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Progress
When it comes to mixing women with politics, New Zealand has always tended to be in fast forward. While we certainly didn't invent the suffrage movement, as ours was inspired by the British suffragists, we were the first country in the world to succeed in giving women the vote (in 1893).
And we got our first female Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, in 1997. She wasn't elected; she organised a coup to roll the sitting male Prime Minister. She wasn't particularly popular, but the sky didn't fall in either, and it meant that at the next election, the leaders of both major political parties were women. It meant we could skip some of the yapping knocking the idea of a female leader, but there was still some of that crap about nonetheless.
At the next election, Shipley's party lost and Helen Clark became the next Prime Minister. Clark is an exceptionally able politician (she was Jacinda Arden's mentor), which was reflected in her holding onto power for the next three terms. Despite her undeniable success in the job, there was still grumbling from some quarters about her. There were even suggestions that it was only fair for a man to have a turn. Yeah, right. Unfair. Eleven years of Helen and Jenny, compared to the century and half's worth of male leaders before that.
Skip forward to 2017. Our mixed member proportional voting system means that everyone's vote counts, but it does tend to result in coalition governments. Although the centrist-right National Party gained more seats than Jacinda Arden's Labour Party, to everyone's surprise a minor party chose to form a government with Labour rather than National, and almost by accident we had our third female Prime Minister. This time, I recall very little whingeing about Jacinda having the temerity to be a woman.
And then 2020. As well as everybody overseas falling in love with Jacinda, she had massive support from inside the country because of her successful approach to handling the pandemic - so much so that Labour received so many votes in our recent election that for the first time since MMP replaced first past the post, Labour got enough seats to govern alone. Coming up to the election, National had been in total disarray, with a string of leaders rapidly replacing each other. For the election they ended up with Judith "Crusher" Collins, a shall we say polarising politician. So once again we had two female leaders contesting the election. And this time, at last, that just wasn't a thing. At all. I don't think I ever even heard it mentioned. Personally I can't stand Collins and it was a great relief to be concerned only with her merits (or lack of them!) and not her gender.
Sometimes, it can feel like progress is immediately met by backlash so extreme you wonder if the direction of travel is actually backwards. So it's heartening to realise that sometimes that's just not the case. Let's hope that gets to be a much bigger trend.
And we got our first female Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, in 1997. She wasn't elected; she organised a coup to roll the sitting male Prime Minister. She wasn't particularly popular, but the sky didn't fall in either, and it meant that at the next election, the leaders of both major political parties were women. It meant we could skip some of the yapping knocking the idea of a female leader, but there was still some of that crap about nonetheless.
At the next election, Shipley's party lost and Helen Clark became the next Prime Minister. Clark is an exceptionally able politician (she was Jacinda Arden's mentor), which was reflected in her holding onto power for the next three terms. Despite her undeniable success in the job, there was still grumbling from some quarters about her. There were even suggestions that it was only fair for a man to have a turn. Yeah, right. Unfair. Eleven years of Helen and Jenny, compared to the century and half's worth of male leaders before that.
Skip forward to 2017. Our mixed member proportional voting system means that everyone's vote counts, but it does tend to result in coalition governments. Although the centrist-right National Party gained more seats than Jacinda Arden's Labour Party, to everyone's surprise a minor party chose to form a government with Labour rather than National, and almost by accident we had our third female Prime Minister. This time, I recall very little whingeing about Jacinda having the temerity to be a woman.
And then 2020. As well as everybody overseas falling in love with Jacinda, she had massive support from inside the country because of her successful approach to handling the pandemic - so much so that Labour received so many votes in our recent election that for the first time since MMP replaced first past the post, Labour got enough seats to govern alone. Coming up to the election, National had been in total disarray, with a string of leaders rapidly replacing each other. For the election they ended up with Judith "Crusher" Collins, a shall we say polarising politician. So once again we had two female leaders contesting the election. And this time, at last, that just wasn't a thing. At all. I don't think I ever even heard it mentioned. Personally I can't stand Collins and it was a great relief to be concerned only with her merits (or lack of them!) and not her gender.
Sometimes, it can feel like progress is immediately met by backlash so extreme you wonder if the direction of travel is actually backwards. So it's heartening to realise that sometimes that's just not the case. Let's hope that gets to be a much bigger trend.