Here’s a question. Would you like a prime minister who dances and parties with friends or one that secretly appoints himself to half a dozen jobs?
Would you like a politician who understands work-life balance, and the importance of ‘being real’, or one who stuffs marginal electorates with cash in the lead up to a poll?
The saga around leaked videos of Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin partying might be worth a chat around the water cooler at work, but it goes to the heart of what we expect of our politicians and how we want them to act.
Sanna Marin is 36. A member of the Social Democratic Party, she’s savvy, strategic, a strong communicator and has had the top job since 2019.
She also has a life; a point she’s tried to explain repeatedly since the two private videos became an online sensation.
The judgment delivered over them is what reveals how, as voters, we might say one thing, and mean the other.
Diversity and representation?
We want those who represent us to understand us; to act and advocate on our behalf. We want them out of their ivory towers and onto the streets, which we pound each day navigating cost-of-living rises, parental struggles and school homework.
And then when we find someone who works hard during the week, but allows herself to laugh and dance and have a drink on a day when no work was planned or conducted, too many of us jump to judgment.
The consequence of that, as Jacinda Ardern pointed out, is that we are challenged in attracting the right people into Parliament.
“How do we constantly make sure that we attract people to politics, rather than – perhaps as has been historically the case – put them off,’’ she asked.
Or more of the same?
Do we want what we’ve had for decades? Mainly men. Older. White. Privileged.
Or do we want boost diversity, increase the savvy factor and have our parliaments stacked to the rafters with others like us?
Politicians with children and mortgages. Politicians who understand, and perhaps with lived experience of the mental health challenges gifted by COVID-19. Politicians from different cultures and backgrounds and ages and representing the broad gender spectrum.
Based on the judgment – juvenile, ignorant and packed with misogyny – that Sanna Marin has copped, we say we want those like us – and then cast judgment when they act like us.
Despite calling the demands she have a drug test to prove she wasn’t high when she broke into dance “unjust’’, Marin has acquiesced. ‘‘I did nothing illegal,’’ she told journalists in Helsinki.
She should not have had to do that to prove anything.
“I have a family life. I have a work life. And I have free time to spend with my friends. I’m pretty sure that’s the same as many people my age.’’
Would a male be treated the same way? According to many young women, that answer is a firm ‘no’ and it didn’t take them long to fight back against the ageist and sexist commentary in the way they know best. Online.
It’s a gift that keeps giving. Using the hashtag #solidaritywithsanna, across the globe, young women started uploading videos of their dance moves. Others – males and females, politicians and non-politicians – then joined in.
Tweet from @MetzTilly
But the criticism continues.
She should be aware of what she is doing in private. She should be careful in selecting friends. She should consider where she goes in her spare time. She should act her age. She should act like a prime minister should act.
And it’s that last criticism, among voters, academics and even politicians, that sticks in my craw.
Perhaps it would have been better for her to hide in her study, on a Saturday night, plotting how to take over her own government as it appears the Australian former prime minister did.
Or plan secret COVID-19 parties in the official residence, like Boris Johnson. Or perhaps model herself on that brilliant US president Donald Trump.
Sexist. Ageist. Ignorant. But more dangerous than any of those perhaps is what the response to Sanna Marin does in discouraging decent, young, diverse and clever people from putting their hands up for politics.
And do you blame them, when we judge someone for dancing, in their own time, like no one is watching?
