Are Humans Hard Wired to Prefer Men as Leaders?

[BH]

I see your point and under the conditions you describe I will agree.

 

[TomC]

hell of a story to tell, and you would do better by learning from them than by dismissing them.

Don't get your panties in a bunch [MENTION=2587]Politesse[/MENTION];

This wasn't a judgment, much less dismissal. I'm just putting these small communities in the context of the 7+ billions of the Human Family.

If anything, it's the opposite. I see them as more like a drastically undervalued resource. Rather like some endangered species which happens to carry a cure for cancer or something in their DNA. But nobody knows about it, and the species will take it with them to their grave when environmental pressure pushes them into oblivion.

However, patriarchal societies have consistently outperformed matriarchal societies for many thousands of years.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

No. No. No! I am not arguing that men are better leaders. Not at all. I voted for Hillary. I’ve worked for many women and no issues. But I just wonder if millennia of patriarchal societies has hard wired us to prefer men over women when voting. I keep thinking of why would any woman vote for Trump. But millions did, even though he is undeniably against the interests of women’s rights.

"Hard-Wired"? No.
Socialized? Yes. Millenia of brutes has socialized society to think of brutes when they think of leaders.

The existence of societies, both large and small, has shown us that we are not "hard wired" to do it.
Children of abusers often become abusers themselves. This is not because they are "hard wired" to be abusers. It's because it's all they know.

This also gets to why representation is so crucial.

However, patriarchal societies have consistently outperformed matriarchal societies for many thousands of years.
Tom

By this logic, do we have to conclude that humans are "hard wired" to prefer British leadership? Or that british leadership is "better" on the evidence that they had a global empire that outperformed the french?


It seems that people are arguing that if you can successfully keep your foot on the neck of others, you are "preferred".

 

[AthenaAwakened]

No.

 

[TomC]

No.

Dayum.
That's one cryptically inscrutable post.
Tom

 

[Rhea]

No.

Dayum.
That's one cryptically inscrutable post.
Tom

Well, it does answer the question in the thread title: "Are Humans Hard Wired to Prefer Men as Leaders?"

 

[ronburgundy]

Smart money would be on Hillary to kick Trump's ass.


More generally, if the hypothesis had merit, we wouldn't see old men regularly being elected over younger, healthier, and stronger men (and women).


As to Dems vs. GOP, in 1967 both parties had women in only 5% of their Congressional offices. Since then, the Dems went to 40% in 2020 while the GOP was still only at 12%. The difference began right as the Dems fully embraced a Civil Rights and equality platform while the GOP began it's southern strategy of courting conservative Christians and white supremacists, who also tend toward misogyny.

 

[TomC]

"Quote Originally Posted by TomC View Post

However, patriarchal societies have consistently outperformed matriarchal societies for many thousands of years.
Tom"

By this logic, do we have to conclude that humans are "hard wired" to prefer British leadership? Or that british leadership is "better" on the evidence that they had a global empire that outperformed the french?

There was no logic in my statement, it was purely an observation. Nor did it include judgement, like prefer or better. It's just what is.

And frankly, the British Empire was a small blip in the big picture of human development. This was once pointed out to me. "There have been roughly 900 generations of modern humans. Fully 650 were lived in caves." Simplistic, I know, but it puts the British Empire into perspective. Getting past the "Might makes Right" culture and ethics of our forebears is a very recent development.

It seems that people are arguing that if you can successfully keep your foot on the neck of others, you are "preferred".

I think that using the word "preferred" is anthropomorphizing the amoral and undirected forces of selection. Evolution didn't "prefer" burly, competitive, risk taking males and stolid, cooperative, risk averse females. But due to our reproductive cycle, that's what was selected for in humans.
For men, reproduction is a breeze. And most of us are utterly expendable, in the grand scheme of things. For women, it's completely different. Far riskier and more arduous to gestate and raise a child than just getting laid.
Tom

 

[DrZoidberg]

6 Matriarchal Societies That Have Been Thriving With Women at the Helm for Centuries
In these communities around the globe, women oversee everything from politics, economics, and the broader social structure.

Matrilinial is not the same thing as matriarchal. That article looks like complete wishful thinking. What's worse, it looked like exotism. Most Arab societies are matrilinial. Yay, feminsm in the Middle-East.

There's no matriarchal societies and there has never been one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matriarchy

Most anthropologists hold that there are no known anthropological societies that are unambiguously matriarchal

At best certain aspect are seen as matriarchal in some ways. But mostly not.

The worst thing with spreading these matriarchal lies is that it is anti-feminist. We're not making the women's cause any favours by lying about some existing mythical matriarchal societies.

