New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern won’t propose to her partner and father of her child. And with this news, apparently, she's broken the sacred major rule of feminism, which is that if you're a feminist in one hugely important sphere of your life then you have to be a feminist in absolutely every other teeny tiny part of your vast and changeable life.
Pass huge woman-focused bills in Parliament? You’d better not let your husband take the bins out! Enjoy a bit of Hannah Gadsby’s stand up? Let’s not catch you letting a man open a door for you! Want a reappraisal of workplace dynamics that led to the sort of abuses of power we saw during the #MeToo movement, well, you’d better not accidentally go outside in high heels!!!!
If you fall foul of this rule of absolute feminism, then you’re chucked out of the club, your keys to the sisterhood confiscated, your equal rights rescinded and you’re left to wander the wild desolation of the patriarchy, with only beef jerky, metallic-tasting ales, pork scratchings and football memes for sustenance. You must sleep on a heap of dartboards, and bathe in Strongbow Dark Fruits.
Of course, this is all nonsense and the bullshit rule of an imposed and strict feminism has only ever been deployed by people who really aren't feminists or simply aren't thinking. Because just how feminist is it to use feminism, a movement aimed towards obtaining social, political and economic equality of the sexes, as yet another yardstick by which to measure her worth?
Jacinda Ardern faced this sort of absolutism when she, shortly after meeting with Theresa May, and right before heading over to Davos's World Economic Forum, went on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme and was questioned on her feminism.
The Kiwi leader, who made headlines around the world when she made a historical first by being the second woman leader of the world to give birth while in office (Benazir Bhutto was the first!), was asked if she’d propose to Clarke Gayford, the father of her child.
She replied: ‘I would not ask', to which Derbyshire responded ‘You’re a feminist!’
Then Ardern replied: ‘Oh absolutely, absolutely I am a feminist.’
After a pause, she added: 'But no, I want to put him through the pain and torture of having to agonise about that question himself, that’s letting him off the hook, absolutely not.’
Derbyshire responded ‘Ok, fair enough. We await that day.’
The conversation was friendly enough, and while Ardern seems surprised by the line of questioning, she doesn’t look too upset by it. But Derbyshire's flippant suggestion that Ardern is not a feminist for not doing something seems like a double negative too far. Let’s judge Ardern by what she does do, rather than what she doesn’t do. What she does do is help New Zealand's families, extending parental leave and lifting children out of poverty. What she does do is show a woman can be in the highest office in the land and have a baby.
Some have alleged Derbyshire has been sexist in her line of questioning, that a male politician would never be asked these sorts of questions. Of course, a certain level of scrutiny into Ardern's private life is to be expected after doing something as unfeasibly rare as having had a baby while leading a country. And being pregnant and giving birth is a huge physical endurance test that only a woman can go through, so of course a man can't be asked similar questions about that experience. Plus, it’s plain silly to think that just because a woman has an important job, doesn’t mean she won't want to talk about childrearing. To restore the balance, maybe instead of brushing a major part of a politician's life under the carpet, we should be asking male politicians about their kids as much as we ask female politicians about their kids. For instance, how revealing was it when Jacob Rees Mogg admitted he's never changed one of his six kids' nappies?
All that said, questioning a woman's feminist credentials simply because she won't do something that, apparently, feminism dictates women must do, is plain ridiculous and helps no-one.
Now, this isn't to say that Victoria Derbyshire, whose show has drawn attention to women’s issues for years now, is a rubbish feminist and must be ejected from feminism. Just that maybe she wasn't thinking, and, crucially, remembering, that women really don’t need to propose to men if they don’t want to. Even if they're the biggest feminist in the land. At a time when fewer people are getting married anyway, abiding by elements of a patriarchal system while getting on with trying to change tougher, more insidious parts of that same system does feminism absolutely no harm.