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Ummm... speaking as a woman, prolly not. Women are subject to the very same lust for power and the same impulses to cruelty as men. I've seen this from other women throughout my life. The catalog of evils between men and women is about equal on both sides of the gender fence.
"Military mercy has been slow in coming to mankind. Even when a woman, Deborah, ruled the Hebrews, the same wholesale cruelty persisted. Her general in his victory over the gentiles caused "all the host to fall upon the sword; there was not one left."
So no, women are are not more merciful and wise than men. Let's just put that one to bed, okay?
Rulers for the most part haven't been cruel because they were men. Rulers have been and are cruel because they feel their power threatened and think that being cruel might neutralize that threat somehow. Rulers are sometimes cruel because the definition of a state is having a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The whole idea of having power and law and order depends on maintaining that monopoly. As such, if another country is threatening your power, even symbolically, or you might wage a war to neutralize them, or to get more power so no bigger fish can threaten your power. Maybe your rivals in the regime are going to supplant you, so you scapegoat some group in society and people rally behind you and that makes you more powerful. Maybe your authority derives from religion, so you persecute the heretics to maintain the ideology that you derive your authority from. That's how it works, its inherent in the idea. Women have worked to maintain their power the same as the men because if they didn't, they wouldn't have that power. Men, too, can be merciful, loving, and nurturing. They have simply had fewer opportunities in history to be that way because men had power, and to assume that role has sometimes meant having to give up the other, so that you could be a soldier or stand to exploit others in business etc. There are differences between men and women, but they're not big enough to really make a significant change.
The problem with the posts on this thread is that posters don't seem to understand that women who were ruthless political or military leaders were that way because they were operating by the rules of the patriarchy. They were surrounded by men, fighting against men, so of course they were playing by men's rules.
Women haven't ruled under women's rules because they've never been allowed to, except in small groups and pockets of societies.
Are there women who are violent, ruthless, lust for power- of course there are. Are there as many of them as there are men who want the same? No. Because women do not define themselves, their worth, or their womanhood by having power over others, by their ability to fight or kill. That is a uniquely patriarchal/masculine attribute.
This is what I will tell you - in situations where a female military force invades/invaded a town, city, country, (and I'm speaking historically here, not just present day) they wouldn't be raping women and killing babies.
The problem with the posts on this thread is that posters don't seem to understand that women who were ruthless political or military leaders were that way because they were operating by the rules of the patriarchy. They were surrounded by men, fighting against men, so of course they were playing by men's rules.
Women haven't ruled under women's rules because they've never been allowed to, except in small groups and pockets of societies.
Are there women who are violent, ruthless, lust for power- of course there are. Are there as many of them as there are men who want the same? No. Because women do not define themselves, their worth, or their womanhood by having power over others, by their ability to fight or kill. That is a uniquely patriarchal/masculine attribute.
This is what I will tell you - in situations where a female military force invades/invaded a town, city, country, (and I'm speaking historically here, not just present day) they wouldn't be raping women and killing babies.
The best way to settle this is ask women how they are treated by other women....you would be astounded.
The best way to settle this is ask women how they are treated by other women....you would be astounded.
I am a woman, and I don't engage it competitive or destructive relationships with women. The women I am friends with are women who have matured beyond such behavior.
Just a thought. Women don't have the testosterone men do, are inherently more understanding, sympathetic and nurturing. Had women ruled the world since ancient times do you think we would be living in a world without war, violence, brutality, etc? A world where the likes of torture, violence, doesn't exist? Where considering women communicate more we could always just talk all our problems out, where things like child labor, oppression, tyranny don't exist, and we don't end up with people like
Like ghengis khan, Stalin and especially Hitler exist?
I dont know, but because women have less testosterone means they can never rule. They have no way to monopolize violence.
I am a woman, and I don't engage it competitive or destructive relationships with women. The women I am friends with are women who have matured beyond such behavior.
Good for you. What does that have to do with the other several billion women in the world ? If you think, in general, women treat other women with respect like the self-selected group you are involved with....you are at best, being naive.
The best way to settle this is ask women how they are treated by other women....you would be astounded.
Good for you. What does that have to do with the other several billion women in the world ? If you think, in general, women treat other women with respect like the self-selected group you are involved with....you are at best, being naive.
You said to ask women- I am a woman who knows many, many women.
Regardless, we are talking historically and politically, not social behavior. And again, women working under patriarchal rules and patriarchal oppression will be forced to use those rules more often than not, because they are oppressed or because in their society they literally do not know anything different because there is no veering from those rules. That is what the posters here do not seem to understand.
When women run societies where men have not set up the system, are not present, or in an extreme minority, we do not see the same kind of violent, anti-social, domineering behavior.
This still a legitimate and working thread? Someone drug the mods or worse, forget too?
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