December 5, 2020

Julia Gillard in Mexico City in 2019.Edgard Garrido/Reuters

By Francesca Donner

Gender Director

“Every individual is entitled to aspire to leadership in whatever area of life most appeals to them, and to reach that position of leadership without artificial barriers.”

— Julia Gillard, former prime minister of Australia, on the moral case for women as leaders

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Not long after the news of the coronavirus broke around the world, it became clear that the devastating health consequences were just the beginning.

Not all people were harmed by the virus at the same rates, and although overall men were more likely to die from the virus by the numbers, women disproportionately experienced the social and economic effects of the pandemic.

Fragile systems and safety nets cracked almost instantly.

Women in labor were turned away from hospitals full of Covid patients. Reproductive care was too often put on hold. Incidences of domestic violence rose as they often do in times of crisis. Jobs were lost, especially in sectors dominated by women, while other job categories in which women also dominated — nurses, caregivers — put them directly in the virus’s way. Family economies were pinched, leaving women to figure out how to make up the gap. And as schools around the world shut down, many parents — mostly women — left the workplace altogether to care for children now stuck at home.

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But as Covid-19 has made inequities in the system all too apparent, it has also opened up opportunities — to rebuild workplaces, to reframe leadership and to take new approaches to climate change, health care and other global issues.

As we look to the end of 2020 and the health and social challenges it has wrought, In Her Words invited female leaders to share their thoughts on what a post-pandemic world may look like. We will publish their views in this newsletter throughout December.

We begin with Julia Gillard, prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013. Now chairwoman of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, (among many roles), she is also a co-author of “Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons.”

You were elected deputy prime minister of Australia in 2007 and prime minister in 2010. How have things changed since then for women — for better or for worse?

I think things have gotten better, but I am certainly frustrated at the rate of change. We need things to keep getting better far more quickly. At least the public dialogue around gender equality and gender and leadership is much more to the fore now than it was when I was prime minister.

In your book, you write that the case for women’s leadership is a moral one. Talk me through that.

The moral case is that every individual is entitled to aspire to leadership in whatever area of life most appeals to them, and to reach that position of leadership without artificial barriers — whether that’s gender or race or anything else — holding them back. Democracies are a collective effort, and it makes it a poorer democracy if large classes of voters don’t have fair access to becoming the representatives, the people forming the governments or making the laws in the parliaments.

I don’t think we should put the case for women’s leadership on the foundation stone that women leaders are always better, because if we do that, we are baking the sexism in. We are effectively saying the hurdle for a man to clear, to be viewed as an acceptable leader is a lower hurdle than for the woman to clear. And if we set up those differential hurdles, he’s only got to be OK, but she’s got to be amazing.

Covid-19 proved a point that almost any worker could have told you months, if not years, ago that work wasn’t working very well for many people. What’s your view?

The pandemic has shined a big spotlight on two things that really matter for the future of work and for gender equality at work.

The first is how important our care workforces are. When times are tough, as they are now, the future of society rests on the shoulders of those who are prepared to go to work and care for others. Broadly and disproportionately, those workers are women. I certainly hope one of the things that we take with us in the days beyond the pandemic is a recognition of the value of that work, which should lead to better compensation, talking about it differently, acknowledging it.

The second is that for so many workers around the world, virtual work is a real, productive option. We can have more flexible arrangements and better descriptions of what merit is. It isn’t the old boys’ network and who goes for drinks after work. It’s about who gets things done. Taking the best of virtual work, I think can reshape workplaces around flexibility and fair assessments of work, contribution and merit.

Rundle Mall on the first day of a COVID-19 lockdown in Adelaide, Australia, on Nov. 19, 2020.David Mariuz/EPA, via Shutterstock

Do you think that businesses that go back to “normal” after the pandemic will pay a price in the long run?

Yes, I do.

I know it can be hard to see it now, but we will get back to a stage in the global economy and in national economies when growth is strong, and so we will be back to the stage where there is a global war for the best talent. And both male and female talent will be attracted to the most agile and fair workplaces. And I’m not just talking about attracting the talent that lives near enough to the office to commute when necessary. I think this global disruption to working norms will mean that many businesses adapt and start sourcing the best talent wherever it is in the world.

Some might say that you can’t address women’s economic empowerment — say, their ability to work — until you fix the inequity of unpaid labor. What’s your take?

I think we need to address both issues at the same time. Every study always shows that women disproportionately do the domestic and caring labor in the home — even when the woman is the principal earner in a two-income family. We do have to change that, but I think it’s about enhancing women’s workplace opportunities at the same time that we are pushing harder on the agenda for the equal distribution of domestic labor.

But no matter how amazing the opportunities, if she’s standing at the sink doing the dishes, I don’t know how she’s going to take advantage of them.

I think there is a bit of a circle here, but more economic opportunity, more independence, more workplace flexibility does enable you to have the conversations at home that really need to be had.

Write to us at inherwords@nytimes.com.

What else is happening

Here are three articles from The Times you may have missed.

Ou Hongyi staging a protest on a street in Guilin, China, in August. She has devoted herself to drawing attention to the issue of climate change.Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“The Greta Thunberg of China.” In China, where any hint of protest is viewed with suspicion, one teenager is trying to draw attention to the dangers that human development poses to the world. [Read the story.]
“Letting my heart break.” Melinda Gates devoted decades to preparing for a pandemic. She is more optimistic today than she was a couple months ago, but challenges lie ahead. [Read the story.]
“There will always be someone not happy with it.” A vaccine may be around the corner, but how long will you have to wait for your turn to get a shot? [Find your place in the line.]

In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson.

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