The challenge of empathy and female leadership

The fundamental question, on this Women's Day in 2026, will be whether, after breaking down the physical walls that separated girls and boys, school and education develop in women and men the desirable characteristics to be able to overcome the tremendous challenges that we will always face at every moment in history?

This year I didn't buy roses from my wife on March 8, 2026. Over time I reserved this ritual for the anniversary of our meeting, 31 years ago.

Yuval Harari, an Israeli historian who has dedicated himself to macro-history and, to a certain extent, philosophy, wonders and cannot explain why women have always been placed in the shadow of almost all civilizations. If in military confrontations, one can argue around physical force, on a strictly political level there is no reason why women should not be prominent, since it is not physical force that is at stake in the political management of societies.

And even physical strength has a lot to say about it. In our imagination, in Western history, literature and cinema have been in charge of disseminating fragile, delicate, sweet and almost always eroticized female images. In Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film "The Ten Commandments," Egypt's pleasant climate was a pretext for ethereal feminine garments that covered the body with diaphanous whiteness. Therefore, there were many generations marked by the equivalence between woman and weakness. Fortunately, gymnasiums, in the middle of the century. All over Portugal, they are full of women, who without losing a drop of their femininity, would easily give a beating to many angry men, despite the statistics of the sport reporting an alleged muscular superiority of men.

However, and unfortunately, statistics show the number of murders of women, victims of domestic violence. In 2024, there are 12,681 victims supported by APAV in Portugal. As for murders, there are around 30 deaths per year.

It seems that the right likes to use this data to insist on the fragile status of women and the need to always be protected. This misogynistic strategy, evident in some European countries, is perverse because it serves as a bridge to deny any chance of gender parity. Associated with the almost obligatory nature of referring the woman to the quality of family breeder, it is the perfect formula to keep the woman for a status of civic and social minority.

A brief look at Iceland tells us of the lack of justification for this thesis. In that country in the north of the planet, women have been fishing since at least the seventeenth century. It was between 1910 and 1960 that the struggle of women in the fishing industry increased. The Síldarstúlkur, the Women of Herring, was a social movement that fought for equal pay and working conditions in the fishing industry.

In 2023, a strike called by women in Iceland was supported by Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdóttir. The fight for parity continues, also in Iceland, despite the fact that, in this country, there are the best indicators of gender equality. Women's suffrage was achieved in 1915 and the presidency of the republic was handed over to a woman, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir in 1975, the first woman elected in any democratic country.

But the most interesting question that arises was launched in 2026, by Sofia Ramalho, President of Psychologists since 2025. Can the way of being feminine have an important impact on political leaders and the world? Could a woman at the head of the United Nations be advantageous, as António Guterres has already suggested?

A careful and scientific analysis of the profile of female leaders in peace processes points to a greater capacity for dialogue and negotiation and a concern for the harmonization of interests and articulation of the problems facing humanity. Creating consensus, through greater active listening, seems to be one of the traits of the feminine in these contexts. And, I agree with Sofia Ramalho, it is not just a question of representation, it is a question of the potential that the female vision can bring to overcome challenges. Virile and warlike masculinity is showing that its way of acting is a recipe for misfortune that is going through the Middle East at the time of writing.

But beware: if we take 50 men and 50 75-year-old women in a specific context such as that of Portugal, we statistically find a given male profile that is profoundly different from a female profile. But what if we analyze 50 men and 50 25-year-old women, born in the same geographical place, born 50 years apart? Certainly, the "masculine" and the "feminine" statistically will be different from the group of older people. That is, masculine and feminine are not just strictly deterministically genetic issues. In fact, if there is the genital and the genetic, there is also the endocrine, all within the biological package. But above all there is the social and, in what interests us for the future, there is also the educational.

To what extent can an education that aims to develop in boys and girls the true human potential of empathy, regardless of gender, save lives in the next generations? Can adequate and conscious education save lives in the context of domestic violence? Can an equally adequate education end the frightening number of victims of military conflicts?

What would a woman be in the presidency of the USA? Or ahead of China? Or as the leader of Iran? We would say that these countries do not seem receptive to female leadership. In Europe we have Giorgia Moloni as prime minister in Italy, Roberta Metsola at the head of the European Parliament and Ursula Von der Leyen in the European Commission. We have already had Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel. But there is an interesting question: in all these women do we recognize "the capacity for dialogue and negotiation and a concern for the harmonization of interests and articulation of the problems facing humanity"?

Those who were born in Portugal until the 70s, attended school with a clear gender division: female classes on one side and male classes on the other. In my 3rd cycle school, inaugurated in 1972, there was a yellow wall that divided the boys from the girls. In 75 the classes became mixed, but the yellow wall persisted. Anyone who visits my old school today will see that the wall no longer exists. The fundamental question, on this Women's Day in 2026, will be whether, after breaking down the physical walls that separated girls and boys, school and education develop in women and men the desirable characteristics to be able to overcome the tremendous challenges that we will always face at every moment in history? In other words, can education form more empathetic and fairer leaders?

Yes, because life is a challenge of constant readjustment.