For, whatever reason, humans aren't good at letting women be in control. If we want a society where women are empowered, we will have to take that into account, and compensate for it.

The current fourth wave feminist strategy of shaming men for cock-blocking women (while the patriarchy is struggling to understand what they did wrong) and shaming women for not trying hard enough, is doing nothing but filling everybody with shame. For no benefit. Nobody is benefitting from this.

History has shown that female leaders are just as capable leaders as men. So it's not the lack of ability.

I highly doubt there's a male conspiracy to keep women down. I have been around long enough in the corporate world to see what is going on. It's been one long perpetual conspiracy to get women into management roles and to lift them up.

I think it's lack of ambition. I think women aren't as intoxicated by power as men. Don't forget that people don't become powerful because they are awesome. They become powerful because they're willing to sacrifice everything in order to climb. Powerful men live for their work. I have met women who do as well. But many more men.

I think sex is the problem. Young guys aren't that interesting for hot women. So they're unfucked and use that time and energy to climb the corporate ladder. While young women have all the distractions they need to keep them from having a successful career. I also suspect that women have instincts steering them toward raising children in a way male instincts don't. Which changes their priorities in life.

 

[Politesse]

That wiki article has obviously been sabotaged; it doens't reflect the modern consensus of the social sciences, or reality. Why on earth wouldn't you consider the Mosuo a matriarchy? Like, structurally the ah mi has near unchallenged control over her clan. If a man had the authority of a Mosuo clan chief, you wouldn't hesitate to conclude that he was in charge. But because she is a woman, you're like "is she really in charge?" Of course she is.

 

[DrZoidberg]

That wiki article has obviously been sabotaged; it doens't reflect the modern consensus of the social sciences, or reality. Why on earth wouldn't you consider the Mosuo a matriarchy? Like, structurally the ah mi has near unchallenged control over her clan. If a man had the authority of a Mosuo clan chief, you wouldn't hesitate to conclude that he was in charge. But because she is a woman, you're like "is she really in charge?" Of course she is.

LOL. When reality doesn't conform to your theory, it must obviously be reality that is wrong.

The gender studies version of feminism has been agressively spread and promoted by the left. It has reached a point where we look like idiots to conservatives. And we deserve it. It's just propaganda. It's nuts.

I've worked under many awesome female bosses. The lack of female leaders certainly isn't for lack of ability.

 

[Politesse]

LOL. When reality doesn't conform to your theory, it must obviously be reality that is wrong.

That applies more to your position than mine. What evidence have you offered to support your claim that Mosuo is somehow a secret patriarchy, despite its obvious self rule by female authorities?

I would not consider the Mosuo to be a "leftist" people; the Communist government of China not so secretly hates their guts, and they hold to fairly conservative and authoritarian social values, internally.

 

[DrZoidberg]

LOL. When reality doesn't conform to your theory, it must obviously be reality that is wrong.

That applies more to your position than mine. What evidence have you offered to support your claim that Mosuo is somehow a secret patriarchy, despite its obvious self rule by female authorities?

I would not consider the Mosuo to be a "leftist" people; the Communist government of China not so secretly hates their guts, and they hold to fairly conservative and authoritarian social values, internally.

What's your argument that the Mosuo are matriarchal? Other than wishful, obviously bullshit opinion pieces? I tried googling it. Everything comes up with them bring matrinlineal. Which is not the same thing as matriarchal.

As a general rule in anthropology, the less developed the economy the more patriarchal. Women's rights is a product of industrialism and a modern economy. That's where the movement started.

The idea of ancient matriarchal societies were:

1) ancient myths, told to scare men
2) Rosseauian noble savage ideas

Or

3) Jungian Great Mother Goddess ideas, based on extremely creative interpretation of ancient goddess statues we have found. Without once reflecting upon the fact that ancient Greece, ie one of the most patriarchal society in history, worshipped plenty of goddesses.

Its no mystery where these myths come from, yet we keep perpetuating them as facts.

But most damning I think is the fact that it's racism. It's exotifying brown people. These well meaning feminist propagandists are forcing their ideas onto poor people and often buying their cooperation in perpetuating the myths, and nobody cares what these poor brown people have to say about anything. They get reduced to an ideological bat we beat each other with

 

[Politesse]

You're really bad at googling, then, as you should have hit upon a basic description of Mosuo political structure within the first few pages the search engine suggested to you. All meaninglful authority in Mosuo society outside of the official Chinese govenrment is family based, and the head of the family is its eldest female member, called the Ah mi of her clan. All economic, social, and political control ultimately come back to her "office", symbolized by her ownership of a private room and the keys to the family larder, passed down matrilineally.

