Thinking aloud
by Volker Weber
Rule of thumb: whenever something bad happens, it is caused by men. Watch the current news, try to remember what happened in the past. All you see is men. Yes, there are a few women, but this is how rules of thumb work. They generalize.
Now stay with me. You walk a dark alley at night and there is a group of people coming your way. First thing you check is: all male? That's potentially dangerous, right? If you are a woman, a single man could be dangerous. One woman? A group of women? I sense no danger.
Who is the expert in incarceration? The USA. 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail (2008). 92.9 percent of prisoners are male. In Germany there were 60000 inmates, 3300 of them women (2011). Either women are way smarter than men and don't get caught. Or they are doing something right.
Societies where women have no say seem to be the dumbest, by far. Maybe it's time we put more women in control. Germany did. Almost ten years ago.
Comments
I'm with you here, but think it isn't enough.
Male youngsters need an education that does not stigmatize aggression but integrates it into their personality. The aggressive parts of a male are a fact and cannot be discussed away. As every other emotion it needs understanding and training to put it to good use.
In other words, we need more guys in daycare and kindergarten ;)
One other problem is that men get dumb very fast when they face some problem that produces aggression. In such situation men tend to simply stop thinking when they didn't learn how do deal with aggression in a good way.
Combine this with pursuit for undivided power and you have the base for most bad things that happened in history and happen today.
Mankind has to walk a very long way until this problem gets solved, if ever. Since we will not live to see this, we only can try to help societies to build structures that damps this problem, or to protect our own societies.
Suicide bomber in Istanbul a few days ago?
Women. Just for the rule of thumb.
Tobias, suicide bomber are only a weapon fired by someone else.
Julian, so this woman was not a man but a weapon? Interesting view.
We put a woman in charge in the UK back in the 70s and we are still suffering the repercussions.
A lot of this isn't about who is in charge through. A female French president wouldn't have prevented the current news headlines. This is just penis waving aggressive blokes.
I have a personal opinion that a lot of this derives from competitive sports where men are driven to challenge their peers from a young age. By no co-incidence, women have been shielded from this for many years.
Maybe as they rightfully gain equal opportunities in these areas, we'll see a change in temperament.
"I know from my own education that if I hadn't encountered two or three individuals that spent extra time with me, I'm sure I would have been in jail. I'm 100% sure that if it hadn't been for Mrs. Hill in fourth grade and a few others, I would have absolutely have ended up in jail. I could see those tendencies in myself to have a certain energy to do something."
Probably one of Steve Jobs' most profound, yet least cited quotes.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/sj1.html
Men generally have a larger footprint in history. Good and bad. 17 times more nobel prizes awarded to men vs. women.
Maybe the inconvenient truth is that women are priviledged already today in modern societies and it's time to stop discriminating men. Some examples:
- Women life longer
- Women marry "same or above". Poor, uneducated men lose the game
- Young boys' / men's personalities are less likely to meet modern requirements like communication and collaboration skills
- Girls' average school grades have outrun boys'
- Domestics violence against men is, best case, ignored or otherwise laughed at
- Constant discussions about gender equalited in attractive jobs, while men are very welcome to handle the dirty work among themselves
http://www.heute.at/news/oesterreich/wien/art23652,841165
Sieht so aus, als ob wir noch einen weiten Weg vor uns haben.
Sieht so aus. Seit 1940 hatten mehr als 50 Länder weibliche Staatsoberhäupter und/oder Regierungschefinnen vor uns. Wir haben also gegenüber anderen Staaten jede Menge nachzuholen.
@Dieter:
Congratulations on your exploit of communicating with the future using only 60s technology!
