- Women aren't better - just equal
- By Adele Horin
- The Sydney Morning Herald
- 03/05/2009 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: The Rooster ( 258 articles in 2009 )
In a world first, Iceland has elected a woman who is openly lesbian to its highest political office. It has put its faith in a cabinet that includes five women among its 11 members. It has put two women in charge of three of its benighted banks.
In a country that turned out to be a mere iceberg floating on an ocean of debt, the people have turned to women to undo the economic damage inflicted by a kleptocracy of crusty males.
When there's a mess, women are called on to clean up, as Joan Kirner in Victoria and Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia were prevailed upon to do after the previous male incumbent premiers made a hash of things.
The idea that women are innately more moral than men, and less greedy and aggressive, has many champions, and I used to be one. Men have used the notion since time immemorial to put women on a pedestal and out of the main action. Certain feminists have also espoused the argument that women's "nurturing" and "intuitive" qualities equipped them to be better business executives, better people managers and political leaders … just better all-round than men.
These days I think that sort of feminism is silly.
Just because women are running a country or a bank means little in itself. It is no indicator of the culture or values within the place.
It is not just Maggie Thatcher, possibly the only world leader to start a war to boost her poll ratings, who changed my mind. Thatcher was a big shock to feminists at the time. But her steely attacks on unions and the British welfare state and her indifference to the sisters were rationalised away. While ever a critical mass of women was absent from the nation's boardrooms or cabinet room, the argument went, the gritty female who had clawed her way into the inner sanctums would have to play by boys' rules.
It was never an adequate explanation for the Iron Lady. As more women have inched into the corridors of power it is even less persuasive an excuse for lamentable behaviour today.
Meredith Hellicar was not just one of the boys. She was on the James Hardie board for six years and its chairwoman for three. Just over a week ago she and nine other directors and executives were found by the Supreme Court to have broken the law in the saga over asbestosis compensation. Justice Ian Gzell saved his sharpest criticisms for her, describing Hellicar as "a most unsatisfactory witness" who had "feigned shock" when shown a document in the witness box. He had "grave doubts about her evidence".
If anyone thought compassion was an inherent female quality, the actions of Pacific Dunlop's chief executive, Sue Morphet, in sacking 1800 workers as a recession was hitting the shores, and taking production of Australia's iconic clothing brands overseas, brought them up short. It was a cold, hard business decision, quite possibly well-founded. A woman proved just as adept at inflicting mass redundancies - and on a mainly female workforce at that - as any man.
The phenomenon that was Pauline Hanson crushed any notions that women were inherently more caring, inclusive or polite. Hanson, for a while, made racism a force in Australian politics and unimaginable rudeness acceptable, and her sexy outfits lent a certain sassiness to the whole sad enterprise.
It has served men well to think women are the weaker and less aggressive sex. A decade ago, the writer Francis Fukuyama argued that the world was too dangerous a place to entrust it to female leaders whose aversion to violence was "rooted in biology".
When women showed aggression, it was redefined as bitchiness. The Labor MP Belinda Neal, who yelled at waiters and was none too nice to her husband, was sent off to anger management classes, while the pugilist Mark Latham won the Labor Party leadership.
More recently Hillary Clinton's supporters in the US presidential campaign managed to make a virtue of her reputation for being "nasty" and "ruthless", and for "getting down with the boys." Far from being the stereotypical female peacenik, Clinton espoused a hawkish foreign policy. She dubbed Venezuela's democratically elected leader Hugo Chavez a dictator and wasn't going to talk to him, nor Kim Jong-il , nor the Cubans.
Fortunately Barack Obama won the election, and now she is having to dance to a different tune.
If anything showed women could be as wicked as men, it was Abu Ghraib, where three of the five prison guards prosecuted for torturing prisoners were women; the head of the prison was a woman, General Janis Karpinski, and the top US intelligence officer in Iraq was female, Major-General Barbara Fast.
Women deserve to take their rightful place in the public sphere not because they are better than men but because they are human. They deserve equality not because they are more moral, less aggressive, or more in tune with Mother Earth but because discrimination against half the world's population is wrong.
