by Maureen Murdock, PhD,

author of The Heroine’s Journey and The Heroine’s Journey Workbook

“We are a community in which every life and every person counts.”

—Angela Merkel

Across the world, nations led by women are handling the scourge of the Covid-19 virus better than male leaders. The above quote by German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to the mindset behind this success—many successful women leaders have emphasized collaboration with experts in the scientific community, decisive action, clear and consistent communication, and empathy for the fear, anger, and death of their citizens.

One of the stages in The Heroine’s Journey is an urgent yearning to reconnect with the feminine after a period of descent and deconstruction. The first couple of months after the outbreak of the virus were indeed a time of descent and destruction: anger and fear of the unknown, loss of jobs, loss of life, and utter loss of control over one’s life. Women leaders took a no-nonsense approach to the crisis that stood in stark contrast to the bombastic response of several of the world’s most prominent male leaders, who approached the crisis with denial, confusion, incompetence, and refusal to take responsibility.

The stark difference between a feminine style of leadership and a distorted masculine style of leadership comes down to the difference between collaboration and competition. As I wrote in The Heroine’s Journey, women leaders value life over material success; they listen to and honor the expertise of others, act decisively, take responsibility, attain power not for self-aggrandizement but for the good of others, strive for authenticity, not perfection, and have courage. Gretchen Whitmer, the first-term governor of Michigan, stood her ground when men armed with AK-47s protested her stay-at-home order. She refused to capitulate to pressure and bullying.

In the case of Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, her clear messaging, regular news briefings alongside top health officials, empathy in her remarks on social media and determination to “Go Hard, Go Early” demonstrates that one can lead with both resolve and kindness. She told the children of the country that she counts the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny as essential workers, letting the children know their concerns are taken seriously in a crisis. She and her cabinet set strong boundaries and have eliminated the virus from her country.

Unlike Ardern, Merkel and Whitmer, several male leaders throughout the globe have denied science, refused to lead by example, flouted medical guidelines, blamed other countries, gave confusing contradictory messages, and spread fear and hate rather than the calm and empathy their citizens so desperately need.

Because of the successful examples of women like Merkel, Ardern, Whitmer, Erna Solberg of Norway, Katrin Jakobsdottire of Iceland, Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, and so many others, we have seen a more balanced version of leadership and have become aware of global and racial inequalities. We are now being tasked with creating global change. As I wrote in The Heroine’s Journey thirty years ago:

“We live in a dualistic culture which values, creates, and sustains polarities—an either/or stratified mentality which identifies and locates ideas and people at opposite ends of a spectrum. We see the other as the enemy, and we rationalize our criticism, judgment, and the polarization we create by arrogantly saying that we are ‘correct’ or have God on our side.

“This type of polarization has kept some people poor, ignorant, or infirm while enabling others to be rich, well-tended, and powerful. It has allowed nationalities to assert their supremacy over people whose religious beliefs or view of reality they disdain. It has allowed feminists to blame men for the imbalance on the planet without taking responsibility for their own desire for control and power. It has given men freedom from the excruciating self-examination required for change, while they demand that women do all of their emotional work for them. It has supplied the powerful with permission to suppress and distort truth, censor speech, sterilize the ‘unfit’, and cause incredible suffering over all the planet. Human arrogance fails to see that we are all one and coexist along a continuum of life.”

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Maureen Murdock, PhD, has always been interested in mythology and memoir, so she teaches and writes books on both topics. Her book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, which explores the rich territory of the feminine psyche, was translated into a dozen languages, and she has led workshops on the topic for women throughout the United States and Europe. Murdock was Chair and Core Faculty of the MA Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute and teaches memoir writing for the International Women’s Writing Guild. Her other books include Fathers’ Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind; Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory; Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children for Learning, Creativity & Relaxation; and The Heroine’s Journey Workbook.