Speaking yesterday in Singapore, former President Obama said that the world would be better off if all countries were ruled by women. Here is what he said:
“Now women, I just want you to know you are not perfect, but what I can say pretty indisputably is that you’re better than us,” the two-term president said at an Obama Foundation event in Singapore.
“I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes,” he told the crowd.
Interesting accolade for a guy who took more than two years to restart a sluggish economy.
The former President also remarked on a certain kind of male who won’t get off the state:
“If you look at the world and look at the problems it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way,” Obama said, as reported by BBC.
Uh-oh, Joe Biden.
But are women better at governing?
Margaret Thatcher (who is probably not the sort of woman Barack Obama had in mind) was one of the U.K.’s greatest Prime Ministers. On the other hand, more recently, there was the hapless Theresa May floundering in that job.
Christine Rosen (then Stolba) once wrote an article for IWF’s old Women’s Quarterly headlined “How Do Women Rule? . . . Just Like Men.” She was replying to Susan Estrich, then managing the Dukakis presidential campaign, who had opined that, when women had power, they would listen more and talk less.
Christine advised Estrich to “brush up on her herstory,” and took us on a romp through history, highlighting such women leaders as the village-burning Boadicea, England’s warrior queen and scourge of the Romans. By all accounts, Boadicea was a blood thirsty gal. The likelihood that she was a good listener is small.
Dana Perino said on “The Five” that the former president’s words sounded like those of a man who has a wife and two daughters and wants to keep peace in the family. He was also likely playing to the identity politics that dominates his party.
I’d like to think there was an element in Obama’s statement of just being nice (except possibly to Joe Biden).