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Will Women Rule The World?

May 29, 2008

sHeSpEaks: By Sai/Mami/Fiscal Eldred Cole

The United Kingdom had Margaret Thatcher, Israel had Golda Meir, India with Indira Gandhi, and now Germany has Angela Merkel and both Chile and Finland have elected female presidents in the last 12 months. So, could 2007 be the year that the United States and France vote in their first woman president?

Hilary Clinton is running for president of the United States of America. If she wins the presidency, the sequel to her memoir as first lady of America entitled “Living History,” could become “Making History,” the story of America’s first woman president.

But there are two other, very different, women who are also making history- Angela Merkel, the first woman and the first East German to get the job as Chancellor of Germany and the glamorous Ségolène Royal who the Socialist Party members of France elected as their candidate for the 2007 French presidential election. With  these powerful triumvirate, women could soon be ruling the West.

Would it make a difference? Is the future going to be female?  If the future is female, it will not be monochrome. It will be like a rainbow of colors after the darkness of the storm has lifted.

Imagine the world ruled by women. A man would no longer be considered a “good catch” simply because he is breathing. For basic training, soldiers would have to take care of a two-year old for six weeks or more. And a female employee would be noticed for her work performance, not her bra size.

In a world ruled by women, men who designed women’s shoes would be forced to wear them and  they would learn phrases like: “I’m sorry, I love you,” “You’re beautiful,” “Of course you don’t look fat in that outfit,” “Go to sleep-I’ll take care of the baby,” etc. During mid-life crisis, men would get hot-flashes and women would date 19 year old boys, or younger if they can get away with it. After a baby is born, men would take a six-week paternity leave to wait on their wives hand and foot. Singles bars would have metal detectors to weed out men hiding wedding rings in their pockets and be sent home forcefully if found out.

But seriously now, really, would having a woman rule the world change things? There have been formidable “iron ladies” before, such as Thatcher, Meir and Gandhi. They shone brightly but were no more likely to pass on the torch to other women than Elizabeth I, who decapitated Mary Queen of Scots, her rival for the throne. One former aide to Lady Thatcher says he never heard her mention bringing on women: “She surrounded herself with the brightest and the best of the time and they were primarily men.”

The Philippines had two women presidents, Aquino and Arroyo and well, let’s face it, they succeeded male presidents that made a mess of things, just like a stop gap or a transition period until the big macho man can take over.They were just the token women presidents, a symbol of sorts and worst, a whipping object, you know, that one everyone can blame if something went wrong.

But Thatcher, Gandhi and Meir, Aquino or Arroyo were the products of the same pre-war environment that had shaped their bitterest male critics. They beat the men on their own terms or other. In contrast, the arrival of Angela, Ségoléné and Hillary in positions of leadership marks the outcome of a decades-long process of post-war empowerment that has seen girls overtake boys in school and leave them behind. Women now make up 57% of university entrants and outnumber men in every subject including law, maths and engineering. According to the study, women outnumber men in college graduation statistics and also have higher expectations for the future.

This leads us to the question, “How does a guy show that he’s planning for the future?” Answer: “He buys two cases of beer.” Well, that’s understandable. Considering, however, that women still aren’t getting paid as well as men for their scientifically proven higher educational talents, I guess the men can afford that extra beer.

It’s really no wonder, though, that females’ verbal skills have continued to pass that of males, because the majority of a guys’ time from the age of 5 is dedicated to playing video games, fuming to themselves, and breaking the silence only to banter with each other about their superior proficiency and yell at the television when they can’t pass level 2.

Overall, I would just like to say the idea of men ruling the universe needs to be handed over and the proverbial torch passed on to the more deserving of the sexes. So keep sitting on your couches, boys, drinking that beer and looking mindlessly at your TVs while we continue our ascent towards total world domination, which will not be too far in the future. And you ask: Is she right? Yep, because we women are multitaskers. We’re constantly negotiating between our husbands, our jobs, our parents, parents-in-law, our civic activities, our friends, enemies and our children, our children’s children, ad nauseam. And importantly, we women are not as pompous, self-important and worried about our egos as men. We get down to business. (For comments and/or violent reactions e-mail me at coi_416@hotmail.com)

Written by admin · Filed Under Columnists, Sai/Mami/Fiscal Eldred Cole 

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