Why women should rule the world

[SapphosRock]

Interesting article showing the positive response from female leaders to the Coronavirus pandemic. They are literally saving lives while the men (particularly Trump) are in denial and floundering:

[[https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/
www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/]]

BrexpatInSwitzerland, assuming that's the case (I'm not disputing it, I'm just taking it to be proven for the sake of discussion), I wonder how much is down to women being misjudged (direct discrimination) and how much is down to leadership roles requiring skills more commonly found in men (indirect, in the sense that they're unintentionally designed that way, rather than men being better at all forms of leadership)?

Margaret Thatcher was more proud to be the first scientist to become PM more than she was being the first woman. She was also the first world leader to cotton onto the threat of climate change, and did speeches on it on multiple occasions.

It was the silky diplomatic skills of Sir David Hannay that got Thatcher to look at a graph showing CO2 emissions and tell Nigel Lawson to shut up.

Lawson has borne a massive grudge ever since and become the high priest of climate change denial.

I wonder if female leaders are less likely to use all that 'battle' 'victory' 'war' 'enemy' language about coronavirus as well, and whether that might actually help build trust and more sensible public response.

"His leadership style, patterns of speech, logic, everything about him is unlike anything I've ever seen before in any world leader.
A lot of people are saying he seems like he has dementia."

Not to those of us who lived through eight years Reagan, another Republican television celebrity turned president who was widely suspected to have dementia.

I'm not an expert on world affairs, but I think you would be hard pressed to argue against the starter list of current misogynistic tyrants TehBewilderness offered: Putin, Bolsonaro, Lukashenko.

Statistically though, us women are much less effective at collaborating than men, to the point where the vast majority of studies show that most women would still rather work for a male boss than another female. This may of course be internalised misogyny but I'm not so sure that it's not evolutionary either. Either way, it potentially creates obstacles.

Anecdotally, this seems to be the case too. I remember watching some 'battle of the sexes' show ages ago where they were on a desert island. The men had built shelter and were having a bbq by the second day, whilst the women were still arguing and hadn't built anything. 😂 Looking at all the petty squabbling and MIL threads in AIBU (for which there's no male equivalent) I do worry that a female-centric hierarchy would regress into petty squabbling much quicker than a more balanced one.

"us women"

LOL!

This may of course be internalised misogyny

I once had a ‘heated’ exchange with a work colleague

Or rather she thought it was heated, she was talking about women being bitches...and all female only workplaces Being full of bitchy women (which was weird cos we worked in women’s dress store and when pressed she agreed that it wasn't like that Where we worked)

Ive worked in plenty of mixed sex places where the same behaviour in men would NOT be called bitchy

Oopsie

My point being that she said she would rather not work in all female places as women are bitchy and men aren’t

What are you trying to imply? That I can't be a woman because I'm prepared to discuss potential sex-specific issues? I'd certainly hope that this isn't the case with men as we'll never see an end to domestic violence without men being prepared to examine the issues specific to their own sex like increased aggression, higher fight/flight response due to more testosterone, etc.

I've worked in plenty of mixed sex places where the same behaviour in men would NOT be called bitchy.

I think there's more to it though than the 'women are bossy, men are assertive' trope, personally.

Men just don't seem to get as worked up as women do about petty things, IMO. I know it's anecdotal, but there just isn't anywhere close to the amount of moaning we see on AIBU on any men's forums I've been on (which is quite a few as I'm into cars, kickboxing, and lifting weights, which are all pretty 'macho' hobbies).

And it's not just that. Studies show that women are less likely to help other women who are senior to them, and conversely it seems that many women who succeed don't feel obliged to help others navigate the same path - e.g. I've read loads of posters moan about female bosses who've been less sympathetic than male bosses in accommodating parental duties.

I'm not slating women but I think too many posters have rose tinted specs through which women can do no wrong and are always the long suffering victim.

How do you do, fellow woman?

That's probably one of the most commonly observed complaints women have about women in groups, in workplaces, clubs, university residences, even online discussions. It's often a reason girls who prefer male friends give for that preference, and it's common enough I wouldn't dismiss it.

Would an all woman run government, if we had one as a thought exercise, look more like The Gate to the Women's Country, or Mean Girls?

How do you do, fellow woman?

One for Mean Girls, then.

but I think too many posters have rose tinted specs through which women can do no wrong and are always the long suffering victim

At the risk of seeming ‘worked up’, i do hope you aren’t including me in that

There is definitely a danger of forgetting socialisation in many posts on this subject

If youve had many years of being told that women are no good at maths, cant park, are too emotional and are bitchy (for example) it surely can’t be a surprise when some people begin to believe parts of it

I wasn't referring to anybody in particular, Rufus.

I may have come across a bit more strongly than intended, but it does irk me that people seem to always use Trump as an example.

How would a country run by Katie Hopkins and Lauren Southern look? Would it be the femcentric utopia that women on the left desire or the 'wrong type' of female empowerment?

I hope the irony of that isn't lost on you, Goosefoot.

Anyways, can we keep this excellent conversation about sex and political leadership across the world on that topic and not go down CurrentBun81's misogynistic redirect into bitchy playground, bitchy office, and bitchy reality tv girls?

There is definitely a danger of forgetting socialisation in many posts on this subject.

If you've had many years of being told that women are no good at maths, can't park, are too emotional and are bitchy (for example) it surely can’t be a surprise when some people begin to believe parts of it

For me, most of this would fall under the banner of 'internalised misogyny' mentioned in my first post.

utopia that women on the left desire or the 'wrong type' of female empowerment?

No idea...im not on the left

Plonkers come in all sexes in my limited experience

For me, most of this would fall under the banner of 'internalised misogyny' mentioned in my first post

Absolutely

Thank you for pushing me down a really interesting rabbit hole, CurrentBun1981. The biggest issue with any research on the matter seems to be measuring 'cooperation' and the papers I have access to which used experimental methods tended to use game theory games, with variants on the Donation Game being the most common. In every experiment, male/male pairings on average demonstrated more cooperation than female/female parings but an interesting thing happened in male/female parings: women demonstrated more cooperation.

Another interesting avenue was the effect of competitive groupings on cooperation (sadly, I could only find one paper dedicated to this specifically). Men tended to increase their cooperation when competing against another rival group vs playing in isolation while women were barely affected.

That said, as Rufus pointed out, socialisation plays a huge role in interpreting the data as well as its usefulness in assessing political competency. I would also say that there's likely an evolutionary component to this in terms of the roles of male and female archaic humans.

Anyways, can we keep this excellent conversation about sex and political leadership across the world on that topic and not go down CurrentBun81's misogynistic redirect into bitchy playground, bitchy office, and bitchy reality tv girls?

I'd say it's misogynistic to dismiss the concerns of other women just because you haven't experienced them yourself. Rather than concluding they don't exist, maybe consider the possibility that you've had the privilege of not dealing with them yourself.

I'm sorry girls have been such consistently "petty" "squabbling" "moaning" bitches in your experience, CurrentBun1981, although I am glad to learn you've managed to resist adopting these female character pitfalls more than the rest of us women.

Why does it irk you when people use the president of the United States as an example of toxic masculinity?

Plonkers come in all sexes in my limited experience.

I think you've just succinctly summarised what I've taken many waffling posts to attempt to convey. 😂