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Small States & Territories, 3(2), 2020, pp. 339-358
Being the President: Hilda Heine, Gender and Political Leadership in the Marshall
Islands
John Cox
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
La Trobe University
Australia
J.Cox2@latrobe.edu.au
Jack Corbett
School of Social Sciences
University of Southampton
U, K.
J.Corbett@soton.ac.uk
and
Ceridwen Spark
School of Global, Urban and Social Studies
RMIT University
Australia
ceridwen.spark@rmit.edu.au
Abstract: The literature on gender and democratic politics in the Pacific Islands is dominated
by a deficit model that seeks to explain the dearth of women candidates, of MPs and of women
holding senior political positions. A small body of recent scholarship has focused on the
experience of a select few women who have defied the odds to win high office. Specifically,
this work has focused on the strategies that women leaders employ to win election in male
dominated environments. This article extends these studies by focusing on how women govern
and lead. Drawing on interviews with President Hilda Heine, the first and only woman elected
head of state in a small Pacific Island country, her staff and network of supporters, we outline
seven strategies for women politicians. Documenting these strategies serves three distinct
purposes: 1) they add to our understanding of how Pacific women leaders undertake intentional
action to shape male dominated environments; 2) they contain important primary source
material that adds to the historical archive of this period in Marshallese politics; and 3) they
inform efforts by reformers, including international donors, aiming to equip women leaders to
serve in senior positions, both in Marshall Islands and the wider Pacific island region.
Keywords: gender, Hilda Heine, Marshall Islands, Pacific Islands, political leadership
© 2020 – Islands and Small States Institute, University of Malta, Malta
Introduction
The Pacific region has the lowest proportion of female members of parliament (MPs) in
the world. Most Pacific Island countries have only one or two women MPs at the national level;
some, such as the Federated States of Micronesia, have none at all. This absence has attracted
scholarly attention over the last two decades (Baker, 2014; 2018; 2019; Fraenkel, 2006; Huffer,
2006; McLeod, 2015). Specifically, gender and politics scholars have sought to document the
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
340
barriers that prevent women running for and winning elections. Typically, explanations focus
on structural factors, including the financial advantages essential for running a successful
campaign, traditional customs and chiefly traditions that favour men, the patriarchal doctrine
of local churches, and the highly personalised nature of small island politics which often
renders political parties and programmatic policy agendas obsolete (Spark & Corbett, 2018;
but see Rousseau 2012 for an alternative view). Cox (2009) and Wood (2019) have also noted
the role of patronage politics in the region. This explanation has led to a deficit model which
assumes that being a woman is always a disadvantage in electoral politics. In turn, the deficit
model has mobilised campaigns to implement temporary special measures or parliamentary
quotas for women candidates (Baker, 2019).
More recently, a subset of this literature, informed by critical actor theory (Childs &
Krook, 2009), has sought to explain why some women politicians are able to defy these odds
and get elected. Scholars in this area have also explored how women use their influence within
the political system to represent other women, even when they are in a numerical minority.
Similar work on the Pacific island region has focused on the background characteristics of
successful women politicians – they tend to come from political families, have above average
education, professional careers, and are unmarried or their spouse is from overseas – and the
strategies they employ to develop the profile and reputation to win office (Corbett, 2015a;
Corbett & Liki, 2015; Spark & Corbett, 2018; Spark, Cox & Corbett, 2018; 2019). While they
may be ambivalent about being labelled ‘feminists’, they often take identifiable action to
improve the position of women in their respective contexts (Spark, Cox & Corbett, 2021). A
key contribution of these studies is to question the blanket application of the deficit model by
highlighting successful stories. In turn, these examples can help us understand how existing
barriers can be overcome. This article extends this work by focusing on how the region’s first
ever woman head of state, Dr Hilda Heine, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
(RMI), governed and led. The significance of focusing on the ‘first’ woman to have achieved
and performed this role in the RMI and the region is that her trajectory and experience can help
us understand how more women can succeed in the future.
Seven strategies
To record these lessons, we draw on interviews with President Heine, her staff and her
network of supporters. We outline seven strategies that have contributed to her success and are
relevant to other women politicians:
1. Get the right staff
2. Use formal institutions and processes to disrupt the ‘boys club’
3. Cultivate a culture of mutual dependence among cabinet ministers
4. Find ways to turn gender into an advantage
5. Build an international network of women leaders
6. Keep family life simple
7. Never forget presence leaves a legacy
Not all seven strategies are exclusive to women politicians; but Heine shows how even a
seemingly neutral imperative to ‘get the right staff’ can be transformed in gendered ways.
Similarly, given the extent to which women across cultures assume the majority of domestic
and caring labour, the need to ‘keep family life simple’ is likely to be of particular importance
for women in public office. Documenting these strategies thus serves three distinct purposes:
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
341
1) it adds to our understanding of how Pacific women leaders undertake intentional action to
work within and reshape male dominated environments; 2) it helps record important primary
source material that adds to the historical archive of this period in Marshallese politics; and 3)
it contributes to efforts by reformers, including international donors, seeking to support women
already in senior positions, both in Marshall Islands and the wider region.
