Yesterday on my walk to my train after work I was listening to the latest "Pod Save America" podcast where the hosts were talking about the fighting between Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner. News reports surfaced that President Trump had to sit them down to scold them like the kids they all are to try to stop the bickering. While listening, something struck me. Tommy Vietor (one of the hosts) mentioned the fact that Trump had to hold this meeting was ridiculous because they all have important jobs and how the fighting will eventually lead to a disaster. My immediate thought was that maybe if we had more women in the White House this wouldn't be an issue? There is something with getting a bunch of men together with dicks, testosterone, and power that leads to puffing of chests, power grabbing, and just trying to outdo one another.
I'm not saying this happens all the time, but I have certainly seen this happen before. In a previous job, I was working for a male manager who felt the need to continually fight with another male manager in the company. The fighting got so bad between them because neither would back down, that we went past a deadline to have contracts in place for a disaster before hurricane season started. So if there happened to be an early season hurricane that year, we would have been sh*t out of luck and wouldn't have been prepared. All of this literally because they wouldn't work together and instead wanted to play 'who has the bigger ego.' Instead of thinking about the big picture and the actual people that their fighting would impact, they fought instead.
Then today, North Korea is saying that they are ready to go to war and that Trump's tweets are not helping matters. Trump is trying to show how powerful he is by dropping the largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan- a bomb that cost $16 MILLION DOLLARS- that only killed 36 ISIS fighters. You can't tell me that dropping that bomb had nothing to do with Trump's ego.
I am terrified that with all of these man-children in power right now, including our own President and in North Korea, that we will soon have World War III simply because of testosterone. I'm heartened by the fact that so many women are running for office these days but we need to hurry and get a lot more into office- and quickly before we no longer have a world.
What do you think? I ran across this article recently by a former secretary of defense and Harvard professor about how we would have a more peaceful world if women were in charge. What are we waiting for?
3 comments:
I agree so much. I always thought it was so stupid when people were like, "Oh, if women were in charge we'd be at war every time they have their periods!" How ridiculous, when wars more often than not (I'd like to say all but I'm sure there's an outlier somewhere) are started by men. And this situation today definitely feels like a pissing contest, like a "My bomb is bigger than your bomb" thing. I loved your litany of chest-pounding and other macho actions. More women, yes. I read somewhere too that if you want to help impoverished communities, helping the women, empowering the women first has the best results. I hate to stereotype but I feel like women are often more diplomatic and will think of long term effects on others more. (Total stereotype, but whatever). More women! To have so many men is problematic from a representation standpoint, too. I don't feel all that represented by our higher government right now. Great post!
In a largely female dominated field, I absolutely see this same behavior with women, it's just much less aggressive and much more passive-aggressive. I'm not sure which is worse.
It sure would be nice if there was a good balance of both men and women in office. I'm not so sure a female dominant government would be any better, but I do think a female perspective sure would be a good thing to bring to the table. We are in such a sorry state right now. I will never understand why people can't be more compassionate and do what's best for the good of all instead of making everything all about themselves.
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