The world would be a better place if women were calling the shots

[Corax]

Prompted by a post on the million women march thread, but too much of a derail to post there:

Just seen a very timely story on C4 News about Int'l Women's Day. Jude Kelly, artistic director of the South Bank Centre (I think) said the world would be a better place for all if we had a mix of male and female values in peacekeeping and finance. Which pretty much mirrors my view that if we had gender balanced governments there'd be less war, corruption, greed and social inequality.

I'm not convinced of this at all.

Aggression, violence, greed and hostility are not inherently 'male' traits IMO.

However, they are related to attributes that appear to be of benefit in the structure of our society, and particularly to gain positions of power - whether government or private enterprise.

There are plenty of men, as well as women, who would not succeed in government because they don't possess the requisite aggression. If we had more of a gender balance in government, we'd just have equal numbers of aggressive and domineering men and women. Nothing would change, and the state of the world would not be affected one jot.

The solution is nothing to do with gender itself. It's to change the system to make it less combative and oppositional, less hostile, so that men and women of a different ilk could succeed.


I'm sure others have far more sophisticated and knowledge-based views on the subject than mine, hence this thread.

 

[weltweit]

Was Britain a better place when Margaret Thatcher was in charge?

When Boudacia was in charge?

Not convinced by your argument yet!

 

[stethoscope]

Gender balance and equality can help, but getting rid of capitalism and class would result in the World being a better place IMO.

 

[bi0boy]

Thatcher, Macapagal-Arroyo, Yulia Tymoshenko...they aren't exactly angels.

 

[DotCommunist]

psephology shows that without a female vote labour would have won every post war election. Ever. Also 'come back with your shield or on it'.

On a more serious note there should be no dominance from either but rather a synthesis. Finbarred it at the end there through sheer unconscious vizism

 

[stethoscope]

psephology shows that without a female vote labour would have won every post war election. Ever. Also 'come back with your shield or on it'.

On a more serious note there should be no dominance from either but rather a synthesis. Finbarred it at the end there through sheer unconscious vizism

Did I ever tell you I love you DC?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Don't agree, it's about power. As long the current structures of power remain in tact people, no what their genitalia, will continue to abuse or be abused by them...

 

[Bakunin]

Thatcher, Macapagal-Arroyo, Yulia Tymoshenko...they aren't exactly angels.

If you think that they're bad, then Agrippina the Younger would really make your hair curl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippina_the_Younger

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Gender balance and equality can help, but getting rid of capitalism and class would result in the World being a better place IMO.

Smash capitalism and replace it with something nicer!

 

[nick h.]

Oi, this should be in World Politics! And I didn't say women should call the shots, I said we should have a gender balance FFS.

Weltweit has been quick to chime in with the predictable male kneejerk response. You say Thatcher and Boudicca, I say Hitler, Bokassa, Vlad the Impaler...it's not exactly a debate, is it?

There is no statistically significant evidence of what matriarchal or gender-balanced governments are like. A couple of African tribes, and a brief period in Sweden in the '70s, and that's about it. So we really have no clue. Given that the world's gone steadily backwards for the last few decades I think it's time we tried managing things with a little less testosterone. Even alpha females have less of it than alpha males. And if there weren't so many alpha males in charge I reckon that women wouldn't have to mimic men (a la Thatcher) to attain power.

 

[Corax]

Everyone just agreeing with my OP does not make for a good thread.

Edit: Ah, finally!

Oi, this should be in World Politics! And I didn't say women should call the shots, I said we should have a gender balance FFS.

I know you didn't, but I'm a repressed tabloid headline writer.

 

[stethoscope]

Smash capitalism and replace it with something nicer!

Well I live in hope!

 

[DotCommunist]

Smash capitalism and replace it with something nicer!

if you do, your enemies will idolise whiners like Solzhenitsyn

 

[IMR]

The world probably would be a less warlike place if women ran things. Can't say I've heard of any society where women are more physically violent than men as a matter of routine. That's not to say women can't be capable of extreme hostility, just that it usually takes different forms, such as character assassination etc.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

if you do, your enemies will idolise whiners like Solzhenitsyn

Fuck that.

Smash the cistern!

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Apart from it being apolitical gender-essentialist junk borne out by absolutely nothing, I can't see anything wrong with this position.

 

[bi0boy]

The world probably would be a less warlike place if women ran things. Can't say I've heard of any society where women are more physically violent than men as a matter of routine.

War leaders aren't typically physically violent people though are they?

 

[stethoscope]

Fuck that.

Smash the cistern!

Can't beat the cistern, go with the flow

 

[IMR]

War leaders aren't typically physically violent people though are they?

They're usually too old to be good at fighting.

 

[Corax]

And if there weren't so many alpha males in charge I reckon that women wouldn't have to mimic men (a la Thatcher) to attain power.

I've never seen how Thatcher was 'mimicing' men. There are plenty of women who act aggressively, and I don't think they're all imitating men. There are plenty of gentle and non-aggressive men, and I don't think they're imitating women either.

