Benevolent Grammar and Combat Rhetoric: Women’s Leader Discourses and Practices in Iceland, New Zealand, and Taiwan During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The health crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19 has normalized the “war” rhetoric as an argumentative strategy for many politicians. However, the mass media has conveyed particular rhetoric for women leaders: their responses to COVID-19 were seen as more preventive, effective, and cooperation-oriented. Thus, since the onset of the pandemic, do the discourses of women leaders counter the myths that associate autonomy, rationality, and national interest with men and masculinity? The purpose of this article is to analyze the extent to which the discourses of Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwan), Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand), and Katrín Jakobsdóttir (Iceland) mobilize warlike analogies in the management of the COVID-19 health crisis. Following a feminist poststructuralist framework in the field of international relations and a qualitative methodology based on thematic discourse analysis, the article demonstrates that women leaders mobilize discourses more oriented towards mutual assistance, care, and gender relations than towards war, except the Taiwanese leader who, without adopting a belligerent discourse, insists on the “combative” model of her government.