Shaneel Lal: Jacinda Ardern has gone but sexism and misogyny remain in NZ politics

Jacinda Ardern waves to the crowd one last time as Prime Minister of New Zealand. Photo / NZ Labour Party

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s resignation has left me feeling disturbed at the dire state of New Zealand politics. The country has had 41 premiers and prime ministers, and of those, only three have been women.

This is despite the population of women being higher than that of men. Today, more white cisgender heterosexual men named Chris are running for prime minister than women. For years, women weren’t allowed to vote or run for Parliament, and although that has changed, sexism and misogyny remain a hallmark of New Zealand politics.

When my mum heard that Ardern had resigned as prime minister, she said, “I am glad she resigned. All these people do is abuse her. We do not deserve her.” In many ways, I echo this sentiment. Despite having criticised Ardern’s policies extensively, I am upset and anxious about her resignation. It is not because we have lost a politician, but why we’ve lost her. In her short time as prime minister, Ardern became the most abused prime minister in my lifetime.

I thought about the things some New Zealanders have targeted Ardern with, and the list is endless. Anti-vaxxers are the most significant culprits on my list. They compared Ardern to fascists and called her “Jahitler” while painting Hitler’s moustache on her photos. There was a painting left on the side of the road that read, “Ardern is a Nazi dictator b****.” Others called for her public execution by hanging while protesting outside her workplace for almost a month.

Some Groundswell protesters called Ardern a “witch”. Others brutally body-shamed her. And when that was not enough, people threatened her and her family. Michael Cruickshank sent Ardern death threats and was allowed to walk free by the Court of Appeal. The Web of Chaos documentary found people were “extraordinarily violent” regarding Ardern’s partner and daughter. The documentary also found that people threatened to rape, torture, murder, and post-mortem rape her.

Some media is also part of the problem.

In 2017, before Arden became PM and before she was pregnant with her daughter Neve, she was asked about her baby plans.

She was asked in a TV interview: “Is it okay for a PM to take maternity leave while in office?”

When she was pregnant, a journalist on Australia’s 60 Minutes asked Ardern for her due date only to comment that people were attempting to work out when she conceived the child. He then called her attractive and said he was smitten with her.

In 2020, she was asked on air if she was dying her hair because it was going grey.

Other older male journalists repeatedly commented on her looks, saying she was attractive and a “catch”.

Recently, a male journalist asked Ardern if she was meeting Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin because they were both young women. No one asked John Key if he met Barack Obama because they were both men. No male prime minister has ever had even the slightest amount of this level of discrimination, harassment, vitriol, and violence directed at them.

Ardern led us through two terrorist attacks, a volcano eruption, and a pandemic in which she saved thousands of lives. Her Government banned conversion therapy, reformed abortion laws, made an effort to lower the voting age, delivered fair pay agreements and record low unemployment rates, legislated Matariki public holiday, apologised for the Dawn Raids, provided free sanitary products and lunches in many schools, provided first-year free university. The list goes on.

I did not agree with everything Ardern did. Yet I fear what her treatment and subsequent resignation mean for the next person from a marginalised community who attempts to become prime minister.

The next leader from a marginalised community will get the same treatment as Ardern. If brown, then racism. If queer, then homophobia and transphobia. If a woman, then sexism.

It is horrific to think about how much worse it may be for Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni who sits at the intersection of many of these identities. The fear for their safety often deters great leaders who belong to marginalised communities from taking the lead. But how do we change the status quo if a marginalised person isn’t willing to run? It is a catch-22.