What are little boys made of?
Frogs and snails,
And puppy dog tails;
That’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice,
And all things nice;
That’s what little girls are made of.
Mother Goose
In spite of Mother Goose’s ancient wisdom about the difference between girls and boys, the role of women in most societies has been and continues to be suppressed. For a long time, I have felt that we would be better off if we defied custom and put women in charge instead of men.
This is another opinion that I share with my cousin and friend, Steve, and I’m afraid recent geopolitical tensions are about to again prove us right. Just look at all the wars going on now, all started and perpetuated by men. Look at the societies with oppressive governments in Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, all run by men, and all of which suppress women’s rights.
I think most of us in the US think of ourselves as open minded, with modern, progressive views, but the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the Equal Protection Amendment, passed after the Civil War in 1868, didn’t apply to women, or to Native Americans, by the way. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, after much demonstrating, imprisonment, and hunger strikes by advocates. The Equal Rights amendment, specifically giving equal rights to women, proposed in 1923, and again in 1971, was never ratified.
Throughout the years, prevailing opinion (especially among men) has been that women’s place was in the home, caring for the children, keeping the house clean, and their husbands happy. It was not until the year 2000 that the woman’s pledge to obey her husband was taken out of the marriage vows in the Anglican prayer book.
A common belief has been that women are not as smart as men, that they don’t think logically, and that their opinions are often driven by emotions. As recently as 2006, Laurence Summers was fired as president of Harvard University, for a comment that women were not as good in science and math as men. The latest president of Harvard was a woman. During the 19th century, “scientific” theories were advanced claiming that women are not as smart as men because their brains are smaller. It was later shown that brain size in humans is just proportional to body size, and has nothing to do with intelligence.
It's a well known fact that girls tend to do better in school than boys, at least through high school. 70% of high school valedictorians are female. Then several things happen: hormones kick in, people start asking girls when they’re going to get married, and boys what they’re going to do when they grow up. This steers girls into having babies and getting married, not necessarily in that order. And it steers boys into choosing a career, or at least finding a way to make money.
The social pressures directing girls and boys in different directions are strong, starting at birth, when parents get girls pretty dresses and dolls, and boys cowboy hats and baseball bats. But there’s more to it than that. Girls have to face the real responsibility of having babies and caring for them. This makes them out of necessity more responsible, regardless of their interests or talents. And boys, boys have testosterone, which makes them more aggressive, makes them want sex and adventure, and less responsibility.
Male and female roles are not just the result of social customs, they have evolved over the millennia. They enable women to bear children and to care for them, so women are naturally more empathetic, and nurturing, which serves to hold the family together.
Men on the other hand, like males of other species, have evolved to fight to protect the family from predators, and other males. As a result they had to be competitive, possessive, and impulsive.
In my opinion these evolved differences are no longer useful. There are no longer lions and wolves lurking in the forest to carry away your children. Men no longer have to eke out a living by clearing the forest and plowing fields by hand. Women no longer have to make their own clothing, churn butter and cook dinner over an open fire.
Throughout the ages women have had to fight against social expectations and prejudices, and at the same time shoulder the real burdens of caring for children and family. When my aunt graduated from law school in the 30’s she had to take a job as a secretary because no one would hire her as an attorney. She and my uncle divorced, and she had to give up custody of their son to him, since he had remarried and had a wife to care for his family. She later worked as a teacher, served time in the Army, and finally worked as a clerk for a judge. My uncle, on the other hand, became a successful trial attorney, and later a district judge.
Times have changed though, just in my life time. When I was a child, women were expected to stay home with the children. Those who worked were looked on as taking jobs away from men who were responsible for supporting a family. My own mother quit her job when she married my dad for this reason. She learned to play solitaire to fight the boredom.
Now women have birth control so they can choose when or whether to have children, and they constitute a large part of the work force. When I went to med school there were only three women in my class of 100 students. Now they make up 55%. The numbers in law school are similar. Since 1970 the proportion of women with college degrees has increased from 8 to 39% surpassing males, which have increased from 14 to 36% during the same period. More and more women occupy leadership positions in corporations, and many have even become heads of state.
Okay, so why should they be in charge?
First of all, women are risk averse. It’s a well known fact that women are better investors than men, because they are less likely to take chances by investing in a volatile stock. Also they tend to be less impulsive, looking at the big picture, pursuing long term goals.
Next, women are less aggressive, less confrontational and controlling. 80% of violent crime is committed by men. Men more likely to commit murder, domestic violence, gang or drug related violence and robbery. A 2008 review published in the journal Violence and Victims found that although less serious situation violence or altercation was equal for both genders, more serious and violent abuse was perpetrated by men. It was also found that women's physical violence was more likely motivated by self-defense or fear, while men's was motivated by control.
Furthermore women are better problem solvers than men. They are more likely to see both sides of an issue, and to use negotiation and compromise to solve problems rather than competition and power. And they are better at multitasking, since they usually do the bulk of child-care, cleaning, cooking, scheduling, and transportation for the family.
So who would you rather work for, someone who strives to understand your point of view and gives you a chance to try out your ideas, or a boss who tells you it’s his way or the highway? Who would you rather trust your savings to, a broker who wants to put your money into a company he believes to be the next Amazon, or one who prefers to spread your investments out among government bonds and stocks with long record of stability and safe dividends?
And finally, who would you rather lead your country, someone
who fights for dominance over his political rivals, who enters conflicts with
other countries to show power, and who persists in wars to save face, or
someone who settles differences with other leaders by negotiation and
compromise, and whose goal in both domestic and foreign policy is to minimize
hardship and suffering, and to reach solutions that are mutually beneficial to all
parties.
