Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, has resigned. “There isn’t enough in the tank”, she announced yesterday, possibly referring to burn-out as a reason for her departure.
In her wake, she left a lot of opinions streaming, hissing and flying around.
“She needs herself a wife”, said one.
“No matter the Prime Minister, she’s still a mother,” said another.
“Women cannot take the same stress as men do,” a third and more controversial one said.
At 37, Jacinda became the world’s youngest female head of government, when she took on the role in 2017. Steering the country through a pandemic, a natural disaster and a terrorist attack, she is popular globally for her stoic and mature leadership.
But all that’s done and dusted now. As far as vocal online narrative is concerned, she’s just another woman dropping out of the workforce because she cannot have it all.
The BBC went as far as to say as much, in fact.
Keeping aside the speculations around controversies that might have led her to quit, I went about asking a few women their thoughts on the announcement.
What it means for some of us - the millennials, the women.
The post pandemic world is peppered with conversations around burn-out, sabbaticals, taking moments to breathe, rethinking what matters most. Authenticity, most importantly.
And that’s how many of the women I spoke to look at it.
“It's a very pragmatic, new generation approach, not necessarily gender related” - Parvathy.
“Knowing when to quit or pause is not easy. Takes self awareness and confidence” - Suchi.
“She’s honest. With herself. With her people. The one trait that leaders quickly lose as they climb the ladder” - Rashmi.
However, given all the media fury and furore over how women quit for different reasons than men, Pallavi’s words resonate most.
“Jeff Bezos stepped down from his peak at 58, while Trump aspires to be re-elected at 77. It is about individual priorities and I won’t link that to gender”.
Then again, a teeny tiny bit of me wonders. And as Tanya puts it, selfishly so.
“Just for the want of female role models, there is a selfish wish that Jacinda be around a bit more. It's an emotional response”.
It is, indeed, an emotional response.
A wish that we didn’t have to wonder whether she quit because she couldn’t have it all.
A wish that the world could be a more equal place, without gender coming into the debate at every uncommon turn.
Issue #36: Enough in the tank
I always felt that society has come a long way atleast in recognizing and raising the issues a working mother has to face. However, for those who don't have a good support system or don't have it in them to have their kids be brought up by someone else, it takes a great deal of courage to leave your education and career behind for sometime to focus on your kids, while seeing all your peers do wonders in life and question your decision everyday. That is as difficult a choice as the one where you choose to do both.