Opinion Jacinda Adern steps down, but can ordinary women afford to let go?
Ironically, critics calling Ardern 'frail' in dealing with her falling popularity fail to see her strength to take on new roles and write another chapter of life.
Ardern, unlike many women in positions of power, has never underplayed her empathetic spirit. (AP/File) 
As former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has shown, bookending a phase of your life through an honest admission that you might have outlived the utility of the moment, is the most courageous act there is.
Now, this is usually looked as a weakness or escapism in the power politics of our time, where leaders are known to congeal their aspiration with ambition. However, Ardern, by admitting that she has had a burnout at 42, that she doesn’t have “enough left in the tank” when she is supposed to peak, and that she is stepping back to simply enjoy being a “mum and sister”, has normalised that one conversation that women achievers find difficult to have. That it’s okay to be human, scream “enough is enough”, let go and prioritise self-love. That honesty can be owned proudly and without guilt.
Ironically, critics calling Ardern ‘frail’ in dealing with her falling popularity fail to see her strength to take on new roles and write another chapter of life. And who said choosing “family life” and being a “back-bencher MP” would make her any less of a woman or rob her of any contribution that she might make to public life in that capacity?
For far too long, many women have remoulded themselves to appear man-like on the job and have considered their naturally higher emotional quotient (EQ) as a liability than an asset.
Ardern, unlike many women in positions of power, has never underplayed her empathetic spirit. If any, that spirit has been her strength and defined her leadership. When she stood by Muslim migrants in hijab after the Christchurch bombings, she demolished Islamophobia as a faulty pillar of public leadership. When she imposed stringent Covid curbs, a decision that ensured New Zealand’s pandemic toll was lower than that of any other nation, she protected a vulnerable and small nation from being swamped. By standing with refugees after a volcanic eruption, by being the first world leader to give birth in office and minding her child in the middle of Zoom calls, she normalised her maternal sensibilities as tools of crisis management.
Ardern has now decided that after all the milestones she has achieved for the world to see, she could do with a bit of personal moments that would bring her happiness.
Yes, there was the dipping popularity, the housing challenge, rising inflation and a tumbling economy, but finding reasons for her failure is being churlish. Simply because she has withstood bigger challenges and the law of averages catches up with everyone. That’s why Ardern has chosen to step back, reassess her life and build anew instead of perpetuating the myth of success through subterfuge.
Most women in their mid-careers are trapped in this web of insecurity. They keep pushing themselves harder, pretending to fly on jet packs when they have none, for fear of being left behind, discounted, dismissed and disqualified. They live in denial in the world of make-believe. Truth be told, many cannot afford to be like Ardern, who can still mine her acquired privileges, afford to be ordinary after being extraordinary.
Hollywood is replete with examples of successful women who decided that they had given enough of their lives to role-playing in public and needed to feel free. Greta Garbo stepped down at 36 and lived to be a ripe old 84, content and private. But what of ordinary women who are not there yet? Can they afford to let go? Only an answer to that one can free women of their vicious trap.
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