Uongozi Nguvu Wa Wanawake: Women’s Embodiment of Leadership Amidst COVID 19 Pandemic
Photo by: 2020 Guardian News & Media
“Uongozi Nguvu wa Wanawake” by definition is a phrase in Swahili dialect which means “The Powerful Leadership of Women”. The apprehension of this phrase accumulates the idea that women’s leadership is powerful and women need to be in power because women are powerful and very bold. It also brings the idea of how does really women lead, what does women's leadership means to society and what brand of leadership women can establish. Exploring through the identity and life of women, women are regarded as powerful beings in the world because they have the immeasurable strength that nobody can debilitate.
Women are characterized with the inclination of authenticity. The way they comprehend and the way they act are all connected to their nature and these attributes are basically the qualities that good leadership demands to have. It propounds that the leadership of women is impactful. The manner of how they make things work makes them efficient. Women shouldn’t be undermined because women can make gargantuan modifications in the society prior to the prevailing problems that have been affecting people, women are truly transformative and they should be given the opportunity to lead for change.
Primarily, leadership knows no gender both men and women are suitable as long as they can make things work. But nowadays when we think about leaders we often prefer men because we perceive that men are more capable of leading compared to women because we see women differently and it implies directly to the notion than men are stronger than women which creates prejudice upon women and it deeply affects their self-belief and the way they compose themselves in the society.
The reality enchains the narrative that women are destined for leadership and capable of establishing a brand of leadership that will definitely bring enormous changes and reforms in various dimensions that encompasses society. As quoted by Geraldine Ferraro, “Some leaders are born women.” Women have the innate ability to lead and they can turn visions into reality because of their intuition and steadfastness. No matter how uncertain the environment that they are inhabiting and how complicated the circumstances that they are facing, they are committed to lead people towards the future ahead.
Women are entitled to be multifaceted because of their temerity to work in different spaces relentlessly despite of inevitable situations. Women associate versatility, they are made of capabilities. They can do lot of things successfully because their ideologies are unique and boundless. They are decisive, they make sure that the decisions that they make are appropriate on the situation because they know that indecisiveness can lead to complications and it can ruin things over and over.
Femininity builds up women and it enables women to realize their essence. Devaluing femininity is equivalent to the abandonment of morality. If you devalue femininity, you also diminish morality. Today’s society is patriarchal and misogynistic, women have experienced deprivation and violence for a very long time even they seem to be everything but they are being treated like nothing. Society anchored women with labels and imprisoned women with standards and norms to the extent that they don’t have the freedom to be themselves and do whatever they want to do to change the world.
Women are being silenced and are voiceless. They can’t raise their voices because the society precludes them to speak. They have been burdened with adversities and perplexities. Women's agony had been romanticized in the society and their painful experiences have remained unheard because the society neglected their existence and refused to listen to their stories. But as the time passes by, the remonstrance of women arose and their clamor started to appear in the surface of society. In due course, feminism declared its birth vehemently and it empowers women in diversity. Despite the anguish that women have to go through, they remained invincible.
They have learned to stand independently and no matter how much pain they carried, they surmounted ordeals with fortitude that’s why women are unbreakable and women should be involved in leadership because they uphold the qualities intrinsic for the manifestation of leadership.
Ostensibly, the world is facing a catastrophe, pertains the outbreak of the COVID 19 Pandemic. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. In relation to the status quo, COVID 19 has inflating total cases of 6,416,828 and 382,867 total of deaths worldwide. The havoc of the pandemic resulted to millions of cases and lives risked. Leaders from different nations instigated mandatory initiative to mitigate the pandemic due to its urgency.
Leaders from different nations around the world have been challenged to the menacing impact of the pandemic. They curtailed various initiatives to mitigate the pandemic due to its urgency. Matters concerning health have been put into priority. General lockdown and community quarantines have been implemented since the widespread of the virus started to accelerate. Comprehensive strategies have been formulated aiming to alleviate the virus completely and essential paraphernalia for COVID 19 are being provided and distributed such as masks, gloves and disinfectant. Isolation rooms for quarantine are being constructed and people are encouraged to observe social distancing to prevent the contact of the virus. These responsibilities are obliged to leaders from each nation handling their respective constituents in the middle of the battle against the COVID 19. According to Inter-Parliamentary Union and the United Nations, 10 out of 152 elected heads of state were women and men are made up of 75% of managerial decision-makers and 76% of the people in the mainstream news media.
According to UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, as we attach to reality we have created a world where women are comprised into just 25%, one quarter of the space in both physical decision making rooms and in the stories that we divulge about our lives. Unfortunately, the society did not contemplated the realization that we are in need of women to occupy spaces in various spheres concomitant to political and social affiliations, there is no equal representation of women because they are not subjected to opportunities their potential and capabilities are not being recognized.
