Public Perception Of Politics

So Judith Collins has two weeks left as an MP and she's given an exit interview to Audrey Young at the Herald in which she says that people don't like strong women, obviously referring to herself. Now I don't disagree with Judith that she is a strong woman, she's very formidable, but I do disagree with her that people don't like strong women because what is Helen Clark if not a strong woman? So strong that they used to say of her that the softest part of her was her teeth and yet she was elected and re-elected by the New Zealand public. public three times which is more than Jacinda Ardern achieved and Jacinda Ardern is not what I would call a strong woman now look I realise that there are too many variables to really ever make a fair comparison across elections like that but if you did strip out everything else you'd look at it like this Helen the strong woman won three elections compared to Jacinda the milder personality who won two and only really won the second because of COVID now Judith Collins doesn't explicitly blame the fact that she's a strong woman for her poor showing at the polls when she led the National Party. What did she come in at, 24% or something like that? She's really referring to the fact that she copped more outrage for rolling a sitting MP for a seat in 2002 than John Key did for doing the same thing in the same year. But just for the avoidance of doubt, Judith's problem as a leader of the National Party was not that she was a strong woman. In fact, that was her attraction at the time. The problem was that she was up against Jacinda in the COVID election. election, which was really a hiding to nothing. And she was doing weird things like praying in church for the cameras and saying stuff about fat people during the campaign, much as I might have agreed with her, not a smart move. But I really wish that women like Judith would stop blaming their gender for how people react to them, because more often than not, it is not their gender that is the problem, it's something else that's the problem. And by blaming their gender, they're avoiding being honest with themselves and honest with others about what they're what that other thing is. But also, and much, much more importantly, what this is doing is it is reinforcing to younger women that they're up against it because they're a woman, that being a woman and particularly being a strong woman is a problem. It is not a problem. People like strong women. Most of us have strong women for mothers.