The Catch-22 at the Heart of the COVID-19 Crisis
Source: Democrazy Works
By Sandra Pepera,
t’s an extraordinary time, isn’t it? Women are leading the war against COVID-19. Women like the White House’s Ambassador (Colonel, Doctor) Deborah Birx, who is clear about her target audience (mostly folks like my three millennials); and Mayor Rohey Malick Lowe of Banjul, The Gambia, who has deployed a COVID-19 Sensitization Team of young women and young men across the capital; and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg who gave a coronavirus press conference for kids; and the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure (former Mayor) Patricia de Lille, in South Africa who is finding quarantine sites and recruiting 20,000 public health workers throughout the country. Their assured confidence in taking initiative, acting with resilience, and driving for results - all attributes which the Harvard Business Review scored more highly in women than in men - should not be mistaken for more competent leadership, it is more competent leadership. And like so many women worldwide, some of these leading women also bear the daily brunt of health-, elder- and childcare.
COVID-19 is the latest but not the last global pandemic, and it will require both health and political responses. Neither can be delivered efficiently or effectively, without the voice and agency of the millions of women and girls even now leading the global fight against this disease. In the words of NDI’s Board Chairman, Secretary Madeleine Albright, “women in power raise issues others overlook, invest in projects that others dismiss and seek to end abuses that others ignore.” Yet, the unprecedented number of women in the forefront is not enough.
Click here to read the full article published by Democrazy Works on 27 March 2020.
By Sandra Pepera,
t’s an extraordinary time, isn’t it? Women are leading the war against COVID-19. Women like the White House’s Ambassador (Colonel, Doctor) Deborah Birx, who is clear about her target audience (mostly folks like my three millennials); and Mayor Rohey Malick Lowe of Banjul, The Gambia, who has deployed a COVID-19 Sensitization Team of young women and young men across the capital; and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg who gave a coronavirus press conference for kids; and the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure (former Mayor) Patricia de Lille, in South Africa who is finding quarantine sites and recruiting 20,000 public health workers throughout the country. Their assured confidence in taking initiative, acting with resilience, and driving for results - all attributes which the Harvard Business Review scored more highly in women than in men - should not be mistaken for more competent leadership, it is more competent leadership. And like so many women worldwide, some of these leading women also bear the daily brunt of health-, elder- and childcare.
COVID-19 is the latest but not the last global pandemic, and it will require both health and political responses. Neither can be delivered efficiently or effectively, without the voice and agency of the millions of women and girls even now leading the global fight against this disease. In the words of NDI’s Board Chairman, Secretary Madeleine Albright, “women in power raise issues others overlook, invest in projects that others dismiss and seek to end abuses that others ignore.” Yet, the unprecedented number of women in the forefront is not enough.
Click here to read the full article published by Democrazy Works on 27 March 2020.