In her column, Gülseren Onanç, the Founding Chair of the SES Equality and Solidarity Association, assesses the need for global feminist leadership in the world and elaborates on the elections held in previous weeks in different countries from a feminist perspective.
Gülseren Onanç
Former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has stated, “Societies that subjugate their women are also a threat to the security of the world”, and that violence and imbalance prevail in societies where women are not equal. The Economist magazine’s article named “Why Nations That Fail Women Fail” explains this line of thought in detail. As a matter of fact, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and India are considered countries prone to radical change and are seen as not possessing established institutions. As the article argues, sexism plays a part in that.
In my article titled “Feminist women will be in Turkey’s future“, I wrote that feminist women that have been active in the women’s movement for years, can bring a new dimension to Turkey’s Islamizing and conservative politics.
The report, For People and the Planet: The Global Feminist Agenda for Economic Justice, published as part of the UN Generational Equality Forum, outlines the principles of a new green economic system. This report lists important clues in revealing how feminist leadership can make an economic difference in the management of countries and the world. Feminist leadership promises a sustainable country and a world as well as ensuring gender equality.
This week elections were also on our radar. On our platform, where we try to follow women’s participation in politics around the world, we tried to look at the elections held last week from a feminist perspective.
Germany: From Conservative Merkel to Feminist Merkel
In the elections held on September 26 in Germany, where Angela Merkel’s 16-year ruling period came to an end, the social democrat SPD got 25.7% of the votes. The SPD, which won its first national election since 2005, is expected to form a government with the Greens and Liberals that will end the conservative era.
While the coalition is preparing to embrace different parties, the political dynamic works differently when embracing female politicians. In her article published in Politico, journalist Emily Schultheis argues that the “rise and fall” of German Green Party Co-Chair and the party’s candidate for chancellor Annalena Baerbock is a symbolic example of the difficulties of being a woman in German politics: “There is still a long way to go,” she says.
Angela Merkel became more open about gender and even feminism after announcing that she would not seek re-election. However, as a conservative CDU leader, she did not advocate feminist politics in her early years. She spoke about the challenges of being a woman in politics and announced earlier last month that she had reached a new point in her political evolution. She used the word she perceived as a “burden” in German politics: “Yes, I am a feminist,” she said.
Although political analysts and women’s rights activists think that Germany’s first female Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 16-year rule has missed some opportunities in the fight against gender equality, I find her reign crucial as she set an example for women’s leadership, survived as a female Chancellor against all the discrimination she suffered. Indeed, during her rule, more women took up positions in the German government than ever before. Their closest advisers were also women. According to journalists Janina Semenova and Oxana Evdokimova, Merkel’s most incredible legacy is that she showed that a woman can lead the country and successfully take it out of many crises.
Merkel has been a role model for women around the world. As a matter of fact, in the federal election held on the same day as the general elections in Germany last week, Franziska Giffey, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was elected Mayor of Berlin. Giffey, 43, who served as a Minister of Family Affairs in the government of Angela Merkel, will become the first female mayor of the capital city of Berlin.
Green Party candidates Tessa Ganserer and Nyke Slawik made history as the first trans women to win seats in parliament in the general elections.
Feminist Women Transforming Iceland
According to the “Global Gender Inequality Report 2021” data of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Iceland, which has always managed to stay at the top for 12 years, is a country that sets an example for the whole world in terms of gender equality. Iceland’s success story began in 1980 when Vigdís Finnbogadóttir became the world’s first democratically elected female president. Iceland, which has increased the representation of women in politics over the years, achieved a rate of 47.6 per cent in the last elections. It is an excellent example of how increased political representation and participation in decision-making mechanisms can benefit both women and society.
Canada’s Feminist Prime Minister: Justin Trudeau
Of course, feminism is not a women’s ideology. Justin Trudeau, who was elected Canadian Prime Minister for the third time in the elections held at the beginning of September, describes himself as a “feminist” at every opportunity. Trudeau implemented policies such as removing barriers to women’s full participation in the workforce and providing access to affordable and high-quality child care.
The Trudeau government, which also successfully managed the pandemic, made Canada one of the most vaccinated countries in the world and spent hundreds of billions of dollars to keep the economy afloat during the lockdown.
We also have examples from Turkey of how feminist women’s leadership can make a difference: Safranbolu’s first female mayor, Elif Köse, emphasized that women’s place is not in the home, but in the streets and squares, and she signed off many projects in two years.
We have high expectations from the Newly Appointed UN Women Director
Sima Sami Bahous has been appointed as the director of the UN Women in a period when Turkey and the world need feminist policies more than ever. With expertise in expanding women’s empowerment and rights, addressing discrimination and violence, and promoting sustainable socio-economic development in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Bahous served as Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.
After her appointment, more than fifty staff of UN Women sent an open letter to the new director, demanding two things; An overarching agenda that promotes gender equality and governance reform more actively, successfully around the world.
“Never has the world needed more desperately committed feminist leadership at UN Women and the UN to prevent the erosion of many hard-won rights for women and girls,” says Joanne Sandler, former deputy director of Unifem.
We need feminist leadership more than ever.