Your obfuscation about matrilineality is a red herring, as a society easily be both matrilineal and matriarchal. While not all matrilineal societies are matriarchal, some are. For that matter, patriarchal and matriarchal systems of authority can co-exist in the same society as well, though one usually ends up taking precedence over the other, almost always but not always the partriarchal system.

Your "general rule in anthropology" is fictional, there is no such general rule in anthropology. In anthropology, as an actual general rule, we derive terminology from descriptions of observed societies, rather than trying to impose our cultural assumptions on to them. I can't imagine a professional anthropologist finding such a rule useful even if it were true. There being so few well-known matriarchal societies, what woud be a credible data set to derive such a rule from, and who would we apply it to? A prescriptive rule never takes precedence over observation, and the known matriarchal societies are all well documented, so why would you rely on a "rule of thumb" rather than doing ten seconds of googling and learning the correct answer to your question?

This is the second time this week a gender chauvinist has tried to vaguely throw my own field at me as evidence for their ideological beliefs, without any credible sources to back up their statements. It's really starting to get on my nerves. Just saying "all anthropologists agree with me" is not a citation.

And accusing me of racial erasure, while accusing the mere existence of Mosuo society as a being some manner of fiction created by the "Leftists" of your own culture, is pretty fucking rich! Whatever else may be true, it is certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Mosuo consider themselves to be matriarchal, and consistently describe themselves that way. If you are accusing them of not knowing the "Facts" about their own culture, or of putting on some sort of a show just to appease Chinese tourists or something, you are the one erasing a minority culture's agency, not your imaginary opponents. The mere existence of "Brown People" (as you insultingly call everyone not like yourself apparently?) is not a communist plot.

 

[Emily Lake]

Men start a thread with other men to discuss how much better at leadership men are than women...

No. No. No! I am not arguing that men are better leaders. Not at all. I voted for Hillary. I’ve worked for many women and no issues. But I just wonder if millennia of patriarchal societies has hard wired us to prefer men over women when voting. I keep thinking of why would any woman vote for Trump. But millions did, even though he is undeniably against the interests of women’s rights.

So... I'm going to go a bit political here with you. Bear with me.

First off - women are not a monobloc with only one specific interest. We're just as complex, with just as disparate of values as men are. We, as individuals, value our livelihoods, or autonomy and independence, our freedom of speech, and our safety just as much as any randomly chosen man does. We care about the economy, we care about our faith (or lack thereof), we care about our communities, we care about the environment, and we care about the well being of those we love. The ever-present assumption that if a woman votes for a republican, she must be voting against her interests is absurd and shallow. It casts women as only caring about themselves and about women's issues. It devalues us.

Furthermore, Trump did not take action against women's rights, nor did he campaign on that issue, nor did he express such a viewpoint. He is an asshole with a lot of narcissism who doesn't respect women, and perhaps he counts as being actually sexist. But he didn't do anything against women's rights. To expand on that, the republicans as a whole have only one element of their party that is against the rights of women, and that's in the very narrow field of abortion rights. Many women are also pro-life. I am not, but I can respect the position they hold of life being sacred and of abortion being equivalent to murder. I oppose their policy, but I also understand that in many cases it's not intended as "anti-woman"

To round things out, I'll toss some gas on this fire: It is not currently the republicans who represent the largest threat to women's rights: it's the democrats. It's the democrats who are attacking protections and provisions for women. It's the democrats who are seeking to allow male-bodied people to compete against females in sports on the basis of their unverifiable internal feelings about their gender. It's the democrats who are pushing to remove the right of consent from females when it comes to whether or not males are allowed to view them naked... or whether males are allowed to expose their genitalia to females. It's the democrats who are pushing to allow males to gain access to scholarships and grants for women, to hold political positions as if they are women, to be counted as women statistically in terms of economic and political representation. It's democrats who are seeking to allow penis-havers to be placed in female prisons.

There's are many reasons that a lot of women voted against Biden. Some are economic, some are ideological, and some are because only a few hours into office, Biden began the process of unraveling women's progress.

 

[Emily Lake]

Having a woman leader just has not been practical for most of the history (bearing children).
And being a leader has no benefit to woman evolutionary. She can't get more children when she is in a position of power, but man can.

Women just aren't suited for leadership, what they really want is babies and to take care of the house...

 

[DrZoidberg]

You're really bad at googling, then, as you should have hit upon a basic description of Mosuo political structure within the first few pages the search engine suggested to you. All meaninglful authority in Mosuo society outside of the official Chinese govenrment is family based, and the head of the family is its eldest female member, called the Ah mi of her clan. All economic, social, and political control ultimately come back to her "office", symbolized by her ownership of a private room and the keys to the family larder, passed down matrilineally.

