AIBU to think that women could rule the world?

[Speakuptomakeyourselfheard]

While discussing the possibility of war with my husband, when Russia first started moving troupes to the borders of Ukraine, he surprised me by pointing out that absolutely everything bad that ever happens in this world is done or caused by MEN! He said that he is ashamed of the way his fellow men act, and their constant macho desire to be more powerful, bigger, better, stronger, etc., He added that he'd far rather the world was run by women, that there would be no wars as we're more sensible, and would find better ways of resolving our differences. So my question is, why isn't it? Could we really do it? Why are we still held down by men, whether it be in government, industry, or whatever? How would we go about it? I've just done a brief Google search, and it seems that the numbers of women versus men in the world is about even, so now that we have all the rights that we have, in the UK at least, why can't we run the country? I'd be really interested to hear peoples views, is it because we're all so busy looking after families that we don't have time to fight the men for the power that we'd need to take over, or is it literally that we are the weaker sex, and if it came to an out and out fight for survival as top dog, men would physically dominate us? Or is it something else entirely?

Some of the worst cruelty and mistreatment I've ever experienced has come from women. Men have higher levels if overt aggression, but women can be just as aggressive only they are better at concealing it.

It's human nature that's the problem, not which sex happens to be in charge.

Margaret thatcher, theresa may...

And lots of women in charge of big companies that are destroying the environment with single-use plastic.

I think it would only work if we went down the sex-selection route to keep the number of male babies significantly lower than female ones (as we can see from experience there's lots of moral and ethical issues there) but we would have to vastly outnumber men in order to overcome their physical strength advantage. That we hold pretty much all the reproductive cards is an under utilised advantage we could really tap in to. Love the idea of women organising to secretly plot this master plan.

Smiling to myself at the thought of such trickery completely blindsiding the Willy waving men that control this world! It would be glorious in a sense

@lljkk

"absolutely everything bad that ever happens in this world is done or caused by MEN"

only because they struggled to get power NOT because they always do the right thing.

Tudor conquest of Ireland by Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Jeremy Corbyn is far more of a pacifist than Golda Meir ever was.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Katie Hopkins, Kate Shemirani, Phoolan Devi, Winnie Mandela.

Women who found ways to not do the right thing. Just saying.

"Jeremy Corbyn is far more of a pacifist than Golda Meir ever was".

Apart from grovelling to the IRA when they was at the height of their blood-lust.

Calling the Jew-massacre intent maniacs of Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends“.

Accepting a £20K pay day from the Iranian regime to appear on TV there to tell them what they wanted to hear. as and when they were hanging gay men, torturing journalists and brutally oppressing the Bahaii people..

Opposed banning Britons from travelling to Syria to fight for ISIS.

Failing to condemn the 9/11 attacks.

Calling Columbian terror group M-19 “comrades”.

Blamed beheading of Alan Henning on Britain.

Gave speech in support of Gaddafi regime.

Signed EDM spinning for Slobodan Milosevic.

Blamed Tunisia terror attack on “austerity”.

Proclaimed his admiration of Chavez/Maduro as and when they were engaged in their 15 year policy of torturing & raping their opponents, including men, women & children.

Forgive me but this seems to rather contradict your “Corbyn the pacifist” narrative

I don't think you can cite thatcher or may and say "oh women are the same as men" those women were working within a patriarchal system that required them to act like the boys to get ahead/be taken seriously. This would take reimagining that system and completely dismantling it. Then women wouldn't be forced to adopt typically "male traits" to succeed.

Really interesting responses here, some of you seem to have really thought it through, and some have just based their thoughts on their own character traits, or looked at what has happened so far with women who have managed to get into powerful positions, and assumed that's as far as it could go, but what if we were to do as Arnia suggested, and get together behind closed doors, to secretly come up with a master plan, using our wits rather than the brawn that men use, to replace them in ALL of the positions of power. Clearly it would take time, but if those women at the top, chose only to replace men with women, like a lot of misogynistic men would replace women with men, then very slowly things could change. What she said about Thatcher and May, also totally makes sense to me, she's right about the fact that they had to work in a patriarchal system that required them to act like the boys in order to be taken seriously and get ahead. I agree too, that it would take a total reimagining of the system, and we would need to completely dismantle it, so that women wouldn't be forced to adopt typically "male traits" to succeed. But hey, what's actually there to stop us? Simply the fact that we've been conditioned to let the men take charge?

I think we have a lot in common Arnia, as I had to laugh at your comment 'Smiling to myself at the thought of such trickery completely blindsiding the Willy waving men that control this world! It would be glorious!

So come on ladies, what are your thoughts on this?

@MotherOfCrocodiles

My grandma, born just after ww1, used to say this.

I totally agree. Yes not all women are saints. But would gangs of women rush round with machetes massacring civilians (Rwanda) round up citizens and shoot them before mass graves (Yugoslavia) use rape as a weapon or murder children (Burma)?. Basically, no. The odd woman might join in, but it is vastly men who do those things. Women just don't have the same violent pack mentality

There were nuns taking part in the Rwandan massacres,

I'd be worried what I'd do during my PMT week to be honest. Nuke everyone probably!

women will not rule the world until we are totally in charge from the ground up, of Finance and commerce. There are a few primitive societies around the world where the women are in charge, the men are around for physical work/protection cant remember the names though.

get together behind closed doors, to secretly come up with a master plan, using our wits rather than the brawn that men use, to replace them in ALL of the positions of power.

Well, that's a nice conspiracy theory for the Incels to point to, now isn't it. Written out in black and white.

Wasn’t phoolan devi repeatedly raped? And then targeted high caste men. I don’t think she belongs on that list. I’d be pretty fucked off too if I were her frankly.

Ah, so she had a license to kill therefore? Rule of law, civilisation, who gives a scream about any of that.

