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Women are just wives at the top table
Melanie McDonagh3 Apr 2009
The camera does not lie. Those photos of the leaders emerging from the G20 summit tell us as much as we need to know about the balance of power between the sexes. There's Angela Merkel. There's Argentina's Cristina Kirchner. The rest are men. It reminds me of the beginning of the film of The Day of the Jackal (1973) which showed international leaders emerging from the Elysée Palace in Paris: there was just one woman, a dumpy lady in a hat.
David Starkey got into trouble this week, rather unfairly, for pointing out the obvious truth that the history of England is that of white males. If you leave out the white bit, you're not far off the reality of present-day international politics. And if you exclude from positions of leadership those women whose husbands preceded them in office - Cristina Kirchner wouldn't have the job if her husband, Nestor, hadn't occupied it first - and Hillary Clinton, well, that leaves us with the admirable Angela Merkel. Mind you, Mrs Merkel is a feminist icon in her own right: positively the only world leader who can tell Barack Obama where to get off.
The girl-boy divide was even more obvious during Wednesday night's glamour dinners, when the boys, plus Angela and Cristina, were gathered at Downing Street to talk about financial regulation and the girls were gathered for a nice night in with Sarah Brown, while the rest of us discussed their clothes.
Now I do realise that the assembled spouses were all high-powered in their own right. Sarah Brown is an admirable charity fundraiser and Michelle Obama a former top-level healthcare executive. But there was no getting away from the fact that for the women at that dinner, the real answer to the question "What do you do?" is simply, "I'm the wife of so-and-so". The exception, perhaps, was Harriet Harman, who looked as if she'd rather be somewhere else. Can you see why it was that Mr Angela Merkel, the dull physicist, Joachim Sauer, might have stayed away? It's charity excursions and child-talk for the women; politics for the men.
I'm not suggesting that being a wife and mother isn't an admirable vocation. I certainly don't think British politics would be improved if Harriet Harman replaced Gordon Brown. It's just remarkable that, in 2009, women's role at this gathering of the most powerful people in the world isn't as leaders, it's as their wives. Thank God for Mrs Merkel.
Reader views (2)
And I would argue that there can be no "complimentary partnership" without equality. I'm not interested in the "role a woman plays as part of a husband and wife team." Its none of my business how domestic partners choose to live their lives. But on the world stage, as elected officials, its astounding in the 21st century the lack of balance of representation for all people.
- Karen, Chicago, U.S., 03/04/2009 22:05
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Here you go again, underplaying the value of the role a woman plays as a husband and wife team.
The sooner we accept that a complimentary partnership is more important than who is more equal, or has the most power, the sooner can we begin to heal our wounded society - just look on any high street on benefits day to see what I mean.
There is no such thing as equality - only value of combined effort.
- Darius Midwinter, London UK, 03/04/2009 12:42
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