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Aswad -> RE: are we all "equal"? (7/2/2009 4:51:44 PM)
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As I recall, wolf packs have one alpha male and one alpha female, the mating pair, and the female of the pair tends toward submission to the male of the pair, but is not submissive to the remainder of the pack. King and Queen thing. Not that this necessarily has any applicability to humans, given the wide range of configurations that can be successfully implemented in human societies without causing conflict.
Viking society perfectly demonstrates the innate drives and talents of the sexes. Women ran the flat units (i.e. the homes that constituted one community), while men ran the organization of units into hierarchies (i.e. government, warfare, etc.). Social gender could be changed for women by forsaking the child-bearing role in favor of the warrior role (the culture, with regard to these roles, has some parallells to Sparta, save that the farming was not done by a seperate slave caste).
Men have a greater drive toward conquest, a lower aversion to risk, and an innate understanding of hierarchy. The latter is necessary to build larger social units (in effect, communities of communities), although men and women appear to be equally proficient in handling such structures once they are in place (cf. female generals in the history of warfare). Women have a greater ability to consider multiple elements within a flat structure at the same time, making them uniquely suited to creating and governing families, and conferring advantages within some hierarchies. The relative lack of a drive for conquest, and greater ability to become generalists (whereas men tend to specialize more strongly), provides much needed flexibility. Sensitivity to the emotional aspects that influence day to day living allow women to do a better job of keeping things running smoothly, and to tailor the evolution of the culture of a community in a direction that fosters this unity.
Similar trends are visible in language, as I discussed with Kim in the context of the neurological differences between the sexes. Men have a lower capacity for parallell processing, and will thus tend to create hierarchies of smaller, more linear units. Women have a higher capacity, and thus do not generally develop this facility (no need for it in the formative years, unlike their advanced language skills), instead using larger, less linear units that tend to be less hierarchially organized. As a side benefit, women rarely have difficulties in parsing a hierarchial mode of expression, though most men would argue that they fill in the blanks in men's simplistic, linear forms in a quite liberal manner. Body language is a nice way to cut the red tape to say "shut up, I love you, the dress looks gorgeous, and now I'm going to rip it off with my teeth and I promise you'll be wonderfully sore in the morning," and a form of expression I've found to generally sit quite well with both parties.
The problem, insofar as there is one- and from a female perspective, or from an explorer's perspective, there is indeed a problem- is that the male hierarchies accomplish the typical engineering feat: making something more than the sum of its parts. In short, it confers various forms of wealth, including power. So far, no problem, per se. However, men, lacking some of the aforementioned sensibilities, are frequently not inclined to see what women bring to the table, and fail then to explore the possibilities that arise from allowing (a fairly accurate term when one has power) them to do so. Women, as a whole, don't go after it, either, and the exceptional ones who do, tend to encounter opposition from the men who might see them as competitors for power, and the women who might see them as competitors for status (and mates, and...). That has been expounded on at length by female authors, with the earliest examples I can remember being about the 14th century CE in Europe, the 8th century CE in the Middle-East, and sometime BCE in China.
In those cases where women have been in a position to govern, and have acquired that position on their merits, it appears they have done an excellent job. In those cases where it hasn't been on their merits, they've fared as poorly as meritless men, but received a greater backlash on account of being atypical for their culture to begin with. Accordingly, it seems to be pointless to claim that the two are equal, but equally pointless to claim that one has inherent superiority with regard to power and the ability to lead.
Paradoxically for those who shout the modern equality gospel, it is precisely the notion of equality that opposes meritocracy, which is the means whereby women of substance can have an opportunity to demonstrate their quality. As a result, equality translates into male entitlement and single moms trying to get by on half an income with twice the work. Not particularly beneficial for either gender.
And, of course, in the context of power exchange, any notion of equality is just another word for suspense of disbelief.
I'm pretty sure I had a punchline in mind, but right now it escapes me, so:
Equality bad. Merit good. Genders complementary.
Health,
al-Aswad.
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