The world faces existential challenges right now and the current power status quo is incapable of meeting them. Men are the problem. Major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue to escalate with no end in sight. I ask you, was it women who took these nations and peoples to war? No, men are the problem here. Mister Putin and his Russian men invaded Ukraine. In Israel, Hamas instigated a conflict, which has resulted in some 50, 000 deaths and counting in Gaza and surrounds, as the IDF retaliated with no concern for the innocent or their collateral damage. Male leadership directed these lethal events on both sides of this bloody conflict. When are we going to wake up to this existential problem? Climate change poses another global crisis upon us, one which is more cataclysmic for the planet.
Male vs Female In The World Leadership Race
In America, we are days away from a presidential race for the most powerful nation on earth. This contest pits a woman against a man, for only the second time in US history. The fact that a female candidate for president from one of the two main political parties has only emerged twice and this has happened only in the last 8 years says something about power and gender. The top job has been reserved for the male gender over centuries via cultural stereotypes and a network of vested interests. Bronze Age monotheistic religious traditions have played a part in perpetuating ideas about the place of women within our societies. Books written by men but claiming to be of divine inspiration, the Bible, Torah, and Koran, have been used as authoritative texts to order our hierarchies according to gender. People who look to the distant past for their guidance see patriarchal family structures as the ideal framework for worldly power in the 21C.
“The U.S. is one of the few democratic countries that has yet to elect a female president. Kimberly Hamlin, a professor of Women in American History at Miami University, said she believes that one possible reason a woman hasn’t been president is that U.S. voters lack exemplary female leaders, which can subconsciously impact their perception of whether a woman can lead. “
Harris Up Against Trump, Woman Vs Man
Kamala Harris is the current Vice President of the USA. Donald Trump is a former president. There are several other binaries at play here. Black vs white. Young vs old. America is faced with an identity question here. Who is America in 2024 and beyond? Is it a regenerated mixed race nation or an old white country? Where does the power lie in this day and age? Who has the keys to the car? The two main wars mentioned integrally involve the United States, as America funds both with weapons and money. President Biden has backed heavily both Ukraine’s repulsing of the Russian military invasion and Israel’s war on Hamas, which has spread to Lebanon and Iran. Trump and the Republican party do not support Ukraine in its ongoing struggle against the Russian aggressor. Trump has a strange relationship with Putin, historically strange for an American president to be siding with a Russian despot. In nearly all wars and conflicts men are the problem, as they seek power through aggression. The idea that you can beat up on someone or something to get what you want is a typically male conception.
The instinct toward violence, as a viable and reputable means of achieving stuff is predominantly a guy thing.
A Woman’s Right To Choose
The pundits in the political sphere are telling us that this presidential race is being contested along gendered lines. It seems to be a power struggle between men and women. Christian Nationalists and Catholics have, through stacking the US Supreme Court, managed to overthrow legal abortion rights at the federal level via the Dobbs decision. This has long been a Republican crucible issue at the state level. Women across America see this as taking away their reproductive health rights over their own bodies. This is the state saying we control your child bearing abilities. In actual effect, it is men taking control of women by legal force to determine their sexual behaviour and reproductive rights. This overturns 50 years of legal precedence and societal norms – it is outrageous in anyone’s book. Women around the US are predicted to stand up for their autonomous rights and vote against the Republicans on this issue alone. Having children should be ultimately arbitered by mothers and not by faceless men in the halls of power.
How can a country calling itself a democracy take away the fundamental right of a woman to choose?
White Men Wanting To Take Power By Force
What has been happening in reactionary circles in America is a wake up call to the world at large. The Dobbs decision and the desire to take away a woman’s right to choose is a part of a backlash by extreme social conservatives. White men wanting to take by force powers that they are not entitled to and never have been. Threats of physical violence are everywhere in the US at the moment. Voter intimidation has a rich history in America. Whites deterring Blacks from voting in elections so that they can exert power over their communities. Ever since slavery, the divide between whites and African Americans has been contentious and sometimes abhorrent. Democracy has had a tough fight over stuff like segregation and civil rights in America. Donald Trump represents coalitions of the worst kinds of Americans in this space. Dog whistling has morphed into open fascist calls for violence against migrants, political opponents, and all his perceived ‘enemies within’. Blaming others and the politics of grievance has been Trump’s gateway to political power in the US. Stupid people looking for expedient answers to complex problems have joined the Trump cult. Blue collar workers, non-college educated folk sing his praises. These people are virulently opposed to political correctness and all things woke. They get a kick out of a public figure talking like they do – taking the dirty secret and shouting it onstage. Hey, just like Adolf Hitler used to do at his rallies and he had the German people saluting his courage. Some of us know where this ends.
