What's the Occupy Wall Street movement -- an ongoing, multi-city protest against corporate greed, cronyism and inequity -- got to do with gender politics, you ask? I say: everything.
The movement's rallying cry is this: We are the 99 percent. As in, 1 percent of the population holds the bulk of the wealth and the power in this country, leaving 99 percent of us struggling to find enough of either to survive.
How did that happen? A case can be made that this inequity is a result of a totally lopsided definition of power and a completely unbalanced way in which it is valued and exerted. In a world where, for centuries, men have held the bulk of the power and built the very structures of this society unchecked, it's not difficult to see how we've arrived at this point: What we're seeing is the result of an overvaluation of the masculine strengths -- machismo -- run a-freaking-mok.
As Dr. Judy Rosener told us, there are significant -- and proven -- differences in the ways men and women operate when they find themselves in a position of power. (Yes, we know, we're not supposed to say that out loud! After all, if we're different, one must be better and one must be worse, right?) Chief among them:
Women view power as a means to an end to do something; men view power as an end unto itself. Women negotiate in a win-win manner; men negotiate in a win-lose manner.
We dug deeply into this subject in our book, and the more we learned, the more we became convinced. There's science to back up gender differences in behavior -- and there are statistics to show what happens in corporations where women are included in the highest ranks. The benefits are reflected in the bottom line.
For example, did you know that, according to Catalyst, companies with significant numbers of women in management have a much higher return on investment? Or that when work teams are equally split between men and women, they are more productive? It's no secret that most male-dominated industries haven't exactly done that well by the world. In addition to finance, consider, perhaps, Big Oil.
Additionally, women are far more willing to go out on a limb and act as the conscience of their organizations. Yes, it's long been believed that men are the natural born risk-takers, but according to Dr. Rosener, it depends what kind of risk we're talking about. The kind of risk that one takes with the encouragement of an audience (think Deal or No Deal... or shortsighted shareholders) is the kind at which men tend to excel. The other, which Rosener calls "moral risk," is the kind that one takes in spite of the audience's disapproval. And this is the kind at which women excel.
The thing is, historically, women haven't had much power or position in corporate America. Only a generation ago want ads were segregated by gender. So it's no surprise that, as Elizabeth Lesser, author and founder of the Omega Institute, told us:
The feminine has been left out of what we consider to be the most important way of exerting power in the world [and] it's not thriving in many women, and it's not thriving in men.
Of course in the opening salvos of women's migration into the workforce our strategy was to blend in: We were afraid (and rightly so) that if we came at an issue differently, we'd be seen as weak -- or worse, tossed out of the boardroom completely. There was a time for blending in. But we've shown we can play their game. The time has come to change the rules.
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Men have always been the innovators and the ones taking risks, without that there would never have been the first house, the first domesticated animals, the first boats, the first airplanes. It was men who conceptualized and built civilization as we know it - with roads, plumbing, colleges, medical schools, space satellites. If you choose to discard men (as is being done now), then you should expect civilization to decline.
Whenever women rose to lead, they have turned out to be just as warlike and corrupt as men - Cleopatra, Isobel of Spain, Queen Victoria, Catherine the Great, Queen Ranavalona, to name just a few.
Perhaps women would be better in Wall Street, but if history repeats itself (which is usually does), then they will most likely be just as corrupt and power seeking as men.
According to the United Nations, despite doing 2/3 of the labor, women get only 10% of the wages and own only 1% of the property in the world. In the USA, men run the Congress, executive and judicial branches of government and control the corporations. Less than 3% of corporate directors are female, so stop spreading patriarchal lies about women controlling wealth. Get a clue.
Why shou;d women respect the world that men have created: one where 25,000 children die every day from starvation, one where half our wealth goes to the military and warfare, where nuclear catastrophe hangs over our heads, where the oceans are dying from greed and over-exploitation, where the air is filthy and gives children asthma, where the planet's life support systems are in danger of irreversible collapse. The systems men have created and perpetuated will lead us to a miserable extinction. It is time to overthrow the rule of patriarchy.
Women wouldn't collaborate and bring peace because as you have encouraged women to take on the masculine traits of men to gain power it's obvious they choose to behave in the exact same way. The only reason women could be softer and gentler is because they had men to do the dirty work of fighting for them.
You are not some noble breed of human seeking collaboration. Feminist are seeking power for the sake of power. They are not out to create a kinder gentler world but to have women in the place of men doing what it was men were doing. The end result are women who no longer have the time to reproduce or care for their children. Those who do have children are forced to exploit poorer women to take on those responsibilities. There is no realistic Utopian potential in what you seek to create. It's just the same world in a new dress.
There is no proof that women invented any of the things you list, all happened thousands of years ago. They could just as easily have been invented by men.
As for the UN study you refer to, you should actually READ it (posted on their website) The study included only NINE poor African/east Asian countries.
Yes, a few males control politics and corporations, but the rest of us men are just as powerless as you - we don't even have the benefit of leading behind the scenes as women do. Females have the majority of votes to cast, you control most politicians by proxy. Look at Obama/Biden, can anyone seriously argue that they don't cater to women in everything they do?
As for your last paragraph, you are looking at the glass half full. Man's ability to use science and technology provides more food than ever, or even more children would starve. You would be practicing Islam right now if military men had not turned back the Islamic hordes at Malta, Vienna, and Lepanto. Nuclear weapons are terrifying, but may have prevented another World War simply by the MAD concept. As for overfishing the oceans, women and child eat those fish too. And women benefit from the advances civilization has brought.
You'll get your wish about a matriarchy, as women have been ruling the western countries for at least two decades. More and more female leaders of countries, more CEO's. It's just a matter of time.