To substantiate these claims, the article is structured as follows: we provide a brief
background on RMI and President Heine, then outline our methods and data. Most of the article
is dedicated to outlining the key strategies provided by this unique example of a female head
of state in the Pacific region. We conclude by considering the significance of this material for
women leaders, donor agencies and reformers seeking to support them.
Background
The RMI is a small island state of 55,000 people, with an additional 45,000 living abroad
in Hawai’i, the mainland United States (US) or other US territories such as Guam. Until 1986,
the Marshall Islands was part of the United States-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific
Islands. As an independent state in free association with the US, RMI has greater autonomy
than other overseas territories like Guam or Puerto Rico. But the US connection still dominates
Marshallese politics due to ongoing federal funding (‘the Compact’) and revenue from a US
missile base on Kwajalein Atoll (Kupferman, 2016).
The Marshallese legislature is unicameral, with 33 seats in the Nitijela (Parliament). The
President of RMI is both head of government and the head of state, an arrangement that is not
uncommon in the Pacific (Fraenkel, 2010). There are no formal political parties in the Marshall
Islands, and candidates contest elections as independents. One consequence of the absence of
formal parties is that aspiring presidents have to cobble together a coalition of largely
independent MPs. These coalitions have tended to be temporary and fractious, with votes of
no-confidence in the government common (Fraenkel, 2002; Kupferman, 2016). Dr Heine won
the presidency on the back of a successful vote of no confidence and survived a vote against
her in the final year of her tenure.
Dr Heine entered the Nitijela in 2011 and became Minister of Education. In January
2016, she was elected president, making her the first woman to head an independent Pacific
Island state. Heine was one of only three women out of 33 senators in the Nitijela after the
2015 election (Labriola, 2017, p. 113). Initially, Casten Nemra was elected President by a
margin of one vote. However, a vote of no confidence saw him removed from office two weeks
later. Heine recalls:
I was given the Minister of Education portfolio by President Nemra but I declined due to
concerns related to actions of the newly elected President, including brazen disregard for
members of the coalition who voted for him. These discouraged me from joining his
Cabinet. It was obvious that prominent traditional leaders in the coalition were going to
make decisions for him. I warned him of such actions but he did not heed my warning
nor took me seriously (personal correspondence, April 2020).
Heine mobilised her family and other personal connections to successfully form a new
coalition in the Nitijela, with her as President. In small countries such as the Marshall Islands
where ‘everybody knows everybody’ (Corbett, 2015b), these personal relationships have more
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
342
political purchase than party loyalties. However, they are also subject to electoral vicissitudes.
At the most recent 2019 election Heine regained her seat as a representative of Aur Atoll but a
number of members of her coalition were not returned to the Nitijela. As a result, David Kabua
was elected president in January 2020.
Becoming president is the most recent in a long career of ‘firsts’ for Heine. She is also
the first Marshallese to be awarded a doctorate in education (Ed.D.). President Heine had many
of the characteristics common to successful women politicians in the Pacific (Corbett, 2015a;
Corbett & Liki, 2015): she had a distinguished career in education at senior levels in the
Marshall Islands, including as a classroom teacher, as President of the College of the Marshall
Islands, and as Secretary for Education. She also worked for 12 years in Hawai’i at Pacific
Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), a non-governmental organisation that focuses
on educational projects. Heine’s family have been active in public life since the 1950s,
providing a classic “political apprenticeship” (O’Neill & Domingo, 2016, p. 22) in public
affairs. Her cousin Dwight Heine was the first Marshallese to become a District Commissioner
within the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which administered Micronesia after the
Second World War. He was among the first to raise concerns about the health impacts of
nuclear testing on RMI citizens. Hilda’s Heine’s brother, the late Carl Heine, served multiple
terms in the Nitijela, including as Leader of the Opposition.
Method and Data
This paper builds on our recent articles that document how three of the region’s most
successful women politicians – Dr Hilda Heine, President of the Republic of the Marshall
Islands; Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, Deputy Prime Minister of Samoa; and Dame Carol Kidu,
former Opposition Leader of Papua New Guinea – managed to sustain long and high-profile
parliamentary careers (Spark et al., 2018). Adapting Bourdieu, our argument is that the success
of these women stems from their ability to translate social capital into political capital (Spark
et al., 2019). We argued that this insight gained via the unique vantage point of high-profile
cases could shed light on both their own personal success as politicians and as advocates for
other women and point the way for others with similar characteristics, opportunities and
ambitions (Spark et al., 2021).
When we conducted our initial research, Hilda Heine had just become President of RMI
and the first ever woman to become head of state of a Pacific country. The focus of that research
was, therefore, on winning elections and becoming a president. For this article, we conducted
additional interviews some years later to better understand what it was like to be the president,
and in particular what strategies this unique vantage point offers scholars interested in gender
and political leadership, and future women heads of state, both in the region and beyond.
The empirical material we draw on is qualitative and insider-oriented. The core of our
analysis focuses on three interviews with Heine: in 2011, before she became a politician; in
2017 during her second year in office; and in September 2019 in the lead up to the November
election. We triangulated this material with 10 semi-structured interviews with other political
actors in the RMI, many of whom were supporters or allies of Heine, and public documents,
including speeches and newspaper commentary. Given the focus of this piece on being the
president, we have here drawn primarily on more recent material.