But despite of disproportionate number of women in the political spectrum, women had shown that the brand of leadership that they are able to establish adheres to systematization and innovation and it paves them the way to prove to society that women’s leadership is truly powerful, as the responsibilities obliged upon women’s leadership are completely attained. Hence, the attainment of responsibilities penetrates vast evolution and integration in the society specifically on the governmental aspect, progression starts in the government and it interconnects to social, political and economic milieu.
In the midst of the COVID 19 Pandemic, Women head of states are bringing the action towards the goal of addressing the problem. They are seeking for effective solutions in order to annihilate Corona Virus, if not annihilated at least it might be alleviated so that it will not cause expansive casualties. Traversing to the countries governed by women, the initiation of the battle against COVID 19 has been executed before the virus started to spread.
In Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen immediately ordered all planes arriving from Wuhan to be inspected. Then she organized an epidemic command center, managed the production of personal protective equipment and restricted all flights from mainland China. Taiwan's advance and aggressive intervention measures have restricted the outbreak to 393 confirmed infections and six deaths. Early intervention measures have been applied to control the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, it was carried out successfully that it is now exporting millions of face masks to help other countries in the midst of the pandemic. Taiwan's coronavirus success was recognized by The US State Department calling for Taiwan to be observer status in the WHO's World Health Assembly.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel with a doctorate in quantum chemistry has gained the approbation of the German citizens due to her capable management of the pandemic for she initiated the most intensive care beds and largest-scale coronavirus testing program in Europe conducting almost 350,000 tests each week to detect the virus as early as possible so that patients will be isolated and be treated effectively. Germany has around 83 Million citizens and they had over 132,000 COVID 19 infections but very minimal deaths far lower than other European countries. Hans-Georg Kräusslich, the head of virology at University Hospital in Heidelberg has told the New York Times that maybe our biggest strength in Germany is the rational decision-making at the paramount level of government integrated with the trust in which the government manifests.
In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern closed the country’s borders to foreign visitors and declared a four-week lockdown of the country on March 23, requiring all non-essential workers to stay at home in exception for the accession of basic commodities. New Zealand is an island country of almost five million citizens which mainly relies on tourism. The prime minister took an early action to temporarily shut down tourism. As a result, the country has carried out widespread testing and recorded over 1,300 coronavirus cases, but only nine deaths. New Zealand is in the midway through its lockdown and Prime Minister Ardern has said that it won't end early. "In the face of the greatest threat to human health we have seen in over a century, Kiwis have quietly and collectively implemented a nationwide wall of defense," Ardern said in a speech to the nation.
Four of the five Scandinavian countries are led by women. The respective countries have lower death rates from coronavirus compared to the rest of countries in Europe. For instance, 34-year-old Sanna Marin is Finland's Prime Minister and the world's youngest leader but despite of being young and woman at the same time, she has gained an 85% approval rating from Finns for her “Valmius” or preparedness for the pandemic, with only 59 deaths out of a population of 5.5 million. Iceland's Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir administers a small, island country with only 360,000 Icelandic citizens. But its extensive testing of the coronavirus could have broad outcome for the rest of the world as it has identified that around half of people who test positive for the virus are all asymptomatic. Iceland has intervened early, initiated urgent contact-tracing and implemented community quarantines.
On the other side, Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs of Sint Maarten became prominent when her sensible video has gone viral worldwide for reminding citizens to "simply stop moving". She governs a tiny Caribbean island of only 41,000 citizens. She insistently reminded citizens that "If you do not have the type of bread you like in your house, eat crackers. If you do not have bread, eat cereal. Eat oats,".
All these countries have been recognized due to their impressive handling of the coronavirus pandemic. They are all dispersed across the globe but they have one thing in common, they're all led by women leaders. And these women leaders have been praised for their fast action, collaboration in science and the ability to make crucial decisions with empathy and compassion. Hence, they've succeeded in minimizing the catastrophic effect of the corona virus on their respective countries because of their strong and powerful leadership.
Diane Mariechild once said, “A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” Women are full of capabilities, they are limitless. They are capable of making things beyond the expectation of what they are capable of doing that’s why they deserve to occupy spaces in the society. No doubt, women are capable of leading despite what society has labeled them. Henceforth, we should embrace the existence of women because they played a significant role in the society as they bring changes in various dimensions that molds the identity of society and as what “Uongozi Nguvu wa Wanawake” depicts, the leadership of women is powerful and it can certainly change the face of society as strength and authenticity of women combines together.