Alternative Editorial: Burn Out Is A Function Of The System We Are In
Jacinda Ardern (The Atlantic)
We’re pretty sure many of you will have shared our shock and immediate feelings of regret to read that PM Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand suddenly resigned last Thursday, citing 'burnout' as the reason. In a world that has low expectations of 'politics as usual', we might have expected a happier ending for such a notable exception.
Ardern was known for her humane and wholistic approach to leadership. She made a strong impression during the Covid epidemic not only for her clear and consistent decision-making practice but also for her effective communication strategy. In the early days, this combination led to remarkably low rates of infection and death - in the single figures while other countries were in their thousands.
At a time when the whole world was experiencing lockdown, the shock of sudden, mass death and a rapid loss of trust in authority, Ardern stood out as calm, compassionate and competent. A year later she showed the same qualities when faced with a terrorist attack on a Christchurch Mosque. Again, understanding the power of communication, she donned a hijab, hugged the victims' families and vowed never to speak the terrorist’s name. "I implore you, speak the names of those who were lost rather than the name of the man who took them."
While such responses kept her high in global public esteem, her domestic popularity waned after Covid's first phase. Faced with the economic fallout of prioritising safety and security for New Zealand citizens, she was accused of being too restrictive of freedom and began to be the target of abuse for conspiracy theorists. Ardern’s failure to control the spiralling cost of living disappointed her loyal following.
Her energies were dissipated by taking more responsibility for foreign affairs which now required a clear line on Russia and China. All the while, having been the second head of state ever to give birth while in office, she had a large family calling on her attention. Going into a General Election while only at 33% in the polls she decided her party needed a stronger leader. In Ardern’s own words: "I no longer have enough in the tank".
It's been interesting and instructive to watch the global reaction. Amongst them, the BBC wrote a headline it later retracted: "Can Women Really Have It All?" became "Departure Reveals Unique Pressures on PM" - but the content remained the same.
Writer Tessa Wong pointed at the particular stress of trying to be a new mother and a national leader, asking if this level of work-life balance was even tenable:
Ardern has also had to contend with intense public scrutiny throughout her journey, from announcing her pregnancy just months after taking office to her decision to take six weeks of maternity leave, which sparked debate on whether it was too short... For a while, she appeared determined to tackle it head on... But in the end, it was the human costs of high political office she cited in the most emotional part of her resignation speech: "Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it's time," Ardern said, her voice faltering. "And for me, it's time."
Whether intentionally or not, the manner of Ardern’s resignation was very in keeping with what may turn out to be her legacy: the ongoing feminisation of politics. If that is the first time you've heard that term, see here for an essay by AG Co-initiator Indra Adnan introducing the municipalist term, coined by Ada Colau in Barcelona.
Distinct from a more familiar feminist strategy - aiming for equal representation in the power structure - the goals of feminisation are strategically qualitative too.
Here is Laura Roth, a leader in the municipalist movement from Barcelona in 2019, itemising 7 points of change towards feminisation, sourced from a Fearless Cities summit:
Gender balance: this should not only be making a visible difference in the public space through equal numbers, but internally distributing responsibility, including care, within groups
Power – how is it understood in feminism? Cooperation rather than confrontation
Leadership – should not be about the strongest
Care – this is not just about taking care of children or elders who depend on us, but also how we make sure that care is a consideration in all our relationships with peers. Take care of each other in everything we do. Always part of the political agenda. Also self-care.
Participation and democracy – decision making. Are we self-governed? Includes all the above
Diversity and intersectionality: looking at all forms of oppression.
Non-violence – all kinds, verbal, psychological, environmental violence are included. Whatever makes people feel pushed out of their rightful space
There’s a more recent piece from Laura, titled A Deeper Inquiry Into the Feminisation of Politics 2022. In this she describes how feminisation changes the experience of politics for everyone - not just for women - simply by taking away the barriers currently in operation. When you open up power to full participation from everyone, regardless of their sex, gender, ethnicity or formal qualifications, transformation of the public space occurs. When that space is fully relational and response-abled it comes alive with energy and possibility.
One of the direct benefits of feminisation rarely emphasised, even by Ada Colau or Laura Roth, is its effect on the lives of men. By creating a more open, emotionally literate and humane public space, men would be given the chance to see themselves differently too. It enables them to question some of the inevitabilities of their male lives - as fodder for the military machine; as deprived of emotional or relational lives; as having more access to violence; to end up in prison; as much more likely to be extremely alienated and commit suicide at an early age.
Here are current statistics for the 'cost of being a man today', shared on the Humanity Rising platform this past week:
• Being male is now the single largest demographic factor for early death
• Over 375,000 lives would be saved in a single year in the U.S. alone, if men’s risk of dying was as low as women’s
• If male mortality rates could be reduced to those for females, this would eliminate over one-third of all male deaths below age 50 and help men of all ages
• If you could make male mortality rates the same as female rates, you would do more save more lives than curing cancer
For most of us, an alternative political sphere would be hard to imagine. And Jacinda Ardern could not keep up her own attempts to model something like that for long in the current context. Those trying to be 'alternative' within the old system will find they can't be heard on their own terms. Instead they will be relativised by the values of the current system. They’ll appear as not strong enough, unable to succeed in growing the economy, too influenced by minorities, overly restrictive on the freedoms of those with power.
from Bloomberg
Yet the revolution Ardern points at is growing exponentially in society at large. Both men and women are validating the agency offered by developing emotional intelligence; they are seeing vulnerability as a source of strength and also radically shifting perspective on power itself. There’s less leading from the front and taking all the strain and glory: more leading from the side, alongside others taking responsibility for the whole of society together.
The more famous names are Brene Brown, Tarana Burke, Thomas Huebl, Bayo Akomolafe. But there are innumerable younger ones, on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok whose language is effortlessly capable of traversing the private and public spheres.
But how can this mode of agency expect to hold sway in the political sphere? We watched Scotland’s long-standing First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on the BBC’s Sunday talk show, interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg: two women at the height of their careers in an enduringly patriarchal public space. Both evidently succeeding in a man's world. Sadly they couldn't expose the dilemma which led to Ardern’s resignation, nor could they pick up the baton offered with her emotion-charged final speech. Instead, they chose to confirm the masculine metaphor that Ardern herself used, assuring the audience that Nicola "certainly has enough in the tank" to power on.
Given the continuing pressure on women to prove they have “the balls” to take on leadership, we can't blame Nicola and Laura for staying strategic. It's no compensation, indeed it can be worse, when men with much less to lose adopt a faux emotional language (famously Tony Blair) to appeal to the wider society. All of these leaders know they are facing a polity often much more attuned than they are to their inner lives. At the same time they have to the continue appeasing older, less agile, sensibilities, where power resides.
Which leaves us once again with the call for a parallel polis: a means for society to organise itself more effectively along the lines that the feminisation of politics describes. These are the (well-evidenced) ways that come quite naturally to people, when they are free to meet, build relationships and consciously plan the future. Open, humane, participatory, agentic, with a better impact upon the planet. What's not to like?