"What If Women Ran The World?" Depends On The Woman.

By Megan Carpentier  |  March 27, 2009 | 9:40pm
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Former Bush I speechwriter Mark Lange has this sweet little editorial about how women should take over running the world because we’re just all so much nicer and more humble then men and stuff.

Basically, Lange’s entire thesis is that since women are, like, all fuzzy and soft and nice and whatnot, the world will be a better place! Because all women are one way and all men are another way, and never should you judge individuals based on their individual merits and talents, you should always stereotype by gender. I mean, Hillary Clinton’s a woman, Sarah Palin’s a woman, it’s all the same.

What’s clear is that, on average, men overestimate their IQ while women underestimate theirs. And that may be a clue, in terms of effectiveness: While decisiveness and risk-taking matter, hubris (too often male) creates problems. Humility and collaboration (more often female) solve them. What explains the difference?
It could simply be a matter of emotional need, reinforced by generations of gender stereotyping. Seeking competition and challenge, guys do tend to cast things in shades of conflict: defaulting to a win/lose, right (“my”) position versus wrong (“yours”).

I mean, he qualifies it, so it must be ok, right?

Oh, and then there is of course the reductive evolutionary argument that one always has to drag out.

The difference could be evolutionary. Primordial hunters (men) had to make rapid decisions and act on them, right or wrong, but quickly. Chase that bunny! Club that rival! Run away! Gatherers (women), meanwhile, needed an awareness of the larger context – knowing which berry bushes would ripen when, how to keep the kids from clonking each other with rocks, and generally holding the tribe together and getting things done.

No matriarchal societies, no male gatherers, no farming communities, we basically all roamed the African plains united in gendered specialization of labor until there were cities.

Oh, and you know it’s also ’cause we’re all short.

Or, in a world where our reverence for stature remains primitive, it’s possible women just have to be more creative, collaborative, and clever when they average five inches shorter and 27 pounds lighter than men.

The next person that suggests that I’m “creative, collaborative and clever” because I’m short is going to get punched in the knees.

And there are, of course, learned male ways of thinking inherent in our male leaders that are in now way taught or learned by female leaders, too.

Male cognitive patterns of linear, command-and-control thinking are no longer optimal – either with Gen-Y talent in the workplace, or with geopolitical conflict around the world.

So, when women take over the world, everything will change and be better! Because women and men are inherently different!

As women ascend as leaders in policy and business, the decisions they make will be more accountable to a wider array of interests, stakeholders, and outcomes. By example, they will teach us to lead less through positional authority and more through positive influence- with more of a bias toward informed action and a clearer connection between everything we know, and all we have to do.

Oh, it’s so nice to be the “better” sex sometimes, right? No snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails, it’s all sugar and spice and everything nice, with a pink rug in the Oval Office and some prettier camo on the tanks.

What If Women Ran The World? [Christian Science Monitor]

 
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