What if women ruled the world?

Og almighty.

Scotty Mo let’s take this one bit at a time.

History proves that men are more violent than women.

Maybe, maybe not. There are a few inherent problems with this analysis of history. Up until VERY recently, combat was limited to hand to hand conflict. Males being larger, stronger, and far more expendable to a society than women would naturally fall into warrior roles. While a well trained female warrior can trump an untrained, or poorly trained male, it makes no sense to field smaller, weaker, biologically valuable young women against the enemy’s male recruits. They would have to be a well trained, rather elite force to be effective in that sort of combat. Even in a reversed society that encouraged aggression in women, I suspect that biological differences would rear their heads around late adolescence when the males suddenly gain their size and strength. Women would have to create a fairly oppressive, and carefully administered society towards males to ensure their own safety.

Males commit more crimes than females.

Possibly. We know for certain that they are likely to commit certain types of crimes more often than women. We also know that women are far less likely to be prosecuted. Society is not equal here, and without a truly egalitarian application of the law these statistics are fairly meaningless. Add into the equation that a huge majority of offenders are incarcerated for non-violent, minor drug offenses and the numbers might be more meaningful. Biology also plays a role here. Women are more likely to poison or drug a victim because they are well aware that most of them are not the physical equals of their male victims. They also tend to value their personal safety more than males do when angered. (exceptions exist, I am speaking very broadly here)

Female dominated workplaces are more peaceful than those run by males.

Uncertain. What we DO know is that women manage differently, and those that are most successful in managing a mixed or male dominated workforce do so by utilizing a “male” strategy. Whether this is an attempt to fit in, or simply the natural result of having to manage a diverse group of people is also unclear. Groups tend to respond well to strong, clear leadership. While there is no difference in the sexes abilities to provide this leadership; the subtlety, subtexts, and implications often used more heavily by women might be a natural impediment to achieving a harmonious workplace.

Basically this boils down to the following: Until the last 50 years or so and the advent of technology to even the playing field, women naturally fell into roles determined largely by biology and acculturation. We haven’t had enough time yet to truly determine if either sex is superiour at governance, but I suspect that the answer is that it is the individual, not their sex that will separate a good leader from a poor one. A violent leader is by modern standards a poor one. Modern leaders rarely dirty their own hands, and I do not see women to be any less likely to order troops in than men.

Yes, it is an unfair generalization. A statement like that needs a strong cite.

I don’t either, simply because for women to have become the dominant gender it would mean that men would be entirely different from what we know. This is the world we have, and for women to become rulers they need to be even more ruthless than your typical male ruler. Men have nothing to prove as a gender.

It is modern moral concepts and democracy that have given us a chance to see female rulers that stay in power by the the vote and not by the sword. We have had many of them, has any of them looked like cotton candy and fluffy bunnies to us? Not really. In fact Latin America, as a region, has probably seen more women in power than any other region of the world. Our women ruler get into power by combining the illusion of the female softness with the reality of their ruthlessness (“Women are more honest and hardworking than men.” plus “She’s a ruthless bitch that will fight as hard as a man!”). We take advantage of both extremes.

It’s hard for me to imagine men, as a group, being rah-rah about killing innocents. But it’s happened. Why would it be different with women? (And we should note that women haven’t been universally innocent in the genocides we’ve experienced in this world.)

Perhaps men are more about showing off as a display of dominance, while women assert dominance by hitting their rival where it really hurts, in private? This is possible (and I think it’s what Indygrrl’s said). Whether it’s an inherent characteristic of men and women, or a consequence of how each gender is socialized, I couldn’t say.

Just because you are a woman doesn’t mean you know what ALL women think. :rolleyes:

Well, you know what a woman thinks about, obviously. And I often engage in caricature and comic exageration for the purposes of argument.

As for genocide, I know plenty of men and I can’t imagine any of them being in favour of any form of genocide. If we look back at the Nazis we see a plentiful female support for that charismatic Hitler, and despite the Nazis being very traditional and thinking women belonged in the home, being uniquely unwilling to use women in the war effort, they still had an SS Women’s Corp so that those over enthusiastic women could get a slice of the genocide action. Godwin’s, you might say, but if we’re talking genocide then we’re talking Nazis.

