She's been named the most powerful woman in the world by Forbes multiple times. She's led the 4th largest economy in the world for 8 years, and is beginning a third four-year term (never mind that fact that she's the first women to ever hold her position). She is Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany.
My interest in Merkel began at the beginning of this school year. There's a tradition that Academy (a cross-school program I'm a part of) seniors are assigned countries when we start in August. As part of our current events class, we have to follow the country and report on major events. I was given the Federal Republic of Germany. When I started, my knowledge of Germany was limited to World War I & II, and I knew almost nothing about the present German state or Merkel as its leader.
In the months since I'm chronicled everything from Merkel's impressive reelection to her pelvic break (ouch!). It's been interesting to see how a country and the media reacts to Merkel as the country's leader, as someone from the United States which has yet to have a female behind the big chair in the Oval Office. I've determined that the Germans are far more accepting of Merkel than Americans are to the closest thing we have to Merkel, Hillary Clinton.
Merkel is able to go about her business without much discussion about her pantsuits or haircut, unlike Hillary. Granted, I haven't read much about Merkel's original campaign for Chancellor in 2004, so I don't know if those were originally covered heavily by major news corporation and have just tapered off over the last 8 years, or didn't exist in the first place. However, this isn't a post about Hillary. Although there's definitely one in the making.
'Mum' Merkel, as she's been nicknamed, has had a rocky road as a female politician. She's liked by most people in her country, and has been seen as a stabilizing, reasonable, focused ‘motherly’ force (she also has a PhD quantum chemistry!). However, she has been criticized as being too strict with Germay's austerity policy towards struggling European Union countries, and domestically, she takes very slow steps to solve problems.
What still makes her so well liked, and so contrary to the United States, is her ability to compromise. She’s compromised with most of her opposition parties, and sometimes on the foreign front in small increments. She compromised to create the ‘Grand Coalition’ of the CDU and SDU parties that begins in the legislative branch of Germany’s government this year, instead of keeping the political process hostage in negotiations over the coalition. She’s going to work with David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, to ensure his country doesn’t leave the EU. All of these actions are in the best interests of the German people, the German government, and Europe as a whole.
Were Merkel to take these actions in America, it’d be seen as ‘appeasement’ to the enemy, and a display of weakness. In Germany, it’s viewed as responsibility, and that shows how much leaders like Obama and John Boehner can learn from her actions. Or, they could just keep wiretapping her phone….
Cia♀,
Charlie
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