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
343
Our account is unashamedly one-sided: we aim to understand how Heine saw her role
and the strategies she employed rather than attempting to undertake a holistic assessment of
her tenure as president. We include extensive quotations from our interviews to capture her
voice. This methodological choice echoes a longstanding position in feminist research in the
humanities and social sciences where giving priority and credence to women’s voices is a
strategy as well as a political commitment (Reinharz & Davidman, 1992). This approach is
based on two assumptions: first, that women’s voices have been and continue to be
marginalised in relation to men’s; and secondly, that women’s lived experiences represent
‘legitimate sources of knowledge’ (Campbell & Wasco, 2000). It is also the case that, attending
to what women politicians have to say will produce new and different findings in this field. As
such, while we allude to criticisms of her where relevant, we are chiefly interested in reflections
and lessons learned. Thus, unlike other such assessments of political leaders in small states
(e.g. Baldacchino, 2012), we make no claim to tell the ‘whole’ story or even determine whether
Heine made a substantive difference in the lives of Marshallese and particularly Marshallese
women. Rather, we focus on her reflections, on her tenure and the specific insights and
implications of this unique experience for ongoing debates and policy discussions about
increasing the political representation of women in the Pacific.
Being the President: Key strategies
1. Get the right staff
Women executives tend to be held to a higher standard than men and thus can be
disproportionately punished for perceived underperformance (Carlin, Carreras & Love, 2019;
Reyes-Housholder, 2019). As the first woman President, Heine felt this added pressure to
perform. However, the sudden nature of her ascent to the presidency meant that she had little
time to prepare for the role or to plan the transition. On reflection, she believes that this was a
disadvantage as she didn’t have the right staff in place to support her as president.
[I]f I have another term, I will carefully look at that and making sure that the right people
with the right skill sets and dispositions are there and that they have the necessary training
and support. Ideally, one should be making decisions in a place where there is
opportunity to get feedback on plans, policies and so on. It’s always good to have people
with the right skill sets and relevant experience to bounce off ideas … for me, that's the
most important lesson learnt this time (interview with Heine, September 2019).
This aspiration is nonetheless tempered by the reality of governing a small state where
family connections are paramount and human resource constraints, acute:
Due to smallness of the community and family connections, it’s very hard to come in and
do a cleaning [out] of the office. It’s almost impossible to do because everyone is related
to everyone else and so getting people off and bringing in a new crew is very difficult.
So we pretty much continued with the staff that we inherited…we should have carefully
assessed and then recruit[ed] people that have all the necessary skill sets ... I don't think
we have the right mix of skill sets. I think that one of the important [changes I made was
to] bring on a [new] highly qualified chief secretary … That helped and I could see the
difference in how policies were implemented and speed in which they carried out
(interview with Heine, September 2019).
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
344
Heine makes a similar point about her relationship with her constituency. A perpetual
challenge for politicians in archipelagic small states is that most of the day-today work occurs
in the capital and, because transport links are infrequent, it is hard to maintain regular contact
with constituents. These challenges are common to all MPs but are particularly acute for the
president who also spends a lot of time overseas, chiefly because Marshall Islands has a
significant presence in global climate negotiations.
Given this, Heine regrets not having appointed someone in her office who was
specifically responsible for her constituency:
It would have been good to have someone assigned to assist with constituency matters;
being new to the role that’s not something I considered my right to do. In hindsight, I
should have (interview with Heine, September 2019).
Instead, she relies on family support and the fact that she was upfront with her
constituency about having national and international commitments. The assumption is that for
the people of her small island constituency – less than 500 votes were cast in Aur in the 2019
general election – having her as president is an honour and this would help her re-election:
That is added benefit for them. There is honour and prestige in having their representative
chosen to serve as president of RMI. I try not to do more for them than I am doing for
other people; however, I cannot help but give special consideration to their specific needs
when I travel and go around the world and talk to people. I think they know that
(interview with Heine, September 2019).
Heine’s constituency returned her to the Nitijela as their MP at the November 2019
election, indicating that she got the balance between national and local issues. But, the more
general point is that, even though decisions about staffing and constituency relations are
important for all MPs, Heine believes role expectations are nevertheless gendered and this
informed how she operated once in office.
2. Use formal institutions and processes to disrupt the ‘boys club’
The gendered, informal and personalised nature of politics in the Pacific Islands means
that key decisions are often made on the sidelines of formal processes, in the lounges over
lunch, or in the bar, and subsequently rubber stamped by institutions (Corbett 2015a, p. 90).
This can place women politicians at a significant disadvantage as they are often excluded from
informal gatherings of the ‘boys club’ (Spark, Cox & Corbett, 2021). Heine sought to mitigate
this tendency by ensuring that all government decisions are channelled through formal cabinet
meetings:
For me, the most important principle that I try to get across to cabinet members is that
important decisions have to be made in cabinet rather than by individual ministers
making decisions on the sidelines ... Issues have to come to the Cabinet for discussion
before decisions are made. And, once a Cabinet decision is made, it is all of our
responsibility to go out and implement as needed. When issues arise later on, necessary
changes are made in Cabinet, not by individual Cabinet members. But let’s not just
[have] one person decide “oh, I’d rather do it this way so let’s do it this way” without
coming back to the cabinet (interview with Heine, September 2019).