It is indeed an unfair generalisation to believe women are more empathic than men. There is no evidence for it, it’s just a fluffy bunnies stereotype. Although I’m not sure a more empathic government is a better government, anyway. Unsure.

The fact is that we aren’t really addressing a what-if scenario. If we’re talking about a pacifying influence of women with power, we’ve had plenty of women in power, not of all-female power systems but certainly of women with influence, the effect of which influence we can observe. Not to mention the female vote since the granting of suffrage, which is immune to any allegations that those women who get into power are a more violent, “masculine” breed. None of which provides any evidence at all for female influence working in the direction of peace, compassion, or anything good. When it comes to violence and selfishness, imposition of policies causing conflict and general bad things, women have been, at the absolute best, just as bad as men.

Yes, it’s unfair, or rather inaccurate. Women do tend to care about the feelings of others more than men but that doesn’t make them empathetic. It just means that nasty women are going to be inclined to try to hurt you emotionally. Like the woman who skinned a pet rabbit alive in front of her child telling the kid she’d be next; no physical harm was done to the girl, but plenty of emotional harm was. Or the infamous “Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom” who tried to have the mother of her daughter’s school rival killed to traumatize the rival girl; the murder was just a tool to inflict emotional harm. And IIRC radioactive potassium-40 is a popular choice with female poisoners because it often doesn’t kill its victims; it just leaves them terrified that they’ll get cancer or that their children will have birth defects.

Bottom line; someone caring about your feelings doesn’t make them nice. It just means that if they aren’t nice they’ll get off more on seeing you suffer.

I don’t think very many people here are giving women enough credit.

It’s been my experience, that women are for the most part more sympathetic and less violent than men. I also think that their lack of representation reflects in our society and this is why there’s not enough evidence to support my assertion.

Maybe I should pose this question instead. With women making up at least half of our society, shouldn’t they make up, or at least be given equal opportunity to make up half of our government?

Yes, I understand in actuality they are given a technically “fair” opportunity, but men have such a dominant stronghold on the system that they don’t really have much of a chance.

I give women plenty of credit. I also happen to see them as human beings, not some idealized super race.

What if women ruled the world? What if !??

I give them plenty of credit; I just don’t regard them as superior beings.

Certainly. But what makes you so sure enough of them want the job to reach equal numbers? Are you planning to shanghai women who want to be, say, biologists or surgeons and force them into politics in in order to meet some quota?

This link here suggests that women find beauty in all types of sexual activity while men not so much. That couldn’t be a bad thing right?

http://dumbscientist.com/archives/are-women-really-the-fairer-sex

Well with the economy the way it is surely there’s enough of them to apply for the positions.

Here’s that cite you’ve all been waiting for.

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGENDER/Resources/wp4.pdf

I’m guessing your experience is quite limited. You don’t seem to want to provide cites for your misguided ideas, nor do you listen to those who have given countless examples and have tried to explain to you why you are wrong.

I have to ask, why are you here? What do you want from this? It’s been said 100different ways here, and yet you continue to have the same, misguided opinions. I can’t be the only one who finds it frustrating.

I’m not wrong. See above.

Try not to get frustrated either, it gives you wrinkles.

I can’t get this PDF to open. It’s likely a problem on this end since this computer does not like PDFs. Would you mind telling us what you claim this cite proves and quoting the relevant bits?

Abstract
Numerous behavioral studies have found women to be more trust-worthy and
public-spirited than men. These results suggest that women should be
particularly effective in promoting honest government. Consistent with this
hypothesis, we find that the greater the representation of women in parliament,
the lower the level of corruption. We find this association in a large crosssection
of countries; the result is robust to a wide range of specifications.

Scotty, please grace us with your presence in the Pit…

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14093727#post14093727

Just for the sake of argument assuming the study is valid and correct, it does NOT back up your assertion that women are less violent, kinder, and don’t make war. All it says is that they are less likely to be corrupt.