A lot of people seem to have it hard-wired into them that violent and dynamic traits are 'male' and subtle and caring traits are 'female'. I've seen nothing to suggest that this is true.

What is true, is that men and women are both conditioned to behave in certain ways, which have historically fitted this stereotypes.

 

[boohoo]

Often in more recent history women have adapted male behaviours to get ahead such a being more aggressive, etc, etc...

It's difficult to look at female characters from the distant past and make a judgment on their behaviour. Mainly because we have such little information about them.

The world would be very different if women ran it - just how different we won't ever know. So we can't make comments that it would be more peaceful or less aggressive because we end up dividing up behaviours into either being very male or very female.

 

[Corax]

The world probably would be a less warlike place if women ran things. Can't say I've heard of any society where women are more physically violent than men as a matter of routine. That's not to say women can't be capable of extreme hostility, just that it usually takes different forms, such as character assassination etc.

Yet with more equality for every generation, we're seeing a levelling of that. The A&E at my hospital sees pretty much equal numbers of women as men who are in their after violence on a Friday/Saturday night.

Are these women fighting because they're 'imitating' men? Or is it more just because they're no longer conditioned into thinking that it's 'unladylike', and will make the unattractive to men, and also because being attractive to men is no longer the prime ambition expected of them? I think it's something closer to the latter myself.

 

[Corax]

Often in more recent history women have adapted male behaviours to get ahead such a being more aggressive, etc, etc...

Again this presumption that aggression is a 'male behaviour'. Could it not be that it's merely a behaviour that men have been conditioned towards, and women have been conditioned against?

If not, why the rise in casual violence by women?

 

[DotCommunist]

The world probably would be a less warlike place if women ran things. Can't say I've heard of any society where women are more physically violent than men as a matter of routine. That's not to say women can't be capable of extreme hostility, just that it usually takes different forms, such as character assassination etc.

not having that, see my 'come back with your shield or on it' comment.

Of course we don't have much in the way of historically recorded matriarchal societies so its not always easy to say. People are people though. Theresa may is a total cunt- is her cuntitude qualitatively different from male toryism?

I think it is foolish to perceive criticisms of patriarchy as endorsments of a polar opposite matriarchal society. Its a binary choice question for a world that doesn't have enough numbers to grade the complexity.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Nobody should be calling the shots. Power corrupts everyone regardless of gender.

 

[Pickman's model]

PM sent!

Just seen a very timely story on C4 News about Int'l Women's Day. Jude Kelly, artistic director of the South Bank Centre (I think) said the world would be a better place for all if we had a mix of male and female values in peacekeeping and finance. Which pretty much mirrors my view that if we had gender balanced governments there'd be less war, corruption, greed and social inequality. Kelly's opponent in the studio debate was Cristina Odone, the well-known confused Catholic. Her take was that there should be room in the world for women who want to be women as well as women who want to be men. The latter are the ones who succeed in the world of work. Which pretty much mirrors the 'get your tanks off my lawn' response I get when I tell mums or would-be mums that feminists have let us all down by achieving so little in the last few decades. You can't win, can you? The only certainty is that on the next International Women's Day no progress will have been made.

Oi, this should be in World Politics! And I didn't say women should call the shots, I said we should have a gender balance FFS.

Weltweit has been quick to chime in with the predictable male kneejerk response. You say Thatcher and Boudicca, I say Hitler, Bokassa, Vlad the Impaler...it's not exactly a debate, is it?

There is no statistically significant evidence of what matriarchal or gender-balanced governments are like. A couple of African tribes, and a brief period in Sweden in the '70s, and that's about it. So we really have no clue. Given that the world's gone steadily backwards for the last few decades I think it's time we tried managing things with a little less testosterone. Even alpha females have less of it than alpha males. And if there weren't so many alpha males in charge I reckon that women wouldn't have to mimic men (a la Thatcher) to attain power.

what you seem to be saying is that we should have capitalism but with a 'mix of male and female values in peacekeeping and finance'. because there are obvious cross-class and cross-cultural male and female values, aren't there. the problem is that you've tied your views to some notions which don't seem to have any basis in reality.

the best that can be said of your thesis is that you wish to see capitalism with a more human face.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Often in more recent history women have adapted male behaviours to get ahead such a being more aggressive, etc, etc...

Hmm. Not sure about this at all. How do you quantify 'aggression' anyway? If anything I'd say there are certain manifestations of agression and anger which are more common in men than women, and vice versa. Violence need not involve one's fists. Opression need not involve violence.

 

[Pickman's model]

Was Britain a better place when Margaret Thatcher was in charge?

When Boudacia was in charge?

Not convinced by your argument yet!

boudicca was never in charge of britain.

 

[IMR]

.

 

[IMR]

not having that, see my 'come back with your shield or on it' comment.

They've often had good reason to say things like that. They don't want the Hill People or whoever invading their village and raping them.

Where you find hard women, you'll find ultra-violent men.