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
345
This approach has the advantage of ensuring a degree of collective responsibility that is
often missing from cabinet government in states that do not have a strong tradition of party
politics. The government’s Agenda 2020 was key to this attempt to unite cabinet behind a single
policy platform, as one senior official relates:
She already set the bar pretty high by setting up this ambitious agenda to tackle all these
challenges. So I think that right there, right off the bat, it set her apart as being a bit more
proactive and articulate in terms of what she wants to get done (interview with senior
official, August 2019).
Critics have argued that Agenda 2020 was too wide-ranging with too many priorities.
Whether true or not, from a gender perspective, it ensured that Heine remained central to key
decisions due to her position as the head of cabinet:
I have to [keep] bringing them back by saying “no, this is the decision we made”. We
have to come back to cabinet if we want to change it, we change it as a group and then
we go back and do it. But don’t make a decision by yourself. (interview with Heine,
September 2019)
Heine also worked hard in office to lead the cabinet away from ad hoc decision-making
to a greater reliance on research and evidence:
We want to convince our leaders that we need to make decisions by using good data
evidence. We don’t just go and hop on a tangent over here because there is social pressure
for us to do certain things. It’s more of the data and what the evidence is telling us before
we move forward (interview with Heine, April 2017).
The result of these strategies was a formal process that ensured all voices were heard in
Cabinet, followed by consensus in public that reinforced Heine’s authority as president.
Heine’s use of formal processes to disrupt the ‘boys club’ has parallels in other countries (e.g.
Annesley, Beckwith & Franceschet, 2019; Piscopo, 2016). But this strategy also reflects the
imperatives of being a senior woman in the highly personalised context of small state politics.
3. Cultivate a culture of mutual dependence among cabinet ministers
Being chair of cabinet is not an easy task for any head of government; but it is a
particularly challenging role in Pacific island states without a strong tradition of political
parties. In RMI, politicians run as independent candidates. Thus, maintaining the support of
MPs, and especially ministers, is critical to the survival of the government. In this sense,
presidents govern at the pleasure of the Nitijela who have the power to appoint and dismiss.
The result is that Heine took office after the former president lost a vote of no-confidence and
in the final year of her first term she narrowly defeated a vote of no-confidence in her
government brought forward because of disagreement over a proposal to turn Rongelap Atoll
into a ‘special administrative region’ (Smith, 2018). More generally, women politicians tend
to have a smaller margin for error than men (Thomas, 2018). Thus, it is important to manage
the aspirations and ambitions of supporters within the parliament:
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
346
Well, it’s not easy. I know that I’m sitting there because they put me there... I am indebted
to them; at the same time, my name goes with decisions and the legacy of my
administration are mine to bear. I have to keep that in mind (interview with Heine,
September 2019)
To be a successful leader in such circumstances, Heine argues, it is important to remind
members of your coalition that they also depend on you:
The way the coalition was organised was they couldn’t have taken over control of the
government if I and members of my group did not join the coalition. So, they knew that
they couldn’t be ministers if I didn’t come on the scene; we mutually supported and
depended on each other. So I think we all realise that … the coalition is held on by our
needing each other and that we need to support each other. (interview with Heine,
September 2019)
These messages are especially important when allegations of misconduct arise:
[T]his is something that’s at the back of my mind every time I made a decision. It was
important to me that when somebody is not doing what he or she is supposed to be doing
and was lacking integrity … I draw the line. It wasn’t easy. It was very difficult to let go
of the ministers that I ended up letting go. But, I think it was important to let the rest of
the cabinet know that … integrity is really important … I agonised over … these
incidents. It took me up to six months of mulling over and collecting information/
documents to back up allegations, reviewing and looking at these - you know, back and
forth and back and forth. I listened to people; I also looked at what’s happening and I
[took] – you know, over – up to six months before I made that final decision. (interview
with Heine, September 2019)
What makes the Heine case especially challenging is that she had several close relatives
in the Nitijela, including two in cabinet. This led to accusations that she displayed favouritism.
She counters this charge by saying each Cabinet member sits on the Cabinet as a representative
of his/her constituency. She prioritised geographic representation in her selection of Cabinet
members and while this advantaged some of her relatives, others were denied a cabinet post.
She further comments that:
There will always be people who are not only dissatisfied but they look at opportunities
to criticize; and in any government there are opportunities there to bring forth a vote of
no confidence against the government and that was very difficult. I hope that I won’t
have to go through it again (interview with Heine, September 2019).
