Opinion Nicola Sturgeon, Jacinda Ardern, and a broken public square

In less than a month, two prominent world leaders — Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand and Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister — resigned from political office. While the discussion around the local political contexts of their departures will continue, the similarity in the reasons both leaders have cited will find resonance in much of the world, especially among women in public life. Both Ardern and Sturgeon have cited exhaustion (“nothing left in the tank”), the need to step away from constant scrutiny and have a private life for their resignations. They have also hinted at how “dehumanising” being a woman in public life can be.

It is both easy and disingenuous to dismiss these concerns — to argue that being in the spotlight invites criticism and censure. For women, particularly in the age of social media, abuse, threats of violence and even death threats are disturbingly commonplace. Would there be more women politicians in India, for example, if they were more likely to be judged on their actions and words, that criticism did not descend into abuse? A cursory look at how women leaders who are vocal are treated in the public square — on digital and analogue public squares — perhaps provides an answer. It is almost as though being in public life subjects you, sine qua non, to the mob.

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The fact remains that women, minorites and the marginalised are reduced to their identity, despite their achievements. That heads of governments are not immune to the vitriol that has permeated public life is certainly cause for despondency. Sturgeon and Ardern both said that they were quitting because they felt they could no longer commit so completely to the life of a political leader. In that perhaps, there’s hope. Perhaps other politicians, so many of whom cling to power for its own sake, can learn from that kind of work ethic.