Jennifer O’Connell: Response to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation was depressing and predictable

A tearful Jacinda Ardern had barely finished announcing her decision to step down as New Zealand’s prime minister when – precisely as she predicted – speculation began about the “real” reason for her departure.

The New York Times pointed out that she had struggled to get beyond her association with pandemic policy. Threats from the far right were mentioned. The word “burnout” appeared in several pieces, although she never used it herself. Her popularity has been waning in polls, some said. She was jumping now to avoid imminent defeat in the next election. The Telegraph decided she had been “defeated by her own vanity” and “could no longer cope with her halo having slipped”.

BBC World asked: “Jacinda Ardern resigns: Can women really have it all?” The question seemed to regard women in political life as an amusing novelty, and was rightly derided online, before the offending headline and tweet were deleted.

It is depressing how the experience of one woman in public life continues to be seen as a proxy for the experience of all women. It’s hard to imagine anyone positing the same question of a male leader – even one with seven(ish) children. “Boris Johnson resigns: Can men really have it all?” wouldn’t get many clicks.

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The answer is the same for women as it is for men, with perhaps a few additional considerations. You can have it all, but maybe not forever. You do can do it all, but you might not always want to. Few pundits seemed to accept that the answer was just as “simple” as Ardern insisted. “I know what this job takes, and I know I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It is that simple.”

“I am looking forward to spending time with my family again,” she added. Addressing her partner and her daughter directly, she added: “To Neve, mum is looking forward to being there when you start school this year. And to Clarke, let’s finally get married.”

Why is it so difficult for pundits to accept that’s all there is to it? That after five years leading a country of over five million people through a pandemic, a terrorist attack, an earthquake and the birth of her first child, she needs a break. It may be because, for a certain type of powerful man, “more time with the family” has often been seen as code for “I’m about to be fired or arrested”. These days, it is less unusual for high-profile men to leave big jobs because they genuinely do want to spend more time at home. Still, in our achievement-obsessed society “less unusual” remains “dispiritingly rare”.

So there is something refreshing about the unadorned honesty of Ardern’s statement. And yet, it would be pre-emptive and more than a bit reductive to say feminism’s work is done, give a pat on the back, and wish her good luck at the school bake sale.

[ Opinion: Jacinda Ardern’s graceful departure is the personification of modern democratic ideals ]

‘Personalisation and vilification’

Another, arguably more revealing phrase in her statement went largely overlooked at first. “The only interesting angle you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, I am human.” A nanosecond’s pause, and then: “Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time.”

Politicians are human. She didn’t add, but maybe she should have: women politicians are human. There was a time the public didn’t need reminders of this. Ardern denied that threats and abuse were a factor in her decision, but they have incontrovertibly been a factor in her life. She was the subject of 50 threats investigated by police in 2021. Her Maori party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer characterised Ardern’s decision as her having been “driven from office for constant personalisation and vilification”.

You don’t have to be a world leader to experience this kind of vitriol and hatred, if the stories recounted by five Irish women in political life to my colleague Jennifer Bray recently are an indication. The five described in harrowing detail the price they have paid for representing their community. A WhatsApp voice note which said: “I am going to piss on you.” Photos of body parts. A bullet shell at the back door. Being screamed at on the street. In one case, nine years of abuse and lies. They talked about having to install CCTV in their homes, about warning other women off politics, about being advised not to carry out constituency clinics “without supervision”.

This is not robust debate. This is not holding people to account. This isn’t fair comment. This is the behaviour of a dangerous, deranged mob who are threatening democracy. And it is happening across the political spectrum. Holly Cairns spoke in a Virgin Media podcast about having an online stalker turn up at her home. “I don’t regret” running for election, she said. “But honestly, had I known... probably, no, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Lynn Ruane told RTÉ Radio about her experience of burnout amid “the pressures of public life”. Elsewhere in The Irish Times, Maria Bailey tells Simon Carswell how her family had her on suicide watch in the aftermath of the 2019 “swing gate” controversy. “I just became unrecognisable. I was just a laughing stock,” she says.

If we don’t start listening to what these women are saying, Irish society will pay the price. If we want to attract good people who represent the full spectrum of the population, we need to treat them as good people. Forget that: we just need to treat them as people. We have to stop dehumanising politicians.

Can women have it all in the light of Jacinda Ardern’s resignation, some media asked, as though it was the heady days of 1973. They can. But in the case of women in politics, it is more difficult than ever to see why they’d want to.