These dynamics are not unique to women but, as outlined below, there is often an implicit
expectation that they should govern to a higher ethical standard than men. Indeed, this
expectation can be implicitly and even explicitly reinforced within donor narratives arguing
for the importance of women’s representation. This is a double-edged sword, one also
compounded by the inherent difficulties of running an executive government in small states
and the amount of work required to maintain fractured coalitions. Over time, observers argue
that Heine got better at this side of the job:
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
347
The soft skills [being approachable, personable, etc.] have been there [from the
beginning] but over the four years, she's also started to really develop a tougher side
where she's spoken out much more verbally and directly on poor governance, bad public
service, a lot of the issues that we see. She has become really a better, more rounded
leader over time. But it's taken a couple of years of being in the position for this to really
develop (interview with senior official, August 2019).
This more direct approach also extended into the international realm and climate
advocacy in particular.
4. Find ways to turn gender into an advantage
The deficit approach to questions about gender and political leadership assumes that
being a woman is always a disadvantage. However, as the scholarship on politics and gender
has long highlighted, in some circumstances and times, there are advantages to being a woman
leader and astute politicians can exploit these to their benefit. Heine argues that in some
respects her appointment as president can be attributed to her gender:
Well, I have to say that I think I got elected to this position in a way because I’m a
woman, a neutral candidate and when many men were vying for the office, I was [seen
as] a safer, less controversial candidate (at the time)… there were a lot of different
feelings about potential male candidates ... Because men tend to argue with each other;
but it’s different when a woman candidate is in the mix … At the time, the opposition
party we joined had few traditional leaders and more younger senators who were more
open to having a woman run for the office of the president. It wouldn’t have happened
otherwise (interview with Heine, September 2019).
This echoes Beckwith’s (2015) findings that women often ascend to senior roles when
there is too much division among the male contenders.
As president, Heine reflected on the importance of her reputation as a strong, scandal-
free Minister of Education for her legitimacy as the nation’s first woman leader. As noted
above, women politicians in the Pacific, as elsewhere (Barnes & Beaulieu 2014; Funk,
Hinojosa & Piscopo, 2019), are often perceived as being above the corruption that entraps men.
But the conventions of public discourse in the RMI also suggests that male politicians feel they
should be careful about their choice of words when they criticise her or other women
politicians:
You know, I think I know this one thing being a woman leader, at least in our culture,
it’s very difficult for men to criticise women because women are considered their
mothers, whether or not they are really the mother. But they will be auntie [or other close
relatives]: so it’s that kind of in the Marshallese culture, there is that kind of respect in
the culture. So, for men to really openly criticise women publicly, especially personal
criticism, - you know women in general they can talk but personal attack, I think the
culture I think helps women in that sense. I think most men know that if they go out there
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
348
and have an outright personal attack on a woman, everybody is going to get down on
them and say look at that. That’s so un-Marshallese (interview with Heine, April 2017).
Demonstrating a helpful intersection between gendered and cultured ideals, Heine’s
gender also led to her being given the title of ‘mother of the nation’. Analogous designations
are also common in Latin America where the societal framing of women as ‘caretakers’ has
been transposed into the political sphere (Franceschet, Piscopo & Thomas, 2016; Jalalzai &
Dos Santos, 2015). Heine reflects on being somewhat uncomfortable with this label:
That designation comes from being the first woman president of the nation. But I'm not
sure what a mother of a nation is - you know, what is that all about? … [Laughs] I mean,
I know that Amata Kabua had been the father of the nation because he was the president
when the country was going through its own formative and growing pains and becoming
independent. So, that makes him father of the nation. But: mother of the nation? I came
in like 40 years later so I'm not too sure about the connotation and what it means accept
to say that it is associated with the Marshallese saying “Jined ilo Kobo” [also the name
of a women’s organisation Heine founded: see below] meaning women are mothers to
all and for all times. I often wondered if the reference when made, in my case, was more
a figure of speech or colloquial Marshallese rather than what we like to think (interview
with Heine, September 2019).
Others argue that the term is overwhelmingly positive and reflects Heine’s popularity:
Her nickname over the last few years is the ‘mother of the nation’. Sort of a unique
description in her title that she’s earned. Even in the parliament, the speaker will say “the
mother of the nation is here and let's give her time to speak”. So, I think again, the
motherly figure has helped her gain some social capital and political capital. So, I think
that's put her in a good spot in terms of being not only re-elected to her constituency but
having a pretty good shot of going onto a second term. That’s all about the fact that she's
a mother and a grandmother.
She made a speech where she [talked about being] a perennial mother. Even after your
kids have grown up and have moved out and everything, you're still going to be playing
that role of a caretaker, to look after the interest of others and care for others and pay
attention to the details of your children, even after they've long left the home. Anyway,
it was a really well put, well-constructed concept of the perennial mother (interview with
a senior official, August 2019).
In this view, being the ‘mother of the nation’ denotes positive leadership traits like duty,
responsibility, service, and inclusion. Heine and other women advocates have been able to
reframe Marshallese cultural traditions that reference gender equity and the dignity of women
in ways that support a progressive agenda. (Rudiak-Gould, 2013, pp. 47-48; Spark et al., 2019,
2020; Stege, Maetala, Naupa & Simo, 2008).
