Forums

But does the gender of the rulers really matter? The way it is in representative democracy today, the elected politicians are merely avatars for their party. They don't have any personal power at all, their decisions all coming from streamlined part policy and advice from specialists and bureaucrats.
Whether the president or prime minister is a man or woman, black or white, religious or agnostic; it doesn't matter. Those are all merely traits of the party's chosen avatar in order to attract certain demographics of voters.

And even in a perfect system, the rulers would rule based almost exclusively on accurate data anyways, and throw away their personal preferences in favour for the most efficient and desirable solutions. Thus, gender would still not matter.

Perhaps it would be better if no one rule over anyone and instead have someone lead the people.

As long as they aren't money sucking bastards and genuinely care for their people, I'm all for it.

Only slightly better, there would be less war but women nowadays in politics are just as power hungry as a man.

Nope, if that happened once that "time of the month" comes around ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE!

It probably wouldn't matter much, as people who manage to achieve a high status would already be corrupted in one way or another. The only difference would be hardened old women, not old men. In truth, no matter how much I could think about it, there really is no judging whether or not it would be better, since there's no changing the past.

I can only guess that the world would be bad, pushed to wars/poverty/other horrible stuff, no matter what gender was governing, because ultimately it's the majority of people who determine how things run. It's the collective thinking that influences the choices made, not just one President or Prime Minister.

Even then, though, if the majority of the influence is female, that would probably make things different, but now I'm contradicting myself. This is a really difficult topic, if you try to think seriously about it.

and because of person above, I feel like I'm taking this way too seriously now... :P

Where is this? In the US army, hell week usually means a lot of yelling and the red phase in general is dominated by yelling/correcting of behavior. There's not physical violence, but having someone yelling in your face isn't a rarity by any means.

As far as if the world would be better, eh I don't think so. Like most pointed out the problems we face today would still exist. Baman had a point, with Iran and nukes. There's also sphere of influence issue's, cultural, religious, and resource issue's that would still exist. I'm reminded of the saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I don't know if women are kinder, or more prone to engage in dialogue to solve disputes, but I can say from female political leaders currently/historically, and in power positions I have encountered, they are pretty much the same as men and in some cases worse. Although this is really a case-by-case basis, I could not say one is preferable to the other. Perhaps you have a point that it's because they live in a "man's world", but I don't think all of it can be attributed to that point. I think coveting power/wanting to lead a nation, requires a certain mentality that both men and women in power share, which would lead to the same decisions being made or similar one's regardless of who ruled.

You're quite the optimist, squire.



Don't you think a world which decides its leaders on something as irrelevent as gender would be no better off, whichever way you side on it?

I mean, men may have broadly similar qualities, and women may have broadly similar qualities but at the end of the day every individual is different. The only thing which I share in common with all men is that I have an organ dangling between my legs. Likewise, while there are women out there who are different from me, the only thing that makes me different from all women is that they don't have such a thing.

Unless we are to start talking about transgender people, but that would destroy the beautiful simplicity of my analogy and complicate the matter unnecessarily. As would talking about biological processes and the like, which has no significance when it comes to leadership anyway.



If you have no clear definition of a better world than to say the world would be better if women were in charge is, according to your own argument, absurd.



It is good that you are able to identify that you are making generalisations, but if you take those generalisations to their fullest extent then it becomes clear that what you are saying does not make sense. If there are no universal attributes either men or women hold which make them naturally better rulers than the alternative, then who makes the best leader is entirely down to individual qualities, even if that quality is more common in one sex than it is in the other.



On what basis do you make that claim?

I can think of many male leaders who have been involved in wars, but I can also think of female leaders who have been involved in wars.

The only female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was behind the war in the Falkland Islands, and also fought against the IRA in Northern Ireland. The current President of Argentina, who is also a woman, has also called for Argentina to attempt to invade it again.

There are many men who have been behind wars too, but men have been in power much more than women have. I don't think that is a good thing, and I would like to see women given more opportunity to be in power... but to say that women are less likely to engage in wars than men are, seems a rather silly notion to me.

The decision to go to war is not one which a country is going to take lightly, as it requires a lot of resources and involves a lot of sacrifices. There are also times when going to war is the right thing to do, or is necessary.



Hence why almost every country in the world is involved in groups like NATO and the United Nations, and why most countries maintain diplomatic relations with foreign powers, even those who are not their 'allies'.



Does this mean that women are not capable of making rational decisions to go to war, or that they lack the strength to make their own decisions as leaders?

If so, how can women possibly make the best leaders?



Crime affects people of both sexes and all walks of life, so what makes you think having more female leaders would lead to better treatment for victims of crime?



If that perception is wrong, then it invalidates your entire argument so far, because you have been arguing that women are kinder and therefore having women in charge would lead to a kinder world. If women are not kinder, then it would make no difference.

Secondly the reason women have taken such jobs historically is not because they have been given a choice, but because they have been forced into such work. At the very least, they have certainly not been given an entirely free choice.

