Women in power = better than men?

[His Divine Shadow]

This came up recently on another local forum, some woman poster said in a georgia thread something along the lines of "F¤%&"# men that can't stop waging wars, how many times haven't I thought that things would be so much better if women where in power instead"

I've heard that before ofcourse, never given it much thought. But I thought it might warrant a discussion. How true is it?

Would women in positions of power be different than men? Are women more emphatic, less agressive and less prone to violence? Or are such traits part of the ambition required to attain such positions of power in the first place?

I have to say I don't have a clue as to what's more likely.

[Zac Naloen]

The only woman who got into power in the UK took us to war with Argentina, but I suspect she may be a special case. She was a hard case on most issues.

[Cairber]

My husband is always telling me about the damage done to Panama during the time that Mireya Moscoso was president. Her term was plagued by scandals, she was responsible for displacing many Panamanians from poorer areas of the city to build a mall and gave them no value for their homes, she caused Cuba to break relations with Panama by pardoning Pasoda, it was under her that the government stopped paying for the road work it has my husband's grandfather's business do...he can rant on about this for a while (and he voted for her).

So it seems to me that there wouldn't be too much difference between women and men.

[Dooey Jo]

That depends on the woman, of course, and the reasons for going to war, and the nation at large.

It's a pretty funny statement though. If men are all troglodytes just waiting to hit someone with a bat, shouldn't all women be that mean, scheming bitch that ruins everyone's shit for her own amusement? Do we really want that as our leader?

[Temjin]

Tell this to Boudica.

I fail to see how history would be any less violent. It's not like women don't also suffer greed and ambition, two of the leading causes of war. And it's not like their immune to religion, also a major cause of war. Women can be plenty aggressive as well, and can get into plenty of physical fights if only with other women most of the time.

This just reeks of looking at the feminine gender through rose tinted glasses. Taking the popular stereotypes and treating as fact, without thinking them through.

I'm sure it made the person who suggested it feel smugly superior though.

[Stuart]

This came up recently on another local forum, some woman poster said in a georgia thread something along the lines of "F¤%&"# men that can't stop waging wars, how many times haven't I thought that things would be so much better if women where in power instead" I've heard that before ofcourse, never given it much thought. But I thought it might warrant a discussion. How true is it?

Margaret Thatcher
Golda Meir
Indira Ghandi
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Chandrika Kumaratunga

I think the assertion falls by examination of the track record.

[Lagmonster]

Amusing anecdote: When Kim Campbell became Prime Minister, my mother jokingly quipped that it was trouble if we got into a war. When asked why, she said, "When men fight, it's by rules. Whoever captures this bridge wins. Whoever gets the other side's king wins. Rules of engagement, prisoners, civilians, etc.. It's like a big game. But when women fight, it's dirty. If you get a woman angry enough that she wants to kill you, she'll take out you, your kids, your dog, your farmland, half the continent, and anything that happens to be in the way."

Seriously, I tend to look at reflection of professional behaviour. In the workplace, women and men approach a grasp for power differently, but that doesn't mean their motivations are different. Women who want to lead are not all that different from men who want to lead.

[PeZook]

"When men fight, it's by rules. Whoever captures this bridge wins. Whoever gets the other side's king wins. Rules of engagement, prisoners, civilians, etc.. It's like a big game. But when women fight, it's dirty. If you get a woman angry enough that she wants to kill you, she'll take out you, your kids, your dog, your farmland, half the continent, and anything that happens to be in the way."

This assertion also fails by examination of the track record. Men are total fucking bastards, and previously agreed-upon rules are broken in practically all instances in warfare.

Or did she miss those two little scuffles called the World Wars which left half a continent ravaged and more than a hundred million people dead?

Women only fight dirty because they're generally weaker physically than men, which means they must go for the balls or other weak spots to win. Evolutionary pressures and all.

Men, on the other hand, will kill you with simple brute force, but that doesn't make them any less of a bastard

[Darth Wong]

All leaders are power-hungry, and a typical power-hungry bitch is no more reasonable than a typical power-hungry asshole. She may be worse.

[Molyneux]

This assertion also fails by examination of the track record. Men are total fucking bastards, and previously agreed-upon rules are broken in practically all instances in warfare.

Well, that's true now, but judging by the last few hundred years or so of European war it may not always have been so, at least for the ruling classes.

[Darth Wong]

This assertion also fails by examination of the track record. Men are total fucking bastards, and previously agreed-upon rules are broken in practically all instances in warfare.

Well, that's true now, but judging by the last few hundred years or so of European war it may not always have been so, at least for the ruling classes.

Referring to the peak period for black slavery as a time of greater ethical restraint is not going to get you anywhere.

[Molyneux]

This assertion also fails by examination of the track record. Men are total fucking bastards, and previously agreed-upon rules are broken in practically all instances in warfare.

Well, that's true now, but judging by the last few hundred years or so of European war it may not always have been so, at least for the ruling classes.

Referring to the peak period for black slavery as a time of greater ethical restraint is not going to get you anywhere.

Sorry if I wasn't clear - I was thinking more along the lines of how the nobility seemed to treat war as a big, bloody game in feudalistic times, right up until shortly after firearms became widespread. Hence the punishments for anyone but a knight killing another knight, for example.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Quite frankly, there are plenty of dicks around, be they male or female. Just that there have been fewer female leaders than male over the last hundred years.

[Zixinus]

On that note, can someone mention matriarchal societies and how they form? Perhaps recommend a book or something.