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
349
5. Build an international network of women leaders
One of the themes running through our previous work on senior women leaders in the
Pacific was the extent to which they are enmeshed in and draw strength from networks of other
senior women (see Spark et al., 2018; 2019; 2021). This strategy has affinities with those
designed to disrupt the ‘boys club’ discussed above, but with an added international dimension
that reflects the small size of civil society in Pacific states. It is also especially important for
understanding Heine’s tenure given that as a senior educator and civil servant she put a lot of
work into supporting the development of the women’s movement, together with other senior
women. This network building continued during her time as President, taking on a regional
rather than national flavour. Heine explains her rationale:
I realised that being the only woman in these all men-fora, especially ones for Pacific
leaders, which are often all men, is not easy. Not only that but I think issues that are
important to women are not necessarily at the forefront and so I think it's important for
women leaders to have a network of support from other Pacific women. That's why we
organised that Pacific Women Leaders Coalition.
While the Pacific leaders have made declarations on gender related issues, aspired to
decrease discrimination against women, and worked to give equal status to women, I also
noticed that in any of the discussions that we had and in the meetings that we had, gender
discussion never really came out. So, as leaders, how do we make sure that this gender
declaration takes on meaning and is carried out when implementation is not tracked and
no one reports back or discusses how these gender declarations are carried out at national
level? … to say this is what’s happening as a Pacific region; this is where we are with
this issue; perhaps that is not how things are done:
So, I felt alone; the need to have some kind of a network, to support other women leaders,
on a regional level, is not there. I have a network in the Marshall Islands; but a network
from the region that provides perspective from different countries on some of these
mutually important gender issues is needed (interview with Heine, September 2019).
The cornerstone of this effort was the 2017 Micronesian Women’s Conference that
focused on building relationships:
We brought all the women [leaders from Micronesia] and the idea is to create a coalition
that women leaders can bounce off ideas and from which they can get feedback right
away – especially on issues that are gender related – so that at that [conference, we heard]
the different voices of women from different countries and the perspectives of women
leaders around the Pacific region (interview with Heine, September 2019).
This reliance on women for support and advice was a hallmark of Heine’s gender
advocacy. She was part of a cohort of women who had access to US college education and
went on to have influential careers at senior levels in the Marshallese public service. Early on,
these women also founded the first non-church women’s organisation, Jined ilo Kobo (women
are the mothers of the child) and have supported successor NGOs such as Women United
Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI). These civil society organisations have run various
programs for women’s empowerment and created fora in which feminist principles have been
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350
indigenised and rearticulated in Marshallese idiom, including the repurposing of traditional
proverbs that speak of the dignity of women (Spark et al., 2018, 2019, 2021).
This had been a patient approach to making change. In the quotation below, Heine
reflects on the origins of a new law addressing domestic violence and child protection (known
in Majuro as “the WUTMI law”) as a seventeen-year history:
Well, there’s been a lot of work on gender for quite a number of years. I think the
women’s groups (WUTMI) started to work on violence against women as early as 2000.
We had a plan that started the process and studying it and looking into and talking about
it; and from that, all these awareness [efforts] are beginning to bear fruit. People are more
accepting and talking openly about that subject; are more understanding of the issue
around violence against women. And a big part of it was the women’s groups just coming
together and, you know, they’ve been on this for almost seventeen years now, we’ve been
talking about violence against women and so I’m glad that things (legislations, etc) are
coming together (interview with Heine, April 2017).
The long-term work in building, legitimating and embedding an activist women’s
movement in the Marshall Islands had created a strong network of women leaders who have
been able to connect regionally within Micronesia and the Pacific and in global fora. As one
senior public servant observed, these international networks have been invaluable in the fight
for action on climate change:
Her being a female president has generated a lot of international interest which I think
she’s really leveraged well. Because she’s now got this very strong network of women
leaders that she regularly convenes … I think she's used that to her advantage to push for
issues like gender equality and also using that network for climate advocacy, to highlight
the challenge of Marshall Islands in terms of climate change. So I give her a lot of credit
for bridging that advantage that she had as a woman to then strengthen this network and
use the network of other women and leaders to get messages across (interview with senior
official, August 2019).
She also argues that it extends to cabinet level decision-making:
There is one other woman in the Cabinet [Senator Amenta Matthew] and she and I help
each other when it comes to gender issues and gender discussion. That helped a little bit
because we are there and - yeah, so far, all the gender-related legislation and issues that
we’ve brought on board were given the support they needed (interview with Heine,
September 2019).
6. Keep family life simple
The ‘family’ question is always contentious for women leaders: men are rarely asked
whether or how they will balance family and political duties (Thomas & Bittner, 2017). Like
many women politicians, Heine’s children are now adults. But she was nevertheless keen to
emphasise that keeping family life as normal as possible is the only way to survive in the hustle
and bustle of public office. Indeed, she is insistent that she didn’t want being the president to
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
351
change her, including refusing to move house. She concedes she has not always been as
successful as she would have liked in pursuit of this goal:
My husband and I made sure that nothing changed in our family life after I assumed the
presidency. But it was not always easy; some changes were inevitable. For example,
maintaining our privacy; I have bodyguards going around with me almost all the time
except when I say I don’t want anybody coming. So: like today, I went on a picnic
without any police officers tagging along. It’s those kinds of things that are forced on
you; they came with the position. So I guess one learned to live with those things and
accepted as necessary. I guess, changes to my routine were also inevitable.