Your obfuscation about matrilineality is a red herring, as a society easily be both matrilineal and matriarchal. While not all matrilineal societies are matriarchal, some are. For that matter, patriarchal and matriarchal systems of authority can co-exist in the same society as well, though one usually ends up taking precedence over the other, almost always but not always the partriarchal system.

Your "general rule in anthropology" is fictional, there is no such general rule in anthropology. In anthropology, as an actual general rule, we derive terminology from descriptions of observed societies, rather than trying to impose our cultural assumptions on to them. I can't imagine a professional anthropologist finding such a rule useful even if it were true. There being so few well-known matriarchal societies, what woud be a credible data set to derive such a rule from, and who would we apply it to? A prescriptive rule never takes precedence over observation, and the known matriarchal societies are all well documented, so why would you rely on a "rule of thumb" rather than doing ten seconds of googling and learning the correct answer to your question?

This is the second time this week a gender chauvinist has tried to vaguely throw my own field at me as evidence for their ideological beliefs, without any credible sources to back up their statements. It's really starting to get on my nerves. Just saying "all anthropologists agree with me" is not a citation.

And accusing me of racial erasure, while accusing the mere existence of Mosuo society as a being some manner of fiction created by the "Leftists" of your own culture, is pretty fucking rich! Whatever else may be true, it is certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Mosuo consider themselves to be matriarchal, and consistently describe themselves that way. If you are accusing them of not knowing the "Facts" about their own culture, or of putting on some sort of a show just to appease Chinese tourists or something, you are the one erasing a minority culture's agency, not your imaginary opponents. The mere existence of "Brown People" (as you insultingly call everyone not like yourself apparently?) is not a communist plot.

Lol. And now I am a chauvinist suddenly. What creative slander will you think of next?

The field has plenty of ideologicaly driven feminist crackpots who see what they want to see.

Feminism was historically a product of industrialism. For an anthropologist I'd say your ignorance on the matter is inexusable. If you truly are an anthropologist ??????

I'd never heard of the Mosuo before today. I'm not in a position to draw a lance for any belief about them. But I get the impression that your understanding is about as deep as mine, yet you are so cocksure about them.

Yes, I think it's racism and egotism to treat them this way. I stand by that. I suspect they're much like tribal people everywhere. You know... because they human, and humans tend to share a lot of traits

 

[ZiprHead]

Lol. And now I am a chauvinist suddenly. What creative slander will you think of next?

The field has plenty of ideologicaly driven feminist crackpots who see what they want to see.

The irony runs deep with this one.

 

[Emily Lake]

Lol. And now I am a chauvinist suddenly. What creative slander will you think of next?

The field has plenty of ideologicaly driven feminist crackpots who see what they want to see.

I kind of feel like we can all pretty much stop reading right there...

 

[ronburgundy]

Furthermore, Trump did not take action against women's rights, nor did he campaign on that issue, nor did he express such a viewpoint. He is an asshole with a lot of narcissism who doesn't respect women, and perhaps he counts as being actually sexist. But he didn't do anything against women's rights. To expand on that, the republicans as a whole have only one element of their party that is against the rights of women, and that's in the very narrow field of abortion rights.

Abortion is the most fundamental women's rights issue that exists. Abortion restrictions are an attack the most basic human right there is, the right to have control over what goes, stays, or happens within the confines of one's own body, and that attack is exclusively against women. All other rights only exist based upon the principle of bodily sovereignty. Trump ran heavily on destroying that right, was elected by evangelicals based mostly on that promise, and his SCOUTS appointments followed through and will most definitely greatly hinder and/or eliminate that right.

The fact that some women are happy to take away that right from all other women, b/c they don't ever plan to exercise that right themselves is irrelevant to the fact that it is an attack on a most fundamental right targeted exclusively at women. Women who vote to do so are similar to the women who opposed women's suffrage, or similar to slaves in history who opposed and end to slavery b/c they preferred their status and position over what they imagined it would be like with emancipation.

As for the Republicans as a whole, they are quite clearly opposed to women having the right of equal representation as evidenced by the fact that in 2020 they still only allowed 12% of the Congressional seats they control to be held by women. Meanwhile the Dems went from 12% to 40% in the past 30 years.

Yes, women have varying views. Some, just like some men, are mindless idiots who cling to tradition for it's own sake, even when that tradition was designed by immoral ignorant people who aimed to enshrine inequality with themselves at the top. And some people like to be dominated and abused, even if only b/c they know nothing else.