Experience has shown, however, that it is not just any woman who will change a country, a corporation or a bank for the better. It takes a particular kind of woman with particular values, and the strength to act honourably when the boys - and the other girls - are behaving badly.
In a country that turned out to be a mere iceberg floating on an ocean of debt, the people have turned to women to undo the economic damage inflicted by a kleptocracy of crusty males.
When there's a mess, women are called on to clean up, as Joan Kirner in Victoria and Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia were prevailed upon to do after the previous male incumbent premiers made a hash of things.
The idea that women are innately more moral than men, and less greedy and aggressive, has many champions, and I used to be one. Men have used the notion since time immemorial to put women on a pedestal and out of the main action. Certain feminists have also espoused the argument that women's "nurturing" and "intuitive" qualities equipped them to be better business executives, better people managers and political leaders … just better all-round than men.
These days I think that sort of feminism is silly.
Just because women are running a country or a bank means little in itself. It is no indicator of the culture or values within the place.
It is not just Maggie Thatcher, possibly the only world leader to start a war to boost her poll ratings, who changed my mind. Thatcher was a big shock to feminists at the time. But her steely attacks on unions and the British welfare state and her indifference to the sisters were rationalised away. While ever a critical mass of women was absent from the nation's boardrooms or cabinet room, the argument went, the gritty female who had clawed her way into the inner sanctums would have to play by boys' rules.
It was never an adequate explanation for the Iron Lady. As more women have inched into the corridors of power it is even less persuasive an excuse for lamentable behaviour today.
Meredith Hellicar was not just one of the boys. She was on the James Hardie board for six years and its chairwoman for three. Just over a week ago she and nine other directors and executives were found by the Supreme Court to have broken the law in the saga over asbestosis compensation. Justice Ian Gzell saved his sharpest criticisms for her, describing Hellicar as "a most unsatisfactory witness" who had "feigned shock" when shown a document in the witness box. He had "grave doubts about her evidence".
If anyone thought compassion was an inherent female quality, the actions of Pacific Dunlop's chief executive, Sue Morphet, in sacking 1800 workers as a recession was hitting the shores, and taking production of Australia's iconic clothing brands overseas, brought them up short. It was a cold, hard business decision, quite possibly well-founded. A woman proved just as adept at inflicting mass redundancies - and on a mainly female workforce at that - as any man.
The phenomenon that was Pauline Hanson crushed any notions that women were inherently more caring, inclusive or polite. Hanson, for a while, made racism a force in Australian politics and unimaginable rudeness acceptable, and her sexy outfits lent a certain sassiness to the whole sad enterprise.
It has served men well to think women are the weaker and less aggressive sex. A decade ago, the writer Francis Fukuyama argued that the world was too dangerous a place to entrust it to female leaders whose aversion to violence was "rooted in biology".
When women showed aggression, it was redefined as bitchiness. The Labor MP Belinda Neal, who yelled at waiters and was none too nice to her husband, was sent off to anger management classes, while the pugilist Mark Latham won the Labor Party leadership.
More recently Hillary Clinton's supporters in the US presidential campaign managed to make a virtue of her reputation for being "nasty" and "ruthless", and for "getting down with the boys." Far from being the stereotypical female peacenik, Clinton espoused a hawkish foreign policy. She dubbed Venezuela's democratically elected leader Hugo Chavez a dictator and wasn't going to talk to him, nor Kim Jong-il , nor the Cubans.
Fortunately Barack Obama won the election, and now she is having to dance to a different tune.
If anything showed women could be as wicked as men, it was Abu Ghraib, where three of the five prison guards prosecuted for torturing prisoners were women; the head of the prison was a woman, General Janis Karpinski, and the top US intelligence officer in Iraq was female, Major-General Barbara Fast.
Women deserve to take their rightful place in the public sphere not because they are better than men but because they are human. They deserve equality not because they are more moral, less aggressive, or more in tune with Mother Earth but because discrimination against half the world's population is wrong.
Experience has shown, however, that it is not just any woman who will change a country, a corporation or a bank for the better. It takes a particular kind of woman with particular values, and the strength to act honourably when the boys - and the other girls - are behaving badly.
Source: https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/women-arent-better--just-equal-20090501-aq50.html?page=-1
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