Two Women Leaders and a Baby

April 17, Berlin

It's not often you see two female political leaders side-by-side at a podium, and it's never that you see two female leaders side-by-side at a podium when one of them is pregnant! Indeed it's a wonder this unprecedented event last week did not break the universe, as TV's "Veep" predicted would happen in the US if the president and the veep were to both be women.

Alas, Veep's pre-Trump prediction was proven painfully prescient for that country, the universe of the USA proved that it could not hold together with the thought of even one female leader at the political podium.

However the backlash against that disastrous and misogynistic decision just might have contributed to bringing about this unprecedented podium we see here, with Merkel partly motivated to stand for a fourth term in office after Trump's win (worried as she was for the universe with a moron in charge of its only inhabitable planet), and the Women's March with record-breaking attendance here in NZ and around the world protesting this political outrage firing up voters against the political patriarchy of old here, whether on the left or the wrong wing of politics.

I for one gave more money to the party's campaign and attended it's campaign launch where Ardern gave her first official speech as leader, solely because she had taken over the reigns of leadership, having had little faith in the man who was leading the party before her and believing that gender politics matters in itself. Believing indeed that our present, still deeply unbalanced global political situation of only 11 female prime ministers or presidents in almost 200 countries, is the first thing that is wrong with the world of politics -- and indeed with the world altogether, given the ramifications of political patriarchalism.

And this picture above speaks a million words in favour of positive and critical change on this subject, not least because one of these women leaders is pregnant, and visibly so, sending the message to hundreds of millions, if not billions of women (and men) that pregnancy is not a disability and women can, and must, if they choose, combine motherhood and the most exacting jobs in the paid workforce and the universe will not break.

April 20, London

Indeed it might just be what saves our beleaguered 'universe,' if, that is, we have not left our matriarchal move too late.