I have a new role model.
Her name is Jacinda Ardern and, at age 37, she has become New Zealand’s new prime minister.
Ardern’s Labour Party won by garnering the support of three minor parties to overcome the conservative-leaning National Party.
As a millennial, Ardern ran on a platform that would resonate here, notably, the obligation to address housing needs, better wages, widening poverty and inequality and climate change.
Ardern’s relentlessly positive attitude that she would be unbowed by such heavy topics attracted voters.
As a teenager, Ardern was preternaturally aware of social justice issues and at 17 joined the Labour Party, where she became convinced that the best place to make a difference was in elective office.
In 2008, she was elected to Parliament where she has served ever since.
IT’S BEEN a sobering week for women in the United States where many have come forth about their experiences as victims of sexual harassment by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
I wince as they relate how being pressured for sexual favors — or worse — has eroded their self-esteem.
“I felt it was somehow my fault that this happened, that there was something wrong with me,” said Katherine Kendall, on Wednesday night’s Newshour program, about being accosted by Weinstein when she was 23.
“I was scared. And I think it’s important to remember that we don’t really come from a culture that supports women in talking about sexual harassment.”
Well, that’s an understatement, by evidence of our electing Donald Trump for president, despite his bragging about groping women.
And being on the other side of the world hasn’t protected Ardern from being cast as the weaker sex. In her run-up to the election Ardern was asked on two separate occasions by male talk show hosts if she planned on having children during her possible tenure as PM, inferring that, if so, she was not a suitable candidate. One went so far as to say such information is due any potential employer. (It’s not.)
Ardern kept her cool while letting the hypocrisy sink in.
I admire anyone who runs for public office, from school board to president of the United States, but I especially admire women because of the extra “baggage” they carry just by virtue of their sex.
It’s my hope that women like Ardern will keep breaking the glass ceiling, pane by pane.
New Zealand’s PM a woman to watch
