This is an interesting little story. A meeting of senior women (several current and ex-presidents and other leaders) is being convened in New York as I type, to explore the ways in which female leaders can help promote peace and security. Their collective hypothesis seems to be that women lead differently to men and that engaging female leaders in global security efforts may bring greater chances of success, for example in conflict resolution. I think this is an interesting idea - and certainly worth exploring.
At the very least, a world in which power were more evenly spread (across spectrums of gender, race, religion) would be more balanced - and perhaps therefore more harmonious...? Discuss!
NB - I also think the site on which this article is to be found (link from post title above) is interesting. 'The Raw Story' aims to communicate 'under-reported' news. Another attempt to create balance, then, this time in news coverage - and, as you know, that's what we're all about here at Reasons to be Hopeful!
Friday, November 16, 2007
Day Thirty-Six: can women lead the world to a secure future?
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6 comments:
Hmm. I’m always very wary (post-Thatcher) about gender characteristics. There have been interesting Scandinavian studies* that suggest aggressive behaviour is NOT gender specific. Until there is a scientific study of aggressive tendencies amongst world leaders, the best gauge of gender-based characteristics are studies of aggression in the workplace. A recent Zogby study about aggression at work (reported by The Workplace Bullying Institute) states that “when women bully -- and women are 40 percent of the bullies -- they target other women about 70 percent of the time”. Not exactly gentlemanly behaviour (ha!). So, I reserve judgement on this – more a reason to be doubtful, I think.
*Bjorkqvist, K, Osterman, K and Lagerspetz, KM. Sex differences in covert aggression among adults. Aggressive Behavior 1994, 20: 27-33.
Bjorkqvist, K and Niemela, P. Of mice and women. Aspects of female aggression. London: Academic, 1992.
Interesting response, Harry. And fair point too. Though, to be equally fair to the women concerned - and to the meeting organisers, who were from Annenberg Public Policy Center at UPenn, I understand - they weren't suggesting (at least not explicitly) that women don't exhibit aggression, more that engaging women leaders in global security agendas may enable new solutions to be found to old and seemingly intractable problems. At least that's how I interpret their project - you can find out more at: http://www.womenandglobalsecurity.org/
And I think the idea that there are still solutions to be found to global (and local) insecurity is inherently optimistic! I, for one, want to believe that.
Having said all that, of course you are right about women and bullying. I have worked with and for some fairly unpleasant women - though, I can gladly say, with and for many more wonderful ones. As you say, one should refrain from generalising too much. However, on a more flippant note, witnessing playground behaviour amongst children (and recalling my own days at school) I note that girls tend to verbally abuse each other, whilst boys verbally abuse the girls and then beat each other up...
On a final note: do you think that the reason there are fewer female soldiers, freedom fighters and terrorists is, on balance, because women in general shy away from such roles or because women are discriminated against in their attempts to engage?
All interesting stuff!
On anecdotal evidence, I reckon women are significantly less likely to start wars (wars rather than bullying) and, in war-ravaged places, you tend to find women at the fore-front of many community efforts to do constructive things. But I do accept that my 'anecdotal evidence' may be a selective sample, skewed by my own culture-induced preconceptions.
On women suicide bombers - apparently, although they're fewer in number, they're much more likely to follow through. When SAS-types intercept a bunch of suicide bombers (as one does), they're told to shoot the women first for that very reason. Not a lot of people know that...
Finally, on the distribution of power in eaziebee's original post (sorry, I'm rambling!), there's an international relations theory that regions are safest when power's either very well spread or very concentrated. Hence, the cold war (2 powers) and the Greek city states (many) were both much more stable than Europe in the 1900s (5-8 powers, depending on what counts). As America's comparative advantage in military, economic and persuasive (soft) power declines, deconcentrating power in the world, we can expect the world to become more unstable.
Thanks, Smiley. I had never heard that before - about the relative 'reliability' of female suicide bombers, or the (shocking) prioritisation of their assassination over others'.
I am less clear on the balance of powers theory though. What does count as a 'power' in relation to the historical periods you describe? And is the theory relevant only at a geopolitical level, or has it also been shown to be relevant in the context of local or national politics? I.e. are localities also more stable when power is very concentrated? (Or very evenly distributed? And where is there an example of the latter???!)
E
Yes, the number of actors and the way power is distributed between them shows similar patterns in other systems. In economics, for example, oligopoly (a few firms) is a less stable market structure than either monopoly or competition with many firms. In politics, too, dictatorships and pure democracies are more stable than oligarchies. Note, though, that there's a different sort of stability in the single-power and many-power models. Commonalities emerge when many people each have a very small share of power, such as shared values or shared practices to penalise anti-social behaviour. These commonalities accumulate power themselves and emulate the dictator model.
And the whole non-linear relationship between stability and power-distribution breaks down when you consider counter-examples - eg defective democracies (where a minority is permanently excluded) or effective oligarchies (eg separation of power models). What matters is the interests the participants have in destabilising things and their capacity to do it. That, as you would expect, has a linear relationship with stability.
So, coming back to the original question (!), empowering women will probably stabilise most conflicts, since protracted conflicts tend to be, almost by definition, multi-polar systems.
There are as many types of women as there are men. You can't say that men make better chess masters any more than you can say men make better leaders or politicians.
OK - so Thatcher was no Sofia Polgar, perhaps her religion and world-view, coupled with the pressure to wear shoulder pads in the position of power (pre-defined role) might have forced her to behave in certain ways.. (The Stanford Prison Experiment?).
Personally - I don't necessarily think it is genders or indeed individuals are able to make a huge difference in conflict resolution or politicking. We have seen very little in terms of the evolution of Trias Politica over the past few centuries - that means that whoever wants to make a difference in terms of reducing suffering has little choice in how to go about it. Politics seem to promote the illusion of choice right through the entire process.
A reason to be hopeful is that there has been some change - we now have the media as a possible forth power (it turns out that not many people are pleased about that - apart from maybe Rupe and family). We also have the emergence of the fifth state or power - winner of Time magazines person of the year...
Us (that's you and me).
It is going to be an interesting century. One in which I hope to see women and men provided with the opportunity to promote positive change by an evolving system that provides real choice.
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