The news about Jacinda Ardern struck a nerve with my sisters and I. It is indeed uplifting to see the world rejoice at her good fortune.

While there are the detractors and naysayers, the barrage of good wishes, the #knitforJacinda campaign and countless other little gestures, has been overwhelmingly positive.



But it was only natural for me to look back and compare this situation with the one my mother faced 28 years ago when she became the first world leader to give birth while in office.

At the time, as her children, we didn’t appreciate how extraordinary her life was. Looking back it is clear that despite her accomplishments, every day she had to prove that as a woman she had every right to be who she was, larger than life and leading from the front, every step of the way.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bilawal Bhutto Zardari with his mother Benazir Bhutto and sisters Bakhtawar and Aseefa. Photograph: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

As her children we didn’t comprehend the scale of her challenges because we never saw her complain, not even in private, about how she was held to a different standard just because she was a woman.

My mother began her political journey as a symbol of hope and resistance to the repressive, regressive, Islamist regime of General Ziaul Haq. He imposed dictatorship, hanged my grandfather – the first democratically elected prime minister – on trumped-up charges, and brutalised Pakistani society under the most authoritarian regime our country has ever seen.

He radicalised Pakistan to such an extent that we are still haunted by his actions today. So aggressive and pervasive was the misogyny that as a result of his extremist legislative rollbacks Pakistan became the first country on earth to revoke rights already granted to women.

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton with Bhutto and her children Bilawal and Bakhtawari. Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg/Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

Zia’s regime decided that a woman’s worth would be half that of the man in the eyes of the law. It was in this environment that my mother cut her political teeth, and led the political campaign against the regime.

Enduring imprisonment, solitary confinement, exile, assassinations of family members and associates was what she had to live through as a young woman.

A poet of the time encapsulated the patriarchal regime’s fear of my mother quite succinctly: “Dartay hain bandooqon walay, aik nihatti larki sai.” (How the people with guns fear an un-armed girl.)

In 1988 my mother led a nationwide election campaign, wrote a bestselling book, had her first child and became the youngest and first female prime minister of the Muslim world. All in one year! For her detractors this wasn’t good enough. She was unacceptable because she was a woman.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bhutto with her children during a visit to the UAE. Photograph: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

Disregarding her overwhelming popularity and mandate, a public campaign was launched to say Islam did not allow for women to rule.

So-called scholars issued fatwas decreeing that if anyone voted for her their marriage would be null and void. This kind of overt misogyny continued while she was prime minister.

Perhaps most controversially when she was pregnant with my sister, Bakhtawar, her prime ministership was challenged for that fact. There were calls for her dismissal, the setting up of a caretaker government because a pregnant woman had no right to be prime minister. It’s not like the constitution allowed for maternity leave.

My mother, being who she was, took this all in her stride with a smile on her face, had her baby in secret and was back at work the next day. For misogynists, no matter what women do, it was and is never good enough.

When my mother was not married, they would say, “Oh, good women are married, so why isn’t she married?” When she did get married, they would say, “Oh, why did she choose to marry him?” Then they would say, “Why is she not having children?” Then when she did have children, they said, “Oh, why is she always pregnant?”

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari with his mother at a press conference during her second term as prime minister. Photograph: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

Growing up we just did not appreciate these challenges. Her final campaign was against the military dictatorship of General Musharraf and the scourge of violent extremism in Pakistan.



She led the long fight against Musharraf, fought consistently for democracy, and advocated for the release of political prisoners, including my father who at this point had spent a collective 11-and-a-half years in prison without a conviction. All the while raising her children as a single mother, lecturing and giving speeches to make a living, making time to have a meal with us every day, taking us to the mosque every Friday, helping us with our homework, and much to our annoyance, never missing PTA meetings!

Driven always by a sense of destiny and a duty to her people, she returned to Pakistan to lead the fight against extremism and dictatorship. In doing so she spoke out against religious fascists with a brand of courage not shown by any of her contemporary male politicians.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The prime minister’s house in Islamabad. Photograph: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

Ultimately the forces of dictatorship and extremism robbed me of my mother but she lives on as a symbol of hope, a role model for women across the world. She proved beyond a doubt, with her life and relentless courage, that women can certainly do everything. While the political pygmies who opposed her will be forgotten, she lives on in history as a global icon.



I know every child thinks of their mother as superwoman, I certainly did.



Bilawal Bhutto Zardari chairs the Pakistan People’s party