White Guy Billionaire Tech Influence
Now, you might be reading this and thinking to yourself I’m a man and I am not the problem, according to what has been put forward. OK, not all men are hell bent on domination, but even the quiet ones are complicit in some ways if they are not actively acknowledging the problems and the current status quo. We are in a decisive moment, at a tipping point, as to where the world is going to go. Equality between the sexes at the very top remains out of whack. Guys do not want to secede power despite the mess made of things over millennia by men. Oligarchs like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sacks are products of the repressive South African apartheid regime. These tech billionaires are exerting enormous influence on the world right now. Musk is firmly in the Trump camp and spending big to try and ensure that Trump wins. Vance, the GOP candidate for VP, is Thiel’s boy. These middle aged white men are leading this grab for political power from the Silicon Valley sector. The tech business is a regulatory wasteland crying out for some controls to be put on social media platforms before generations of humans are seriously f***** up. If space is the final frontier, according to Star Trek, we are in trouble already with Musk and Bezos defining it with their billions.
“Thinking about Trump and Putin and Musk as fellow oligarchs helps explain why they all seem so enthralled with each other. As Hill noted, they are part of a very small group of men who control vast fortunes and vast political power that have global reach, and who prefer to deal with each other.
“They aren’t driven by the people they represent or the companies that they represent, but by the peer group that they are in, which is an extraordinarily small group of people,” Hill told me. “Their interactions are all about them figuring out how to exercise power together.” “
White men dividing up the spoils between each other in secret calls beyond national lines. Surprise, no women in this select little group of world shakers. It is the gendered cultural assumptions of men, that they share with each other, which condemns the current world to more of the same, despite the innovations of technology. The violence and aggression is accepted as par for the course, if required. If we continue to encourage men to rule the roost, as the religious among us are inclined, we will just see a repeat of what has cyclically come around over the centuries. Young men marching off to war to kill and maim each other. Yes, there will be a lot more drones and remote operated killing machines involved. Families will find out that their beloved child was killed by a machine rather than another human being. The future is an exciting place.
Absolute Wealth & Power Corrupt
Men are the problem but few want to call it out for what it truly is. Individuals start out, like Elon Musk, just wanting to be a success and their journey takes them on a roller coast ride. Some succeed beyond their wildest dreams and are changed by the process and outcome. Unrestricted wealth and power does not end well for most human beings if the histories are to be believed. Few Roman emperors handled their omnipotent power to the benefit of themselves in the long run. Most did not live that long to find out. Extreme wealth, like Elon Musk now has, without guardrails sends many over the edge. Human beings are not gods, demi or otherwise. Generating a lot of money does not automatically confer wisdom upon individuals. This may come as a surprise to many Americans.
Moving On From Mostly Men In Charge
Having mainly men in charge has not worked well over the millennia for the countless billions who have lost their lives due to violence. We have tried the guy thing for a very long time, let’s give the girls a go at being in charge for a change. It may well not be perfect, very few things are, but it cannot be worse, I suspect. This has to be more than a tokenistic shift, as we have seen on occasion around the place. It will require commitment and patience over the duration. Woman manage other humans better than men in most instances, in my experience. Especially, if they are not trying to be like men due to the imposition of males above them on the hierarchical ladder. The push, push nature of corporate greed and the endless expectations of economic growth are part of the problem of a male dominated world. Balance is required, the kind of balance which respects the input of others. Real leadership involves consultation and engagement. Loving and caring are not dirty words but exemplars of better ways of doing things. Putting away the zero sum game in government and business will be a good start.
‘We are all in this together’, – is the motto the world needs to embrace. Mothers don’t want to see their children murdered for any reason. This must become the new bottom line.
Surely, It Is Time
Kamala Harris becoming the president of the United States is a good first step in the right direction. It is not enough in itself but it may well inspire a lot more change. She will be the first woman leader of the ‘so called’ free world – whatever that really means? Beyond this, what is required is not some blanket ban on men being in charge of anything but a shift in consciousness from the cultural dominance of masculine values to the appreciation and utilisation of feminine approaches to doing things. We need to move into a transitional stage where the essential qualities of what a woman brings to the table are not viewed as inherently weaker than the male way. Of course, these are generalisations and each individual, whatever their gender, brings their own uniqueness to matters beyond their sex. Women do have a different flavour, more broadly, and that cannot be denied. Can we as a species learn to respect women beyond their sexual function? This can be challenging for younger guys who are biologically more in the grip of their hormones. Seeing life through the lens of sexual conquest can be problematic. Thinking with your dick or not thinking deeply enough about stuff remains a perennial problem for many. These issues impact power dynamics across all aspects of human life. The animal, the great ape resides within us all despite the sophisticated evolutionary overlays of eons. It especially emerges in the arenas of political power. Chest beating, jaw jutting displays of animal power live on in the instinctual realm. Revaluing the role of women within our hierarchical power structures will be challenging.
However, in a technologically rich world where brute strength is no longer necessary for survival, surely it is time.
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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