for example the ERG have about 30 hard core members.

The divisions which have been exposed would have still been there.

As I said...it was a poision chalice for her and any other leader.And for labour its the same issue.