First, from "her" side of the issue, an item from Fortune magazine.
BRAINSTORM 2002
Brain Scans: Why Women Should Rule the World
Boys' clubs: They suddenly have a whole lot to answer for
Justin Fox
Monday, October 28, 2002
Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, offered a solution to today's scandal-riddled world: women leaders. "The qualities that are defined as masculine are also the same qualities that are defined as the qualities of leadership. There is virtually no overlap between the qualities ascribed to femininity and those to leadership." Yet in several studies, Campbell said, "results show that when you have a critical mass of women in an organization, you have less corruption." Peru and Mexico have even implemented initiatives based on such thinking. And Campbell warned that "lest you think that all we aspire to for the world can be accomplished by male-dominated organizations, I have only to say to you: Enron, Taliban, Roman Catholic Church."
Reporter Associate: Julie Schlosser
The Fortune article
And Arthur's retort:
The author's mistake is to say Quality A has a bad side and Quality B is better because it doesn't have the bad side of Quality A. But when honestly examined, Quality B has a bad side all its own -- albeit totally different from that of Quality A.
While both genders can express any qualities, I believe it's true that men have been socialized to rely more on individual focus and women more on collective focus. BUT, there is nothing inherently more virtuous about either approach. Individualism gone awry yields corruption definitely. But collectivism has its dark side as well. Collectivism gone awry yields problems never getting address and/or people being stifled/smothering.There are political example of each throughout history (for what's its worth, my math has the "collective" registering a much higher body count). Men need to know when collective action is called for (realize when nurturing the people involved is more important than being a hero, focus on what's right instead of who's right) and women when individual action is required (taking responsibility to fix a problem instead of accommodating and perpetuating it, allowing people/minorities the space to be different regardless of what the majority thinks).
Boy's clubs have a lot to answer for? Oh brother. Try this on for size, women raise everybody. Between the overwhelming preponderance of female authority figures at home (Dad is the abstract, distant disciplinarian away at work most of the time) and at school (women teachers are far more common than men, especially at pre-high school levels) women shape society almost single handedly. The women's club has a lot to answer for. The blame game is so easy to play -- but so unconstructive and unsatisfying as well.
Are women less corrupt? Well, my guess would be women who express sufficient individualism exhibit corruption at rates equal to men exhibiting the same principle. Women who express less individualism and more collectivism would exhibit less corruption--but that's a different axis with it's own set of problems (herd mentality, asleep at wheel, problems get ignored for sake of avoiding conflict).
"But Arthur," you say, "everyone knows men have the greater tendency to commit crimes--look at all the prisons!" Sure, I agree. That's easy to spot. But if knew what you were looking for, you'd see women's greater tendency toward "criminal negligence" is as much of the world's problem.
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