Difference in the reactions between Tony Blair having a son in office and Jacinda announcing her pregnancy

I really don't like getting involved in personality politics but obviously with the news that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is pregnant it seems everyone has an opinion.

There are the well wishers who have congratulated Jacinda and then there are the naysayers who are appalled that in 2018 a woman should dare to have a political career AND have a child. How dare she?! Remember, back in the later 90s, former Prime Minister Helen Clark was criticised for NOT having children, as was former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Most comments have gone around in a circle that Jacinda is a liar, that she deceived the public and that she should have waited. Firstly, her reproductive choices are none of our business and given she is 37 and could potentially be in for three terms or nine years, she actually couldn't wait. Those who have been following the story closely will also know that she and her partner, Clarke Gayford had stopped trying for a baby when like many couples she fell pregnant.

Now, I won't repost some of the negative comments but they have been truly appalling and quite honestly sexist and misogynistic. They've revealed just how nasty people are when it comes to women's bodies, and it's not just men who are being critical, it's women as well.

Some people are also trying to mitigate the enormity of Jacinda Ardern's choice to have a baby while Prime Minister but what they don't understand is that in the real world women face the choice between career and children everyday.

Jacinda had questioned these things prior to winning the election and prior to getting pregnant. That's not a betrayal. That's simply her doing what everyone does, questioning what she'd be able to obtain. She thought she couldn't have both.

Now, to prove just how different male politicians who have children while in office are treated, I have dug up an old story from when former England Prime Minister Tony Blair had his youngest son, Leo in office.

This was the headline on the day that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's son Leo was born. The key phrase is:

"Blair, the first PM to father a child in office since Lord John Russell 150 years ago, will now go into 'holiday mode', the limited paternity leave he first revealed in The Observer last month. His diary has been largely cleared but he will still be at key events this week: a meeting of Labour's NEC on Tuesday, Question Time on Wednesday and the Cabinet on Thursday. Parliament then goes into recess.

The first congratulatory call, other than those from close family and friends, came from, of all people, John Major. Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy led the current politicians' congratulations, saying, 'I am absolutely delighted for Tony and Cherie. The most important thing now is that everyone respects their right to privacy and peace for a decent interval.' "

(source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/21/tonyblair.politics)

Amazing how supportive it was. This contrasts with the following commentary.

"Oh please! Giving birth months after winning an election isn't multi-tasking," she wrote.

"It's more a betrayal of voters. It's worse than Damian Green and those porngate claims! At least he could snap his laptop shut if World War III broke out. What will a new mum PM do? Hurry back from [the supermarket], wailing: 'I'm sorry I missed Armageddon, but we'd run out of organic Ella's Kitchen'?"

(source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11979125 - originally published in the Daily Mail).

This is an extract from a blog that's in progress as we speak, but it's amazing just how much sexism is actually being leveled at Jacinda Ardern.

So my question is, why do we congratulate men for having careers and children; and yet we chastise women for doing the same thing? Why do we call it multitasking yet with men we don't?

There was 18 years between these two news stories. That should indicate just how sexist society still is. Tony Blair's decision to take paternity leave barely got a mention whereas Jacinda Ardern is being criticised for daring to do what men have been doing for centuries.