Cynics might be tempted to see former Irish president Mary Robinson as a fully paid-up member of a globetrotting elite of do-gooders: those nongovernmental organization chiefs, emeritus professors and retired politicians of a liberal hue who fly around the world churning out carbon and hot air about poverty, sustainability and ethical globalization. The popular former president, recently anointed one of Nelson Mandela's 13 wise "elders," does sometimes slip into a kind of UN human rights-speak that is opaque to the rest of us. But Robinson also has a down-to-earth passion for helping ordinary families -- and she has big ideas about the ways in which the current generation of female heads of state can put a new kind of women's leadership into practice.
One figure particularly interests her: 40. That is the number of current or recent women prime ministers and presidents around the world who Robinson says have joined, or soon will join, the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network founded in 1996 by Laura Liswood, a senior adviser at Goldman Sachs, and now chaired by Robinson.
The figure is far higher than most people guess and Robinson had an uncompromising message for the hundreds of women gathered to hear her deliver the inaugural Women of the Year Lecture in London last week: Women in positions of power should be making more of an impact.
It is recent history, but it has almost been forgotten just how revolutionary it was when Robinson became the first woman president of Ireland in 1990. Powerful conservative forces were ranged against her, including then prime minister Charles Haughey, but Robinson became hugely popular during her seven years in power and remained defiantly political and radical -- shaking hands with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, visiting the Queen in Downing Street, intervening, perhaps decisively, before Ireland's narrow referendum in favor of allowing divorce in 1995, while still managing to work constructively with the Catholic Church.
As UN high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002, Robinson tried hard to bring another institution closer to the people. Since then, she has brought her legal training to bear on a blizzard of worthy human rights and international development causes.
Robinson and her husband, the political cartoonist Nick Robinson, now live in New York, and at 63 she could be enjoying a quiet retirement, but her life is one of constant meetings. However, she says she can switch off and enjoy seeing her three children and three grandchildren. She has her doctor father's ability to "totally holiday," she reckons.
"When I am holidaying I really enjoy it. I have great fun and I love to be ridiculous," she says.
Another commitment Robinson has taken on is as one of the Elders, a group of 13 global senior citizens, including Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and former US president Jimmy Carter (plus a chair kept symbolically free for the detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi), who hope to use their moral authority to intervene in crises around the world. She was skeptical about the Elders until they all met Mandela.
"I wondered about the idea. Was it not a very arrogant concept? Then we had our planning meeting with Nelson Mandela, who I've met many times. He has such an incredible power of bringing out the best in people and from that moment on we knew our responsibility was in `eldering," she says.
The word was invented by Tutu, whom Robinson clearly adores. He is full of wise words and so witty, she says.
"He gets us to call him `the Arch,'" she says, smiling.
Robinson sees typically "female" leadership qualities in some of the male Elders -- Tutu and the economist Muhammad Yunus are two who come to mind -- but wants high-profile women to push for a new style of women's leadership.
"There are two types of women who get into high positions," she says.
The first she describes as "very talented" women who do it in a traditional -- male -- way.
Like Margaret Thatcher?
"Yes, and fair dos: to get through is not always easy. A lot of women in business accept that model. But there is also the other model I would very strongly advocate and this is equal to the contribution of men but different, complementary, exciting and innovative," Robinson says.
It is this approach that Robinson hopes to harness in her role as chair of women world leaders (new invitees include the presidents of India and Argentina and the prime minister of Ukraine). She calls it an "enabling collective women's leadership." It's a horrible piece of jargon, which she explains as a coming together of women from politics, but also from the worlds of charity, business and the arts in order to change lives.
She argues this approach is fundamentally different from male leadership in terms of women's empathy, ability to work together and problem-solving skills. Traditionally, she says, women have been a bit defensive about exercising power, but this has made them more reflective.
"Women leaders are often more analytical and self-critical and more honest about it than their male counterparts. It's as if they are still asking the question `am I doing well enough?'" she says.
Most crucially, Robinson wants this women's leadership to be directed beyond the traditional fields of health and education.
"We deal with health and education, and empower women and girls, but are actually not crunching on the key issue," she says.
This fundamental issue is "security," and her mission is to reclaim the word and define it as most women would; not in relation to the war on terror but in terms of ordinary families; security, in other words, from poverty, climate change, abuse and discrimination.
"It's hard to reorientate a world that is very focused on security, but actually not [tackling] it very cleverly," she says.
The war on terror, she believes, has been "a disaster, not just for human rights but also for ideological divides, for squeezing out the moderates."
Critics might wonder what impact this rhetoric about women's leadership can have on the lives of a battered wife in a provincial town in western Europe or a refugee in Somalia. As a global elder, Robinson may be able to command a bit of media attention, but how can this translate into changing people's lives?
"When it comes to women's enabling collective leadership we are a bit on trial because it's new," Robinson says.
So she and a number of other women will test their leadership skills in the coming year by "intervening supportively" in Liberia, where President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became Africa's first elected female leader two years ago. The backing for Johnson-Sirleaf will be "very practical and we'll be able to measure outcomes," Robinson says.
She and other women leaders are "learning a very loose freewheeling idea of working together," she explains.
Wouldn't she be better off fighting for women through existing democratic structures, which offer proper accountability and a formal authority to get things done? She points to the lack of impact women currently have using those channels.
"Women are now present in critical mass. We are there politically, in business and at the community level; so why are we not having more influence? Maybe we're accelerating the process, trying to be the pioneering front that moves a bit faster," she says.
I wonder if this promotion of informal networks comes from the frustration born of years enduring the glacial pace of change in politics and the mega-bureaucracies of the UN. The Elders seem a good example of Robinson's preference for action outside politics. This year they are campaigning to remind everyone of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
"The Elders couldn't run anything at the moment. We haven't got our organization together. So how do we mount a huge campaign? We have the power to ask. Because of the moral authority of Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel, nobody says no," she says.
But Robinson insists she has not given up on institutions. She would like to see the creation of a rapid response group of women leaders who could intervene quickly in places such as Somalia, where women are often on the frontline of suffering.
"I'm not somebody who is an individual against institutions," she says. "When I was elected president of Ireland I was committed to reforming that institution so it was more relevant and closer to the people."
Her hope is that women in power will join her to link to the determination of women on the ground to bring about change. That determination is particularly evident in Africa, where, for example, half the members of parliament in Rwanda are women.
"The passion, strength and power of women to make change at grassroots level is always underestimated," she says. "It was underestimated when I was president of Ireland. It's been underestimated all the time."
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