Saturday, December 05, 2020

In Her Words: ‘I think things have gotten better’

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.

Did someone forward you this email? Sign up here to get future installments. Write to us at inherwords@nytimes.com. Follow us on Instagram at @nytgender.

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On Politics: Joe From Scranton Didn’t Win Back the Working Class

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December 5, 2020

By Lisa Lerer

Politics Newsletter Writer

Hi! With the election over, we’re changing some things here at On Politics. I’ll be writing to you on Saturdays to wrap up the week.

Associated Press

For years, Democrats have preached the gospel of changing demographics.

As the country grew more diverse, they argued, the electorate would inevitably tilt in their favor and give their party an unbeatable edge.

Well, the country is more racially diverse than ever before. But exit polls suggest that Joe Biden lost ground among Latino, Black and Asian-American voters in 2020 compared with Hillary Clinton’s performance in 2016.

Demographics, it turns out, are not political destiny. But diplomas just might be.

The clearest way to understand the results of the 2020 election — and, perhaps, the shifting state of our politics — is through the education voting gap. Voters with college degrees flocked to Mr. Biden, emerging as the crucial voting bloc in the suburbs. Those without them continued their flight from the Democratic Party.

“The big-picture problem is that the Democratic Party is increasingly reflecting the cultural values and political preferences of educated white people,” said David Shor, a data scientist who advises Democratic campaigns and organizations. “Culturally, working-class nonwhite people have more in common with working-class white people.”

The shifts were at the margins: Voters of color still overwhelmingly backed Mr. Biden, sticking with the Democratic candidate as they had for decades. But these small swings hint at the possibility of a broader realignment in American politics. Political parties, after all, are dynamic. Coalitions can and do change.

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Think about how Democrats have won over the past four years. In 2018, they flipped affluent, diversifying inner-ring suburbs and ran up their margins in cities to gain control of the House of Representatives. Mr. Biden followed that same path to the presidency: A New York Times analysis found that he improved on Mrs. Clinton’s performance in suburban counties by an average of about five percentage points.

What else do these areas have in common? They are more likely to be dominated by highly educated voters.

One way to examine this trend county by county is to look at the number of voters who have white- or blue-collar jobs. (I know, your buddy never graduated from college and now makes a killing as a real estate broker. It’s not a perfect metric but a pretty good proxy for education, given the economic data available.)

The results were striking. Of the 265 counties most dominated by blue-collar workers — areas where at least 40 percent of employed adults have jobs in construction, the service industry or other nonprofessional fields — Mr. Biden won just 15, according to data from researchers at the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan policy research group.

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On average, the work force in counties won by Mr. Biden was about 23 percent blue collar. In counties won by President Trump, blue-collar workers made up an average of 31 percent of the work force.

This isn’t a new trend. For decades, Democrats have been trading the support of union members for broader backing from the professional classes. And the G.O.P., once the party of white college-educated voters, has increasingly found support among white working-class voters.

Many Democratic primary voters saw Mr. Biden as uniquely positioned to cut into the Republican advantage with the working class. For decades, he’s built his political brand on being a scrappy kid from Scranton, Pa., who became just another guy riding the train to work. The rallying cry of his campaign in the final weeks was: “This election is Scranton versus Park Avenue.”

But Mr. Biden fared worse than Mrs. Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008 in counties dominated by blue-collar workers.

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That outcome should scare Democratic strategists about their party’s future, Mr. Shor said, because of structural dynamics like the Electoral College that give rural areas political influence far beyond the size of their population.

If Democrats can’t win blue-collar workers in less-populated areas — or at least cut some of their losses — winning control of the Senate or the White House will become very difficult. And with Republicans maintaining their hold on state legislatures, Democrats may find themselves cut out of some of those friendlier suburban House seats when districts are redrawn after the census.

“It’s very hard for us to imagine us taking the Senate between now and the end of the decade,” Mr. Shor said. “And it would be very hard just to win the presidency. Our institutions are very biased specifically against this coalition we are putting together.”

Drop us a line!

We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

What is happening with Georgia Republicans?

Georgia is on my mind this week. (Yes, I know, low-hanging cliché.)

With control of the Senate hinging on the two runoff elections there, the political world is pouring money and resources into the state. But as we reported this week, things are getting a little … complicated.

Unsurprisingly, the cause of the political chaos is President Trump. As he continues to push baseless allegations about the presidential election results in Georgia — a state he lost — Republicans are getting nervous that his attacks could depress their turnout in the Jan. 5 runoffs.

Some Trump allies in the state have urged conservatives to boycott the election or write in Mr. Trump’s name — an option that’s not even provided on the runoff ballot. Though Mr. Trump and his campaign have tried to distance themselves from that effort, they’ve continued their drumbeat of attacks on Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, and other G.O.P. election officials. Some Republican strategists were worried that rhetoric could further alienate suburban voters, who helped deal Mr. Trump his loss in Georgia but might be more receptive to the Republican runoff candidates, the incumbent Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Mr. Trump is scheduled to campaign with them in Valdosta, Ga., on Saturday. Republicans are uncertain whether his remarks could do more harm than help, particularly if he remains unable to put aside some of his personal pique about his own loss.

The situation offers a preview of the kind of political dynamics that Republicans could face even after Mr. Trump leaves office as they try to navigate his continuing ambitions. With the president considering another run for the White House in 2024, his political aspirations may not align with Republicans’ goals in a divided Washington.

By the numbers: $908 billion

… That’s the new starting point in negotiations for another pandemic relief bill.

With coronavirus cases spiking and the economy showing signs of weakening, Democrats made a big concession — they had been demanding at least $2 trillion — to prod Republicans and the Trump administration into compromise legislation.

Along with ending a monthslong congressional stalemate, passage of stimulus legislation could help the new Biden administration enter office on slightly stronger economic footing.

WHAT TO READ THIS WEEKEND

Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

Native Americans Helped Flip Arizona. Can They Mobilize in Georgia?

Very few of Georgia’s more than 100,000 voting-age Native Americans cast ballots in November. Even a small increase could make a difference in the Senate runoffs.

By Maggie Astor