Similarly, men have not been allowed to enter those careers either, or have been discouraged from doing so. That would lead to the false conclusion that women are kinder than men, when in fact they may be equally kind.



The problem with what you are saying when you argue for a society lead by women is that you are inadvertently making women look feable. What makes you thing the business world is too dog-eat-dog for women to be able to cope, but would have no trouble at all coping with international politics?

Surely that is at least as competitive or ruthless as the business sphere is?



I was under the impression that the purpose of drill instructors shouting at you was to breed discipline, though I could be wrong. I don't know enough about the modern military to comment either way.



I think you should have another read through the arguments you are making and try and make sure you're not contradicting yourself or weakening your own case. The main problem I have with a lot of what you've said is that you are perpetuating outdated stereotypes, and this leads us to several possible conclusions.

If they are accurate, then it becomes a question of what qualities produce the best leaders. Historically, one would have to conclude that it would be men since men have dominated leadership for centuries all over the world. Unless the qualities which leaders should have has changed, or our ability to determine who has the best qualities for leadership has been flawed, then the conclusion that men make better rulers than women seems inevitable.

If they are not accurate then they are not suitable for making arguments in either direction, since they are not based on truth.

Looking at individual merits is the most sensible way to decide a leader, and using something like gender as a filter seems absurd as soon as one acknowledges that personality traits vary across gender lines. However, I'm still a feminist and would like to see any discrimination against anyone based on gender come to an end.



Now this is a top quality post. While the idea of affirmative action bothers me to some extent and I dislike the idea of someone getting special treatment based on something like their background, it is true that people are unlikely to involve themselves in things where they will be a minority, whether that is University classes, governments or anything else.

The disadvantages faced by minorities will not be resolved without making a concentrated effort to improve their quality of life and to get them involved in society.

I'm 50 and that means time in, I am married and with kids and I have been inside with religion. That and 35 years of history expertise.

It likely would take woman 2000 years to catch up to all that is despicable/intolerant/sexist and otherwise unacceptable with the record of the male of the species.

Try thinking of 5 female villians from the real world. Ok I will make it easy, think of just one female equal of Stalin or Hitler. Come boys I know you are being put out by my shitting on your gender, but if you can't think of a single example, then you have no argument whatsover.

You've been 50 for the last 3 years on MAL. Something is wrong here.



Kind of ridiculous argument since they weren't much women in leading positions. When men had more than 90% of such positions statistically when a Hitler or Stalin appeared it would probably be a man but not because a woman is incapable of horrible actions but because very few women find their selves in such position.
Being a crazy ass isn't gender specified as i said before. Just look at this crazy bitch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory



But what about boobs?

Alternatively, try and think of 5 female leaders who are on the level of Nelson Mandella, Ghandi, Churchill, Lincoln or Gorbachev.

Obviously being unable to name five examples means that women are inferior to men and will never make good leaders.

Or perhaps correlating great or poor leaders with gender is a silly idea, especially since one sample is significantly larger than the other.



I meant that the only thing I have that no woman has is what is dangling between my legs. While I could have listed all of the differences between men and women explicitly, I thought that doing so was pedantic and unnecessary.

The point is that your genitalia do not determine your skills in leadership, and so gender is irrelevent.

And yes, I recognise you weren't being serious.

The world would be a better place if BOTH men and women ruled it together :/
and I wish discrimination could just magically disappear tbh *points at the second line of the post above* *rolls eyes*

Maybe, maybe not.

I believe, yes I BELIEVE, that some men are more driven by instinct than others. The man instinct, of owning lands, power etc. So maybe there would be less wars and such things, but who knows.

I don't want to get into detail actually, so I'll just leave it there, but let me say one thing before i shut up;

We've got to work together.

Lesley that is a truly nonsensical argument. I don't want to assume anything, but that post makes it seem like you know very little about sexism/gender equality.

I know that's like a white person telling a black person they don't know very much about racism, so sorry if that comes off as offensive.

Huh? What is so strange about a white person not knowing much about racism?

I disagree. Women can be as violent as men.

I may have worded it bad, but I meant a white person saying they know more about racism than a black person. It's ironic because while it is possible for a white person to have more theoretical knowledge, they have never lived without their white privilege and cannot empathize with a black person in that regard. (I'm assuming we're talking about the West, of course)

I don't think that we have a better place with woman in government, like example. Woman and men are people and they make mistakes. Women aren't better than men.

When you say inevitable, does that mean you would call something like capitalism inevitable as well?

Events in history are often caused by the combination of other coincidental events. Nothing is rooted in inevitability. But because we only have one timeline, it's easy to suggest events that have already occurred were inevitable. But when these events hinge and depend on a bunch of random and chance events, how can that be inevitable?

The only reason women wouldn't seem as violent in the position of power is because, for the most part, we haven't seen them in it.

You give women world power, they'll eventually end up acting as men have. Obviously not from the start though.



I had no doubt that some childish thing like this would be posted. Grow up, man.



I'm for this. Not like it matters, for many reasons.