Obama: World Would Be Better Off If Women Ran It

No, Michelle Obama is not running for president, or any other office. But her husband thinks that in general it wouldn’t be a bad idea. From the BBC: Barack Obama: Women are better leaders than men.

If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, former US President Barack Obama has said.

Speaking in Singapore, he said women aren't perfect, but are “indisputably better” than men.

He said most of the problems in the world came from old people, mostly men, holding onto positions of power.

Now, I have to admit that the first woman who comes to mind in this context is Maggie Thatcher, who pretty much ruined public transport in the UK through privatization and did some other damage to Britain’s economy (though she was not as complete a disaster as often claimed). On the other hand, there’s Angela Merkel of Germany, who has generally done a good job in difficult circumstances.

“I'm absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes.”

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway all currently have women leaders. (Sweden has never had a woman as prime minister, though they do make up 45% of the parliament.) This should not be surprising, since Scandinavia leads the world in gender equality — and also in having the highest living standards. So Obama is on to something here.

And one last thought from one of the most thoughtful persons ever to sit in the Oval Office:

When asked if he would ever consider going back into political leadership, he said he believed in leaders stepping aside when the time came.

“If you look at the world and look at the problems it's usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way,” he said.

I MISS OBAMA!