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It is with great sadness that I must report the departure of the world’s only female head of state who is as fit as a butcher’s dog, Sanna Marin of Finland. Sanna’s Social Democrats – plus her allies in various awful left-wing parties – have seen their votes slump as the Finns turn to the right, meaning that the country’s next leader is likely to be a white male in lateish middle age with bad breath — same ol’, same ol’, etc.
Sanna was a kind of progressive Scandi’s wet dream: raised by lesbians and thus from a “rainbow family” (as she put it), the thirty-seven-year-old is also a vegetarian — in a country where almost all vegetables are illegal. Her attractive appearance and rather racy image — she enjoyed “partying” and sometimes didn’t wear many clothes, plus there were exciting drug allegations (which she denied) — briefly cheered up a nation with one of the highest suicide rates in Europe. But now she is gone.
Women have been responsible for everything good that has happened in the world, and none of the bad
Four years is pretty much the maximum any country, except Canada, can take of unrelieved wokery. When Sanna was selected back in 2019, a thesis began to gain ground that although the world was a singularly dreadful planet on account of humankind, women — who have been responsible for everything good that has happened in the world, and none of the bad — would sail in to save us all. Liberal commentators cited the accession of Sanna as evidence for this, and pointed to similarities with Our Sainted Lady the Blessed Jacinda Ardern of the mysterious hermit kingdom New Zealand. They also nodded in the direction of Scotland, where Nicola Sturgeon had strode the political stage like a very small colossus since metaphorically bumping off Alex Salmond in 2014. These were all very much left-of-center women and although there were really only ever three of them, they were sufficient to provide a template for what would happen in the world, as far as the left was concerned. Populism — a nasty, right-wing, male thing — was at last in retreat. The developed world was being feminized and only good could come from it. Now all three have gone.
Still, last month the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, based at King’s College, London, touted a report which showed how much better the world was when countries were led by women rather than by men. For example: “Women policy-makers prioritize issues that benefit the most vulnerable in society, such as healthcare, welfare and education. As such, more women leaders seem to make for more equal and caring societies; women may be more likely to focus on these issues because they have greater experience of deprivation, and because they are often responsible for caring for others.”
Cool, no? The report also suggested that women leaders were more or less immune to corruption (and I swear I could see Imelda Marcos, Benazir Bhutto and Michelle Bachelet of Chile nodding in agreement with this) and less likely to commit human rights abuses (which, in my mind’s eye, brought a cheer from the lips of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina). So far as I can tell, this whole report was about as empirical as a tweet by Gary Lineker, but perhaps the authors were more interested in simply recording their own “lived experiences” and “personal truths.”
As you will already have gathered, the notion that women make better political leaders than men — because they are nicer people and enjoy watching YouTube videos of kittens and only eat lentils — is one of the two main shibboleths of present-day feminism. The other is that women are absolutely no different from men in any way whatsoever and people who say they are must be misogynists. The fact that these two statements clearly contradict each other surely demonstrates how imaginative and flexible are the thought processes of both women and their differently genitaled allies.
The triumphs of the likes of Sanna Marin and the sainted Jacinda delighted such organizations as the BBC, which had only just recovered from its collective orgasm over the election and re-election of Barack Obama (who was even better than a woman, because he was black. Still is, I believe). Ever since the Brexit vote in June 2016, the liberal left has been desperate to find evidence that what it disparagingly calls populism is in retreat and the future belongs to people who may well be women, but are unable to define what, actually, a woman really is. Donald Trump’s chaotic defeat encouraged them in this otherwise pretty much obviously doomed belief.
The opinion polls continue to show that your average voter, both here and largely abroad, generally wishes no ill on anybody in particular and would like to see minority groups treated with decency and kindness, but cavils at what it sees as liberal overreach — untrammeled immigration, for example, or transgender propaganda being foisted upon children, or the racial hatred fomented by Black Lives Matter. While such views may be represented as “extremist” by the tendentious imbeciles charged with overseeing the UK government’s useless Prevent strategy, most normal people consider them to be nothing of the sort — even if they become increasingly reluctant to say as much in public, for fear of incurring opprobrium. One way or another, the obvious contradictions of liberal overreach will do for these politicians, much as it ensured the end of Sturgeon’s political career.
There is growing evidence that Britain’s politicians fully understand this, with Rishi Sunak laying into political correctness and Sir Keir Starmer performing a very welcome volte-face on the issue of transgenderism. They are beginning to understand where the public stands on this stuff, and who it will vote for next time around, regardless of gender.
This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.
