WOMEN’S EXECUTIVE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: JACINDA ARDERN AND ANGELA MERKEL
WOMEN’S EXECUTIVE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: JACINDA ARDERN AND ANGELA MERKEL

Summary/Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic offers the perfect opportunity to study how gender and leadership expectations influence the management styles of political state leaders in executive positions during crisis situations. This article tests the association between female leadership stereotypes and crisis situations by analysing the discourse and policymaking of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the peak of the pandemic (March-April 2020).Based on the social role theory, I start from the idea that women are stereotypically empathetic, nurturing sensitive and interested in the others’ wellbeing, while men are prevailingly assertive, autonomous, ambitious and dominant. By these predefined profiles, leadership is typically attributed masculine traits. Other factors introduce further difficulties: the existence of fields that are seen as either predominantly masculine (politics, economics) or feminine (health, education), and the perception that top hierarchical positions require masculine characteristics (positions in lower tiers being less sensitive to the gender factor).I test these arguments in a critical analysis of the political discourse of two female leaders. The main conclusion is that the relationship between gender and leadership is not stable, as Ardern and Merkel both displaced male and female attributes (steadfastness in decision-making, but also an empathetic speech).

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