I stopped going shopping locally. My husband and my son ended up doing the family
shopping. It’s - I don’t know, it’s just easier. I just don’t like to attract attention and when
you go into a store with the policeman following you, obviously people will stare - oh,
okay. [Laughs] So it’s not any personal change. It’s more... a lifestyle change; because
of the office more than anything else (interview with Heine, September 2019).
But, putting these forced changes to one side, Heine was adamant that not getting seduced
by the trappings of office is the only way to survive her term with a sense of personal integrity
intact:
So I guess there are lots of perks that come with the office and I consciously made sure
that I don't get used to those perks because I know that it's a - there is a limit - time limit
to the position and you don't want to get comfortable with certain ways of living and
doing things knowing that changes are temporary and are coming. So I - yeah, I guess I
have thought about that and we made - both my husband and I have made a decision that
we weren't going to make too many changes to our lifestyle and the way we do things.
So we pretty much keep our lives simple as it was before I assumed the position
(interview with Heine, 2019).
Heine has been consistent in refusing to use her position for personal gain and has used
this as an opportunity to set a different example of how political leaders should act:
I mean an example is people are saying how come you are not buying a government
vehicle and I'm saying I think we need to lead by example. That’s not the most important
thing about being in this office is having a nice car. I have my private vehicle and it’s
still working in good condition, so why not continue to use it because I’ve seen how
government can spend a lot of money on vehicles because it’s a symbol— it's a status
symbol for many people and they want to buy the most expensive car. I’m saying no, you
don't need to do that. The perfect way to get the message out is to do it by example and
that’s exactly what I’m doing (interview with Heine, 2017).
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
352
7. Never forget: presence leaves a legacy
A key debate about gender and political leadership is the extent to which descriptive
representation – the presence of women – translates into substantive representation: policies
that benefit women (Baker, 2018). Heine sought to implement the latter but reflected that her
symbolic presence as a woman president was most likely to have the longest legacy
(Alexander, 2012; Jalalzai, 2015):
Well, I think being a woman president is a legacy in itself because it is a testament to
girls and women here that anything is possible. Throughout my career, that has been one
of the important principles for me - to do things as a way to show others, that it can be
done, to be a role model. I remember when I first contemplated going to get my doctorate
degree in education and someone was asking me – “why am I doing this?” The first - the
most important thing I thought about then was that I needed to show that it can be done
- that Marshallese and especially women can do it … if I can attend an outer island where
schools lacked everything – quality teachers, school supplies and books, often missing
school many days in a school year – and yet, I was able to go on and complete my
doctorate in education, and later, became a woman president. It can happen to anybody
… This is a great opportunity to continue to be a role model for Marshallese women
(interview with Heine, September 2019).
Certainly, while opponents sought to portray her gender as a negative in the most recent
election, all the women we interviewed within government and the NGO sector regard Heine
as an inspiration for Marshallese women. As one department head in the public service
commented:
She has all the qualities that I see in a Marshallese woman. She’s very steady, as in, she
can be stern. She’s very motherly. When you see her with her family, she’s extremely
like a mother figure. She’s educated. In fact, the first Marshallese woman with an Ed.D.
I have plans to be the second (interview, April 2017).
Heine’s high achievements as an educationalist and politician are matched by her
personal connections in mentoring and supporting so many women, old and young. One of the
frustrations of holding public office, and the limited time and resources a president has, is that
Heine feels she had not been able to do as much mentoring of other women as she would like.
She reflects:
Unfortunately, I think four years is too short. I didn’t have enough time… if I had more
time I would dedicate more time and resources to mentor more people, especially more
women. Being there and talking to the women in many respects – you know, in different
forums and in different ways – that in itself has been kind of mentoring; I saw a lot of
the women and through this period, young, very capable women coming out and being
very confident in their own skin. That’s very comforting because we have a lot of very
smart, hardworking women in the country and they should be given more opportunity to
shine (interview with Heine, September 2019).
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
353
Substantive policy changes for women include the setting up of a small business loans
program for women entrepreneurs and a Miss Marshall Islands pageant. The latter was
controversial but Heine backed it from the beginning, as one official reflects:
You know, you would think okay, that’s sort of a waste of time but it was really all about
getting young women to become leaders. It was far less about beauty and really about
her developing future female leaders … in the end, everyone was very proud of it. A lot
of these contestants were really articulate and were able to learn about and talk to the
issues. So that’s another thing that she can take some credit for. You think the
government shouldn’t support that kind of thing, it's really not a priority. But, in the end,
everyone really enjoyed it and thought it was worth doing (interview with senior official,
August 2019).
This reflection supports claims that beauty pageants may (surprisingly) provide a
political platform for women, despite their association with objectification in most instances
(Hinojose & Carle, 2016).
