The President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, took some time out from presiding over the worst collapse in economic history last week to deliver a short lecture on how women leaders have proved better at dealing with Covid-19 than men. According to the impeccably politically correct French politician, they were more ‘caring’, better at dealing with the science, and smarter at delivering clear messages on health. Not very surprisingly, there was a lot of gushing commentary to support her view, at least in the liberal press. Indeed, the superiority of women Prime Ministers and Presidents has been a common theme ever since the epidemic started.
But hold on. Less than a week later, the evidence for Lagarde’s claim is not looking quite so strong anymore. The four countries regularly cited for the ‘women are better at fighting the virus’ thesis have been Belgium, Germany, New Zealand, and Taiwan (although I imagine Nicola Sturgeon has been furiously writing letters to complain that she isn’t on the list, even though Scotland’s performance hasn’t been anything to shout about).
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