Sounds to me that the person in question is either a radfam or not thinking trough what she's saying. While I do dare admit that men sometimes go for testosterone-laden fight to ridiculous lengths, woman will go just as far in ridiculousness in henfights to establish the pecking order. They will just as likely go for blood and any lack of sheer brutality will be replaced by sheer dirtiness.

The impression that woman are more gentle people by nature is often a mistaken one, as we frequently see men in power and abusing that power to their corrupt and mad desires. We rarely consider a woman doing the same as we rarely see woman in power.

I am not sure whether this is a good argument to stand by, but this barrier of entry makes it harder for honest women to get in power then it does for honest men. Any woman getting in will just as quickly eliminate its competitors and will look at another female as a greater treat as they may identify with that person.

Sad truth is, that woman are just as human as their testicle-laden counterparts.

[PeZook]

Sorry if I wasn't clear - I was thinking more along the lines of how the nobility seemed to treat war as a big, bloody game in feudalistic times, right up until shortly after firearms became widespread. Hence the punishments for anyone but a knight killing another knight, for example.

Of course, the only reason why the nobles would capture each other for ransom (hence the "summer sport" aspect to war) was that the opponent could actually pay. A peasant couldn't pay, so splitting his head with a mace, burning down his home and/or raping somebody in the area was fair game. It wasn't chivalry (most of the time), just business.

And, naturally, all of that went out the window if you had another reason than loot for going to war, like, say, religious convictions.

[Androsphinx]

Benazir Bhutto should probably get a (dis)honourable mention here as well. Unsurprisingly corruption, control-freakery, power-hunger, populist militarism and cynically opportunistic nationalism are amongst the basic pre-requisites for political power. The people who don't use them are much less likely to rise to the top - male or female.

[docfrance]

It's simply a matter of sample size. Over the course of history, most leaders have been men, so we've had plenty of data points showing what terrible leadres they can be. Comparitively, there have been barely any data points supporting the idea that female leaders would be just as bad.

Insufficient data to support hypothesis.

[Imperial Overlord]

On that note, can someone mention matriarchal societies and how they form? Perhaps recommend a book or something.

There aren't any true matriarchal societies. At best you have societies that have some of the elements of matriarchy. There are plenty of matrilinial societies and societies where leadership roles aren't restricted by gender, but no true matriarchal societies.

[Adrian Laguna]

Margaret Thatcher
Golda Meir
Indira Ghandi
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Chandrika Kumaratunga

I think the assertion falls by examination of the track record.

You can also go into the past and look at unelected leaders, try asking the Irish about how nice and civilized Queen Elizabeth was.

[Patrick Degan]

Or take a browse through the brief but violent career of Elizabeth's sister, Bloody Mary. Sent nearly 700 to the scaffold for wanting to sing their hymns in English instead of Latin.

[Anguirus]

Of course, the response to that I've heard is something like "well we don't know what a planet ruled mostly by women would look like, because all those leaders had to be extra aggressive to compensate for sexism."

I'm certainly not convinced, but it does remain the case that the vast majority of national leaders are men, and it seems to be likely to remain so throughout my lifetime. As Stuart and, well, everyone has said, it's crazy to simply assume that women are inherently more peaceful in a leadership capacity with what information we have.

[Qwerty 42]

Well, I would find it hard to make the assertion that Margaret Thatcher is less aggressive than Jimmy Carter.

Are women, as a whole, less aggressive than men as a whole? Maybe. Doesn't matter. The bell curves overlap too much to really make a helpful argument that people should knee-jerk vote women.

[Ariphaos]

I recall a study that showed that women were only less aggressive when they thought people were watching.

As for how matriarchal societies form, that's a rather difficult situation to engender - egalitarian societies pop up fine, but historically, those who control the supply of food control society.

So on one extreme you have say, the Inuit, where women are such a net drain on resources that they face infanticide, etc. This leads to a rather large shortage, leading to culturally accepted 'wife swapping' and a status somewhere between property and a person.

Societies where both sexes are involved in foodgathering are not so extreme, and many hunter-gatherer societies are quite egalitarian. Rituals can be rather harsh for one or both sexes - my anthropology professor described the male coming of age rituals for one New Guinea tribe as 'lots of penis-cutting'.

[Molyneux]

I recall a study that showed that women were only less aggressive when they thought people were watching.

As for how matriarchal societies form, that's a rather difficult situation to engender - egalitarian societies pop up fine, but historically, those who control the supply of food control society.

So on one extreme you have say, the Inuit, where women are such a net drain on resources that they face infanticide, etc. This leads to a rather large shortage, leading to culturally accepted 'wife swapping' and a status somewhere between property and a person.

Societies where both sexes are involved in foodgathering are not so extreme, and many hunter-gatherer societies are quite egalitarian. Rituals can be rather harsh for one or both sexes - my anthropology professor described the male coming of age rituals for one New Guinea tribe as 'lots of penis-cutting'.

Or that one tribe with the bullet ants. Eugh.

The only hunter-gatherer society I've really studied was the !Kung - and that was just in a basic intro anthro class, so take this as you will, but if I remember correctly their society had separate but equally vital roles for men and women (men hunted - valuable food, but only sporadically successful, while women + children gathered, which was more bland fare but much more dependable), and a fairly egalitarian setup.

[Mayabird]

"I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like."

Sums up my thoughts pretty nicely, and probably everyone already knows about my memories of high school.