Is The World Safer With Women In Power?

Which is why, all else being equal, I always vote for the woman. I have to share something with you today, and it's going to turn a lot of heads, but it's an important conversation and it has to do with a study I commissioned and how insane or mind blowing the data from this study is. So it started this way. I was reading the news and I observed that many of the leaders that I respect most, turns out they all seem to be women. There is Jacinda Arden of New Zealand, Angela Merkel of Germany, aoc. And I wondered, there are so many incredible women political leaders out there. But why is it that overall in the world, there are three male politicians for every one female politician? And in the United States, the US ranks 75 of all countries in terms of female representation in government. This is unacceptable. 75. That's pathetic. So what's going on here? So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if we did a study to see if women actually do as well as men in politics? Question is, how do you structure such a study? Then the pandemic hit and an opportunity emerged. See, my theory of political leadership is this. The main job of a politician is to navigate their country through crisis. Yes, you want to grow gdp, you want to create safety, but all of those tend to be happening anywhere in the world. If you look back at the United States, the stock market has been growing since 2008. Unemployment has been going down since 2009. It's not like a president steps in, pulls a lever and things suddenly change. They are simply riding on existing trends. So the true mark of leadership is how do you show up and how do you navigate your country when things go wrong? And that's where provided the means to do this study. So really simple. I looked at the countries in the world, if they were led by a man or a woman, and what would happen? Was there a correlation in debts? Now, when we looked at the study data, the data mystified me because it showed, get this, if your country is led by a woman, you are 1/6 less likely to die of. Now think about that. It also means that if your country is led by a man, you are 600% more likely to die of. And the study data seemed odd, like surely something was wrong. I mean, yes, I assumed that women were doing better in today's world. Maybe it's greater empathy, maybe it's the ability to listen better. We don't know. But I assumed women were doing better, but six times better. So I decided to hire more researchers to learn, look at the data. And then this happened. Harvard Business Review had commissioned a similar study and they shared the data. This was their conclusion. Countries with women in leadership have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from than countries with governments led by men. Wow. So we can't help but be impressed by the leadership style shown by so many of these women leaders. But the question remains. Why is it that when a woman tries to run for power, the they have to go through so many hurdles? A pretty face wasn't enough to make a political impact, implying that Priyanka Gandhi has no other achievement. They are weaker. They are less intelligent. Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren Is it offensive? You tell me. And it turns out when women are given power, they seem to be doing so well. Look at the country of Finland, where the Prime Minister, Sana Marin and her entire cabinet is pretty much woman. And Finland, of course, has all of these impressive statistics. As one of the best functioning countries in the world, it's the best country yet. Across the water from Finland is Estonia. Now Estonia is where I live. My children are Estonian. I love Estonia now. In Estonia in 2019, something intriguing happened and it's a message that I think the entire world has to pay attention to. Kaya Kallas, a woman politician, won the election and she was destined to become Prime Minister. In that same election, there was another party that that got several seats in Parliament. The party was the ECRE party, led by a man by the name of Mart Hellman. The problem with ECRA is that they had built their entire platform on being anti gay, being anti EU refugee relocation efforts, and even on legislating women's bodies. They were anti abortion. Matt Helme was the source of such incredible quotes. I'm not even going to read these quotes. I want you to read these quotes and ask yourself, should this man be in any position of power? The newspapers asked CA if in any way, as the new Prime Minister, she was going to collaborate with the ECB party. And of course, because she's a woman of principle, she said no, because who needs such 1940s ideology in Estonia? But that's where things got crazy. The outgoing Prime Minister, Yuri Ratas, he had lost the vote, but he decided to form a coalition with acre, tossing all principles aside. With that, he had more seats than Kaya. He remained prime minister and another qualified woman lost her chance to leave the country. Today, Mart Helme is in power in Estonia and a source of much embarrassment to his country. So think about what happened there. A woman won the popular woe and incompetent men got the power. Does that sound familiar? So what can we do to stop racist fear mongering men from seizing power from women who could be doing such a better job and that now have evidence backing this fact? Well, one of the things is to be aware of our inherent biases towards women. Maybe you've read Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean in, which outlines study after study on the biases that men and women have towards women in power. Think of how these biases are expressed. Think about AOC being called a bitch by a Republican congressman. Think about Kamala Harris when she was chosen to be Biden's VP and how furious men called her angry, completely oblivious to the fact that they were angry about her. So called being angry. Why is it that a man can raise his voice and be called powerful? When a woman raises her voice, she's called angry, yelling, shrieking, or worse, a bitch, as recently happened with aoc. Check out this interview done on the Daily show when a Trump supporter was asked why she, as a white woman, wasn't voting for Hillary, who is a white woman. The presidency is a man's job. A female has more hormones. She could start a war in 10 seconds if she has hot flashes, whatever. Boom. That clip baffles me. It absolutely baffles me. Haven't all wars been started by men? Yes. And if we're talking about emotional instability, just get on Twitter, follow leaders and see what they are tweeting. So the next time you face an election and you have a choice between a man and a woman, ask yourself, who has had to walk a further distance? Who has had a higher wall to climb? That's the question I ask myself, which is why, all else being equal, I always vote for the woman. And now data proves that this is a pretty sound way to cast a vote. Our gender biases have reached such a level that we are voting for incompetent men over highly competent women. Perhaps this is why Francois Girard, the French politician and philosopher 30 years ago said a better solution for the challenges facing the world is to make it harder for incompetent men to gain power. What are your views? What will you do? How can we create a world where it's the most competent person who gains power and not the incompetent fear monger who taps into our most primitive instincts? Sam.