Would a woman run the UN differently than a man?

Would a woman run the UN differently than a man?

by Leslie Quinton
Strategic Management and Communications

I'd like to get some nice professional feedback on this topic. Please read the article first before responding.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-woman-run-un-differently-than-man-leslie-quinton?trk=pulse-det-nav_art

Recently, the NY Times made the case that the next leader of the UN should be a woman.

It does not take in-depth knowledge of international diplomacy to know that all of the secretaries-general in the UN’s history, eight in total, have been men. This is arguably in part due to the system in place. Each has been selected in what the Times calls the “ back-room dealing dominated by the five world powers that hold permanent seats on the Security Council.” The Times posits that if a more transparent system were active, a woman could be more readily chosen, which would be symbolic globally given the responsibility for negotiation and diplomacy that the job entails.

The role of the Secretary-General was first envisioned by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the driving force behind the creation of the UN in 1945 as a successor to League of Nations, to act as a "world moderator", a vague and not easily understood definition provided by the UN Charter. This has meant over the years that the actual job description could be widely interpreted, including the degree to which the leader was able to speak out on political and socio-economic issues around the world. Part diplomat, par advocate, part Chief Executive Officer – a difficult position with a quixotic level of authority and questionable autonomy.

There are those who advocate that in general, women are less corrupt and more ethical, somehow less prone to influence-peddling and the like. Therefore, the thinking goes, women make better leaders because they are somehow more moral. While as a woman I would love to think that is true, as an amateur student of the human condition, I can’t help but feel that it is a little too facile a response. What if in fact women were not biologically more virtuous but instead, have traditionally not had access to the power structures that permit or encourage corrupt or otherwise unethical behavior?

According to a Reuters’ article published in 2012, it is less a question of women leaders being inherently more ethical and more about the kinds of contexts that allow women to rise to power. In other words, women tend to assume leadership roles in organizations or political systems that are already somehow more progressive, have transparent structures and clear accountabilities. According to the Reuters' piece, “women are more likely to rise to positions of power in open and democratic political systems, and such societies are generally more intolerant of wrongdoing, including the abuse of power and siphoning off of public money.”

So the circumstances in which women are likely to be leaders are themselves structured with strong cultures of trust, collaboration, shared beliefs and other values that are essentially a hostile environment for corruption.

Other studies, like one completed recently by the IRIS Center at the University of Maryland, confirm that where there are more women, there is less corruption. Women are in general less likely to accept bribes although the study also goes on to say that if they are in a corrupt society, they are even more disadvantaged than they would be otherwise – consider poor countries where public money goes towards bribing officials instead of paying for health care or education. And when there are more women in charge, no matter which country you’re in, there tends to be a trend for corruption to decrease.

It appears then that the presence of women in leadership positions makes a real and measurable difference on an organization’s or government’s accountability, partly because what are seen as "women's values", i.e. what women care about, and because of the systems they have access to. Research has examined the reasons why there is a notable decline in levels of corruption, particularly within elected bodies, when more women are at the table.

According to a recent World Bank's annual World Development Report, India has witnessed drastic changes since a 1993 law mandated that 30 percent of seats on village councils must be held for women. The Report credited this change for “increasing the provision of clean water, sanitation, schools and other public goods in the villages, and for lower levels of corruption”, all areas of focus where women leaders apparently saw the direct advantages as opposed to the old system which benefited those in power first. Furthermore, towns that were women-led were found to have significantly lower amounts of bribes paid. The theory was, according to the researchers, that when “men control all the levers of power, money is more likely to be invested in big-ticket construction projects such as road building where corruption is rife, rather than in schools or clinics.” So women’s "natural" choices also tend to be less corruptible.

Both Canada and the US are in pre-election periods, and the choices of representatives include a number woman candidates who are vastly outnumbered by their male counterparts. Fewer candidates means a smaller pool to choose from, which inevitably keeps the imbalance between the genders in place. This is a pity, because in the US especially, although the country is number six in women’s economic participation and opportunity according to the World Economic Forum’s 2013 Gender Gap Index of 136 countries, in the public sector it is far behind. The US currently ranks 60th in women’s political empowerment on the Gender Gap Index. Unfortunately, the world average is still low overall for the percentage of women in national parliaments at only 21 percent—slightly above the 18 percent in the U.S. House of Representatives.

So perhaps a female head of the UN would go a long way to right that balance, to bring a different vision of diplomacy, as well as help democracies around the world consider electing more women. Christine Lagarde, got any plans?