Men run the world now but is it time for women's way?

Many people believe humankind is on the threshold of a shift in consciousness. I am curious about now this might work. One assertion is that women will move into leadership roles and that will change everything. At the moment though women in leadership roles pretty much do things the way men set them up, so I would like to explore this question at a more personal level in hopes of figuring out if this could work for society at large.

How do women approach things differently than men?

Here's an example from my life. I have belonged to women's book discussion group for 30+ years. It started out to be a neighborhood group and over the years people have moved to different areas and now it's a city-wide group. A few founding members remain but most of us joined within the first few years and stayed on. I think the history and structure of the group provides some insight into the way women do things.

We have no discussion leader, we have no set schedule, we have no rules. Our number has ranged from 7 to about 11 members. More than that, we've found, and not everybody gets to participate. We do have customs, one of them being that a new member must be invited by a current member, and it is generally discussed with the membership first. Do we have "room" for a new person? I think she would fit in because of ..... If we agree that it's time to add someone, the person is invited. We have found that people will generally fit or not fit in, depending on whether they actually like to read. Having different opinions isn't the issue but over the years we've had a few people who simply didn't like to read but wanted to come for the socializing. That is irritating because not having read the book, she is still apt to voice opinions and ask questions for which the answers would be obvious if the book had been read. Nobody asks them to leave but after a few months they stop coming and eventually tell the person who invited them that they don't have time or some other perfectly acceptable reason.

The closest we ever came to asking a person to leave the group was someone who was so unhappy with her job that she complained a lot and it brought us down. I think there might have been a private conversation with her about not talking about her work problems so much at the meeting. The thing is, some years many people were unhappy about many things in their lives. These things wove in and out of the book discussions. At times the book got short shrift, and since most people had spent many hours reading it we decided on discussing it for at least one hour before moving on to other things.

Like I said, there is no designated discussion leader. Sometimes someone will bring questions from Amazon or from the back of the book. Usually though something comes up and we go from there. It's not intended to be a college course though sometimes it gets pretty deep. A couple of people tend to dominate when it comes to choosing books to read next. We now have a policy that whomever's house the meeting is at chooses the next book. One year we planned the whole year in advance, book by book. It turned out to be disastrous discussion-wise so we've never done that again. Now we might tentatively schedule certain books for the future but always subject to what interests us when the time comes.

We take turns meeting at each person's home, meetings approximately one month apart. We agree on the next month's meeting date depending on what's going on in people's schedules. We do meet at the same time in the evening, except for the once a year potluck that starts earlier. We do plan the potluck menu a little more carefully after the time that two people brought salad and eight people brought dessert!

I once told a male friend about this group and he said that men would never be comfortable in such a situation. Men want a leader, a schedule, rules, even a pecking order if possible. We operate happily with a consensus approach. Lots of problems have cropped up over the years but we'd figure out a way to deal with them one at a time, and we are still meeting 33 years later!

I'd love to hear other examples of how men and women do things differently, at the personal level. Men's way is running us into the ground. Do we just need to let different men run things or do we need to rethink our basic approach?

[edit on 18-5-2009 by earlywatcher]

who has always pulled the mens strings? (um, so to speak...)

women have always been the real motivational force behind the actions of men.

and still are.

merely a biological reflex honed my a hundred thousand years and more of natural selection.

women have, btw, been monarchs and prime ministers. what have they done differently compared to what a man might do?

we almost had a female president here, and will by the next few elections.

the difference?

none.

reply to post by earlywatcher


It doesnt matter if it is a man or a women power corrupts, look at Clinton and Pelosi, there women (last time I checked) and they seem to be idiots. Even Rice and Palin don’t seem like they would do much either.

The point is women are no more suited to lead as men are, that whole power corrupts thing gets in the way ya know?

What I tried to explain in the OP was a difference in style that currently does not exist in government structure or anything else. All women now in power are there because of patriarchal structure. Someone at the top gives orders to next one down. chain of command. person in charge can expend resources any way they wish because they own the resources.

I'm saying that there is another way to do things that doesn't involve owning or giving orders but does involve reaching agreement about how to move forward.

Could men live without being in charge or knowing who is in charge so they can form a liaison?

As for women pulling strings behind the scene, that is because of the whole structure. The woman herself has been valueless so if she wants any influence she must always do it through a man.