In addition, Heine argues that one of the unintended consequences of having more
women in politics is that because they face additional scrutiny this implicitly raises the bar for
all candidates, regardless of gender:
I know that there were a lot of expectations and people expected me to fail because I'm
a woman - that's number one. So, I needed to disprove that … we [women] can do this
job just as well …
Men get away with a lot of things ... I was looking at the newspaper the other day and
there is an [election] ad for a man and he used a swear word ... If I were to put that, I
would be immediately criticised … Until that changes I think it's important for us women
to acknowledge that and not to just say it shouldn't work for us because that's the way
things are. Maybe in the future it will change and that's why we're talking about all the
gender roles, gender issues and all of that. But, in the meantime, we need to acknowledge
that it's there and that in order to get ahead and be able to overcome a lot of the challenges
we need to work hard. [Laughs] We need to get ourselves out there and we need to make
sure we have that integrity …
The more we set our expectations higher, raise the bar for politicians, maybe; they will
be able to do better. I remember a time in this country when politicians got away with so
much. Right now, they cannot get away with that as much... Expectations and
accountability for politicians have increased for the better of the country and the people
(interview with Heine, September 2019)
The evidence that setting a standard matters is the increase in the number of female
candidates running for the 2019 election. While only two won (Heine and Kitlang Kabua), their
presence creates a subtle shift in attitudes that others observe:
I think that the last four years opened some eyes. You know, there are some men in the
Marshall Islands who thought that it was not possible; it was not even allowed, for a
woman to be president. That’s how bad it was amongst some men. They were just
J. Cox, J, Corbett & C. Spark
354
thinking it can only be a man that’s president, right? So she’s done a lot just being there
as female head of government, head of state for the last four years in terms of changing
mindsets. Without even having to try. Just the fact that she was there as our female
president made a lot of changes in terms of the perception and perspectives (interview
with senior official, August 2019).
Conclusion
Being a president is a unique position; very few politicians let alone people will ever
occupy the role. This exclusivity is why memoirs of presidents are so popular; we want to know
what it is like to be at the apex of government, to feel the weight of key decisions, to hold the
fate of a country in one’s hands. No Marshallese politician has ever written a memoir. When
Heine comes to the end of her political career, perhaps she will be the first to do so, thus
embodying another premier moment. In lieu of a full life history, we have taken an intermediary
step of seeking Heine insights about what it is like to be the first woman head of state in the
Pacific region. We have not aimed to provide an impartial account, weighing conflicting
evidence of her tenure, even though we have acknowledged criticisms that others make of her.
Rather, we have asked her to reflect on what she learnt doing the job. Our claim is that these
insights have significance, for scholars working on gender and political leadership in the
Pacific, for historians of Marshallese politics, and for donors seeking to increase the number
of women holding high office in the Marshall Islands and elsewhere. We conclude by
considering what each audience might gain from our ‘insider’ account.
For scholars of gender and political leadership in the Pacific Islands, Heine’s reflections
add to the growing body of scholarship that acknowledges the presence of women leaders in
politics—rather than focusing exclusively on their absence—and treats them as intentional
agents pursuing change in male-dominated environments. This sense of intentionality is
apparent throughout our account of Heine. But, we also highlight constraints: limited time,
limited resources, limited allies, and, at least initially, limited experience. These constraints are
not unique to women politicians or the Pacific region. Rather, they intersect with gender and
context in important ways that tend to go unacknowledged in the existing literature which
focuses on structural barriers, be they economic, cultural or religious, that exist outside
parliament. We thus add to this literature but draw attention to barriers that are only apparent
to ‘insiders’.
For historians and other observers and commentators on Marshallese politics, we provide
hitherto unpublished reflections of a sitting president about the challenges of governing a small
island state. Specifically, we highlight how archipelagic geography, traditional norms and
customs, and human resource constraints shape the processes and practices of contemporary
institutions like cabinet and the Nitijela. We also document the thinking behind some of the
key decisions made by the RMI’s first woman president. Given the dearth of memoirs by
Marshallese politicians, these insights contribute to a gap.
For donors and other would be reformers, our account builds on our contribution to
scholarly debates about the importance of an ‘insider’ perspective to explain some of the
challenges women face in the formal political sphere. So much attention focuses on getting
women elected—and as Heine reflects, descriptive representation has an important impact—
but the next step is maximising the impact of those who have obtained senior positions and so
may be considered ‘critical actors’ (Childs & Krook, 2009). Heine’s advice thus has enormous
Being the President: Hilda Heine, gender & political leadership in the Marshall Islands
355
practical value for this latter, select group as it both asks them to consider how they will
navigate male dominated environments, and provides some tips and tricks that may aide them
along the way. We summarised these as seven key strategies, not all of which are unique to
women – male politicians also consider staff, family and legacy, for example – but each can be
transformed in gendered ways. The strategies are also not a formula for success. Rather, they
serve as lessons learned from somebody who has done the job. They provide a place to start
for leaders and their supporters thinking through the issues. Each will have to be adapted to
specific circumstances and personalities. However, we anticipate that the underlying messages
will resonate across contexts to women leaders in the Pacific and beyond.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Hilda Heine for her support of our research on her presidency. We also
acknowledge helpful comments from two anonymous referees and the participants at the
Gender, Politics and Development Workshop, College of Micronesia, Pohnpei, 2019, for
inspiration and stimulating discussion.
External Funding
Funding for the research on which this paper is based was provided by the British Academy
(WW19\100019) and the Developmental Leadership Program.
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