Why macho had to go - By Valerie Hudson

Generalizing about the differences between men and women is about as rewarding as sticking your arm into a blender. The issue is just too rife with controversy, contradictory data, deep-seated emotion, sundry fears, and political agendas of all kinds. But the meltdown of the hypermasculine, risk-seeking model of finance capitalism has lately thrown a new light on this old and deeply contentious question: Given their record, should men really be running the world?

After trolling through the current research, including some of my own, I have to say (at the risk of arm meeting blender), that the answer is probably no. Evolutionary biologists tell us that human beings and chimpanzees are the only species in the animal kingdom in which male members bond together to commit acts of aggression against other members of the same species. Indeed, research shows that natural selection has slowly but steadily rewarded certain types of men with more offspring: men who form tight bonds with other men, who use physical force to get what they want, who lack empathy, who are highly motivated to garner resources with minimum effort, who are willing to take risks, and who subordinate others—whether women, children, or strangers—to their interests. That's how 0.5 percent of men in the world today (and, presumably, women, too) wound up as descendants of Genghis Khan.

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These predominantly male tendencies clearly have immediate and lasting evolutionary benefits for men, but their long-term consequences for society at large are less obviously salutary. Of course, risk-taking, competitiveness, self-confidence, and aggression can be appropriate—even beneficial—when directed toward the protection of other human beings. The problems come when these attributes are unbounded and unchecked, when Genghis Khan types are allowed to run amok. Sooner or later, risk-taking always overshoots and crashes; decision-making becomes reckless; preying on others without restraint undermines the entire social web, imperiling all, including the predator.

Men pay a price for their evolutionary legacy (think of the high casualty rates among despots and professional U.S. football players), but the price for women is higher still. As my colleagues and I wrote in a recent issue of International Security, more than 160 million women went missing from the world's population in 2005 alone—more than all the deaths from all the cross-border conflicts, civil wars, and genocides of the entire bloody 20th century combined. Some have called this a "gendercide," whose true and appalling toll is obscured by its pedestrian origins: domestic violence, sex-selective abortion, egregious maternal mortality rates, and the cultural sanction of female murder (so-called "honor killings"). But children, as well as women, suffer—for in most cultures, mothers are responsible for the daily survival of their kids.

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SORENLERBY

3:29 PM ET

July 20, 2009

A glimpse into workd ruled by women

Ummm. At the risk of other arm meeting blender, I have to say yes, or emphatic yes, given that;

Men are responsible for all great inventions (think computers, lights, telephones, cars)
Men are responsible for all the social and economic development.
Men are responsible for all the great liberal (if you are liberal) and conservative ideas (if you are conservative), such as freedom, liberty, etc.

Maybe the better way to approach this issue is what would today’s world look like if risk-aversing, over-emphasizing women are in charge of the world since circa 2,000B.C.

We would still think that the world is flat- no, not that Freedman’s World is Flat but the earth (given women’s poor special recognition capacity), we mostly live on subsistent farming (women are good at nurturing-including plants), no electric lights, telephones, cars (Mr. Edison, Bell, Ford had to help housework and rear child as dictated by matriarchs-scientific experiment and inventions are uniquely male concepts and in fact a male privilege that were made possible by sacrifice of female labour).
We don’t fight and go to wars, in fact there is no such thing as weapons – remember women don’t fight with other people (????), nor do they hunt animals, as they have too much empathy to kill animals – and therefore no army or military. By the way, no military means there would be inventions that originated in military and later turned to wide public use, such as internet, etc.

And yes, there would be no huge oil spilling in the Ocean (as Michael Moore lampooned men in his book aptly titled “Stupid white men) –because women will not (or are not able to) build a large ship (women are not good engineers), nor operate a ship (not a good operator-again it requires special recognition ability), nor travel across ocean (no risk-taking please, that’s’ for Neandelthaal men), nor make use of oil, build internal combustion engine, build a oil drilling, and so on.

Well some of you may say there are a plenty of women who work in these business and capable of doing it, and even some assume senior positions in the field. First of all, yes there are plenty of them, but they only studied in these disciplines - that were developed by men and taught by men. This is entirely different story than finding, inventing and developing from these from the scratch. And second, yes, there are some women who has senior position in these fields. Has anyone ever heard of “affirmative action? Anyone?

So , in a world ruled by women since 2,000BC, you are basically living in a world that looked exactly like 2,00 0years ago. no lights, no internet, no supermarket, or department store, etc. I understand that some people, (especially on the far Left) embrace this kind of world as their idealized world.

Foreign Policy Magazine

Good Riddance

Why macho had to go.

BY VALERIE HUDSON | JULY/AUG 2009

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