Most of the women that could run the world are busy enabling men to do it.

@Speakuptomakeyourselfheard

Really interesting responses here, some of you seem to have really thought it through, and some have just based their thoughts on their own character traits, or looked at what has happened so far with women who have managed to get into powerful positions, and assumed that's as far as it could go, but what if we were to do as Arnia suggested, and get together behind closed doors, to secretly come up with a master plan, using our wits rather than the brawn that men use, to replace them in ALL of the positions of power. Clearly it would take time, but if those women at the top, chose only to replace men with women, like a lot of misogynistic men would replace women with men, then very slowly things could change. What she said about Thatcher and May, also totally makes sense to me, she's right about the fact that they had to work in a patriarchal system that required them to act like the boys in order to be taken seriously and get ahead. I agree too, that it would take a total reimagining of the system, and we would need to completely dismantle it, so that women wouldn't be forced to adopt typically "male traits" to succeed. But hey, what's actually there to stop us? Simply the fact that we've been conditioned to let the men take charge?

I think we have a lot in common Arnia, as I had to laugh at your comment 'Smiling to myself at the thought of such trickery completely blindsiding the Willy waving men that control this world! It would be glorious!

So come on ladies, what are your thoughts on this?

There is a woman's political party isn't there? I think that it's a case of evolution rather than revolution. Things will change and are changing but it's not going to be an overnight awakening of consciousness thing. I agree that conflict would be far less likely were women in charge; however it just simply isn't going to happen that women are going to just suddenly take power. Women are certainly getting more and into prominent positions in western society but there's a long way to go in other parts of the world where democracy doesn't exist in any real terms and male leaders are firmly in charge. The theory could only be tested if all countries were ruled by women.

I live in Aus… the women are too busy making tea and telling rape victims that they had bad manners for refusing to smile for the misogynistic PM’s photo opportunities to think about their own political parties…

Imagine they are all PMSing at the same time...

But on a serious note. Both men and women have an equal capacity to be logical and practical.
It does come down to each person's work ethic and long term agenda too.

Honestly is I don’t think there would be much difference. Power is the problem and any one person can only handle so much, I could theorise that to be able handle power and responsibility for large populations results in leaders dehumanising that same population because to truly empathise with them would mentally break most people.

I was trying to think of a predominantly woman led organisation that might offer a clue into how women would fair in comparison to men if women had the majority of power and all I could come up with was nuns. They still operate under a patriarchal system but have autonomy in their own orders on a day to day basis I think. That doesn’t bode particularly well from my knowledge of the wrong doings nuns have been accused of in the past.

Whilst I think we should have more women as HOS around the world (I don’t mean monarchies) I think what is more important is that we don’t allow sociopaths/narcissists to run for office . There should be profiling of all potential candidates for high office. It’s not complicated and I have been profiled during selection processes for jobs in the past.

I was offered the jobs btw 😉

Nun's sole purpose is to uphold one of the most misogynistic institutions in the world - they are the WORST example of female leadership. They're literally brides of Christ.

I don’t think you can judge all women by the actions of a few who ruled or held power in patriarchal structures. They’re simply women acting in a man’s world.

I think it’s very interesting to consider our closest genetic relatives Chimpanzees and Bonobo Monkeys. Chimps are patriarchal, territorial, aggressive and just about as nasty as humans. But by an accident of geography the bonobos flourished in an area of plentiful resources and they are matriarchal. They have strong female to female bonds, are notably pro social and use sex liberally to solve a lot of problems.

@Arnia

Nun's sole purpose is to uphold one of the most misogynistic institutions in the world - they are the WORST example of female leadership. They're literally brides of Christ.

True, but I can’t think of another organised group on a large scale that is predominantly women at middle management level (which I suppose is what nuns are).

My general point though is that I don’t believe that women are inherently less violent or power hungry than men. It’s hard to tell in a world that has suppressed women for centuries but lack of opportunity isn’t evidence that women would be any better.

I've been reading a lot about narcissism and power structures recently. A high number of people in power (not all obviously) have narcissistic traits. And experts think there's about the same number of male and female narcissists. More men are overt/grandiose narcissists and more women are covert narcissists. They all have the same basic traits - lack of empathy, extreme selfishness etc etc.

I believe that power corrupting is a human failing, not one that differentiates by genitals.

I also have to say I dislike this idea that women would make better leaders because they’re kinder, nicer, more maternal. It skates a bit close to ‘be kind’ and this idea that women SHOULD be kinder, nicer, collaborative or more amenable. Why? Some women aren’t nice, kind or amenable. And that’s fine. Humans be different.

I think we have to accept that there will be great women leaders and the occasional awful one. There will be wonderful women community contributors but also infrequent female murderers or abusers. There will be skilled, creative, powerful and inventive women and the odd few who contribute nothing and just take from society.

YANBU. Men are the source of 99% of the misery in the world. I think a society run by women might not ‘progress’ as quickly but it would be kinder, more gentle & safer.

What would you expect women to do if they ruled the world? Sip tea, talk shoes and be nice to each other all day long. Political self interest does not go away whether you have a woman or a man in power. Ukraine is about justification of ploughing money into defence budgets and propping up the oil industry. Both suffered during the pandemic. That’s not a conspiracy theory, you just have to follow the money. Watch Putin magically step away from war after all this hype. It’s so staged.

@Cheekypeach

YANBU. Men are the source of 99% of the misery in the world. I think a society run by women might not ‘progress’ as quickly but it would be kinder, more gentle & safer.

Who needs to eat as long as you are kind. I know that’s an extreme analogy but come on. Do you think kindness would replace Realpolitik. Humans have been and always will be in competition for resources. Don’t think you’d thank your kind female leader much if she couldn’t do politics.