I agree with the phrase power corrupts. What I'm wondering about is if we can do away with power. Certainly there are times when someone needs to be the chairman or president or facilitator, but if that position is more rotational and does not include so much power but is more to do with getting a job done, it might work fine.

I'm not saying I know this is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. I'm saying that the current way is not working out so how might we revise it?

Could men live with not running things? no-one having all the power, but working together to reach solutions? maybe women can't live with it either. That's what I want to know from all of you.

There is no difference between men and women.

You have bee fooled. These kinds of things are only here in order to seperate ourselves from each other. Yes, men and women have a different way of thinking, but that does not mean the world wouln't be in the exact same state it is today, if they were in charge.

Actually to tell you the truth, I am quite sure that at the top of pyramid as far as TPTB, women are probably the most active and respected members.

We are all humans, there are no differences between us other than the ones we create in order to further the grand illusion.

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower


sadly I don't know who is in that upper group of TPTB but certainly most countries, multinational conglomerates, corporations are run by groups of men. it seems to me that most women in power got there through husbands or inheritance. I don't mean people getting elected to an office. I mean those who become very powerful.

If there really is no difference between men and women, wouldn't there be about the same number of men and women running things?

The numbers of women and men in parliment and congress are pritty equil, and as we know, a democracy works within parliment and congress, not the priminester or president. The president or PM are pritty much only the spokesmen of a party in charge.

In the UK it works like this, Labour won the election, so the majority of seats in parliment are ocupied by labour, which mean labour have the biggest advantage in votes for new laws etc. Even though, several times the labour MP's have gone against their own party, so in a way, labour do not run the country, they just have an advantage over how it is run by the number of members they have ocupying seats in parliment.

A woman in charge would make no difference, and if you want to see a woman in charge to see if any difference occured, take a look into margret thature and see if there is much difference.

reply to post by earlywatcher


No, because for centuries women were taught that they were less than men, exactly as some people still do today.

Had men and women been on equal footing since the start of the human race, then yes, there would probably me more women running things than men.

There is a gap right now because even though we acknowledge and tell women they are equals, in most places they still aren't treated as they should be.

This results in less women attending universities and getting great paying jobs. There's also prejudice in the banking sector. It's harder for a woman to get a small business loan than a man.

The whole system was and is built around keeping atleast half the population in isolation and opressed.

~Keeper

Could be an interesting idea for a year every leader a woman in every country.

Instead of getting ticked off at each other and blowing each other up they would just sit and bicker all day long. None of them would budge on a single issue and mean while the money would just sit in limbo while arguments ensued about what to do with it.

I like it lol no more killing and no more spending could fix the entire economical and social aspects.

But then again women are very emotional and one of them for sure will say Ah screw it blow them off the map if their that stupid!

reply to post by Darthorious


Wow that has to be the most sexist statement I have heard in a while. You obviously don't have very high regards for women if you choose to use those stereotypes.

I am sorry I don't mean to be rude, but really your assumption that women wouln't get anything done and would simply bicker all day long is far from the truth.

I need only give the example of Queen Elizabeth the first along with various others, even Princess Diana was a driving force in politics and humanitarian issues.

~Keeper

No, sorry. Both sexes apparently are just as incompetent for the job, in my opinion. And, ofcourse, also as competent.

Maybe the perfect solution would be one of those 'Andromedans' that Alex Collier speaks of, which has three genders in their population; Male, Female and Androgynous.

Think about it; An Androgynous leader could very well be the ultimate solution, as that being can see matters from both sides, and know what both Males and Females want, thus satisfying the needs for both genders.

There are a Indian-tribe, which name I have unfortunately forgot. But that tribe worshipped Transgendered individuals as the perfect oracles and advicers, and thought of them as "those who stand in both worlds".


Or, maybe some ancient Male-Anunnaki-leader.

[edit on 18-5-2009 by Nightchild]

I agree that women may actually do a better job at running the nations of the world, but there is one thing that scares the hell out of me, their temper.
Case in point, how many men do you personally know that became best of friends only after a physical altercation with each other when they were boys ?

I know a few myself, and some, not all, have remained best of friends for many years
Plus men have a better track record of remaining friends for years, through rough times and are more logical when resolving differences.
Countries are a reflection of this, enemies one day, allies the next.

