He said
The best way to begin tackling this subject should be to decide who currently rules the world.
It is probably pretty safe to say that the world of both business and politics is still a boys club. One can deduce men are currently ruling the world.
Next we have to decide if the world could be a better place. Obviously it can be. But if the genders switched places, would the world be a better just by substituting women into the majority of the power roles men currently fill?
Firstly, women are just as capable as men to take on the most demanding jobs in the political and economic arenas. Maybe they are more capable. There is nothing about a Y chromosome that makes men better at making decisions for a country or a company. It's possible there would less violence and starvation, because men love violence and hate food.
There is however, one area that would be completely overlooked if women were the primary lawmakers in our world.
Oh, won't somebody think of the children?
I am an expert on all things anthropological, and women make better caregivers than men do. They are more nurturing. They are more protective. They are just better at raising kids. That's generalizing, and there are women who run countries, and they may also be brilliant mothers. I am not saying that a woman who is an MP, or a CEO is not a good mother. I'm also not saying that a man can't raise a child.
But if tomorrow the sexes just switched roles and women were expected by society to give birth and then continue being the main breadwinner, children would suffer.
A child should be raised in the best environment possible. That means different things for every family, and there is no right way to bring an infant into adulthood. Just ask the Tiger Mom.
I think children would be negatively affected by a society ruled by women, not because women would create baby intern camps or nuke France because the French prime minister said something catty about the U.S. president's hair across the G20 floor, but because youth would typically grow up in a less ideal household.
Generation by generation would slowly become masculinised by their fathers, and then those girls would be become women, ruling the world by the influence of their patriarchs. Then we're back to men ruling the world, this time through their daughters, and probably screwing it up back to the way it is anyway.
So there, I said it. Men aren't as good at raising kids.
She said
Women. Hands down.
Not to say men are evil or even morally misguided. They just seem to have a rough history of running the world into the ground. One only needs to look briefly over the last hundred years to see examples.
One old example: First and Second World Wars. Not a lot of females kicking around there. Pretty much everyone waving a gun around was a man, or was at least a woman pretending to be a man. And how many people died? Somewhere around 100 million.
One very recent example: The United States' increase of their debt ceiling. President Obama is a dude. He leads the country. Not that all leaders of countries in financial trouble ("trouble" doesn't seem like a severe enough word) are men, but most are. Lots of finically successful countries' leaders are men, too, but I'm choosing to ignore that fact for the sake of this argument.
Men are too busy waving their sticks at each other and trying to determine how they can grow a cooler beard to truly run the world. Women are focused and tactical fighters. Our wars wouldn't be fought on battlefields or with nuclear weapons. They'd be won with words and coffee, awesome shoes and careful, purposeful words.
My dad pointed out to me that women never forget when they've been slighted, suggesting that this is an argument against women leaders. I see this as a benefit. For example, if I were the prime minster of Canada and the female leader of the United States offended me, I'd remember it forever. I'd likely fall asleep thinking about it on several occasions, knowing that she knew she'd wronged me. I'd then strike back, maybe a month later, maybe three years later and get her back. She'd have to acknowledge that she owed me that wrongdoing and we'd be even.
It's quite simple, this female politics as I understand it. No missiles. No stupid mustaches. Just a little name calling, some double crossing and maybe poison, if necessary.
Easy peasy, women should rule the world.