Females may have a best friend for a short while, until one pisses off the other, a catfight ensues and it's time to look for a new best friend. The spite and anger that comes from the female temper can be permanent.
The world isn't big enough to stay out of the line of fire from these global cat fights.

For this reason I believe it would be better if women were "second in command", like VP.

I have to say I think women and men are CAPABLE from birth of being equal. What separates us are the HUGE gaps that are already in place that we so neatly fall into line with. I refer to the Baby X experiment here.

Through technology we have been able to get away from the NEED for strength to dominate survival. You do not have to be the strongest to pull a trigger. You do not have to be the strongest to drive a tractor. What rules us now is our ability to contribute technological advances in the many fields that will advance the human race along its way to the stars.

Unless you consider equality to be an exclusively female attribute which I tend to disagree with as I am sure that Professor Stephen Hawking would surely disagree with also.

We are RULED by emotions and we are RULED by the amount of chemicals inside our bodies that produce these emotions. It is sucky to think that the only IMPORTANT difference between men and women is the emotional response to a certain situation based upon the amount of a hormone your bodies produces. I say screw that.

So far it sounds like everybody is saying that a power structure is needed to get things done, that anybody can get into that power structure if they have the right skills and you can rise to higher levels in that power structure if you are willing to play by the rules (or find a way around them without getting caught) and work hard.

invest carefully, choose the most valuable assets you can afford; have a plan and stick to it, and so on.

mothers, you see, are faced with a somewhat different task when a baby is born. the demanding and often boring though also satisfying job of raising that child to adulthood, which means trying to discover that child's best qualities and encouraging them while trying to discourage the undesirable things. i'm not saying that fathers don't also do this but i think it is more inherent for a mother to nurture her child. although there is certainly power structure in a family and all sorts of economic issues to contend with, a mother does not have the option to choose her child or trade up. over the centuries mothers have moved heaven and earth to give their children an opportunity for a better life. i think fathers are slightly more likely to regard wife and children as assets in the family, for better or worse, and any threat to them is a threat to what is his. rather like the way nations look at insults to their way of life or threat to security--you might take something of mine or break my stuff rather than threaten the people of the country.

I'm not saying that women always do things the right way and men do things the wrong way. NOT AT ALL. I'm saying there are different approaches.

Do you think we just need new people running things (in the style they've always been run) or do we need to change our approach to leadership?

reply to post by Darthorious


They would just peck people to death from the Hen House. Men 'run' things because men are reasonable. Decisions have to be made, and there are times that there is no time to ask everyones opinion on the matter.

Originally posted by SpacePunk
reply to post by Darthorious

 

Decisions have to be made, and there are times that there is no time to ask everyones opinion on the matter.

Good point! This was the big complaint about how obama handled the somali pirate hostage situation. He wanted a vast number of opinions before making a move. There are times when it is essential to have a decision maker

You know, I used to agree with this ... but idk. Women prove to be just as nasty as men are, when they get the chance.

Sorry, but I don't think having one good week a month is the solution.

There's the week before, the week of, and the week after when nothing really makes sense. Logic is frequently absent.

Emotion is the rule.

And to assume 12 weeks a year is sufficient is to me a bit optimistic.

I can't believe some of the rhetoric being presented in this thread.

It's almost baffling. Some of you honestly believe that one sex is meant to lead and the other to follow?

You've all been sucked into the propaganda wheel here folks. Men are more reasonable? That's not true. Men are more decisive? That's not true either.

Where are you folks getting your information. It's not a matter of sex is a matter of environment a person is brought up in that makes them decisive or judgmental.

I really don't understand some people's view on this issue. Again there is NO difference between men and women other than the ones they create to arbitrarily isolate sections of the population.

~Keeper

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
I can't believe some of the rhetoric being presented in this thread.

It's almost baffling. Some of you honestly believe that one sex is meant to lead and the other to follow?

You've all been sucked into the propaganda wheel here folks. Men are more reasonable? That's not true. Men are more decisive? That's not true either.

Where are you folks getting your information. It's not a matter of sex is a matter of environment a person is brought up in that makes them decisive or judgmental.

I really don't understand some people's view on this issue. Again there is NO difference between men and women other than the ones they create to arbitrarily isolate sections of the population.

~Keeper

And also I'm not female, but is having a period really THAT bad? i'm sure it can be a pain, but it's not like it cripples all women.