A meeting on women in business and politics, 2009.
Speaker of Parliament and brother of the Prez Chamal Rajapakse recently said working with women is difficult. Previously the male Women And Children’s Affairs Minister said men should always be chairs within that organization and women subordinates. Both are supremely wrong. I personally think the country would be run way better if it was run by more women, or even all women.
The main argument for male dominance is that you need strength to rule. But that’s circular logic. You’re saying that you need men to fight off other men. It’s like the mafia saying you need to pay for protection from ‘people like me’. The whole point is that a society becomes more advanced (or wants to become so) rule should be less about strength in a violent/defensive sense and more about a strong society.
Our male politicians are implicated in rape, murder and somewhat across the board drunkenness and debauchery. Out of social pressure perhaps less than choice, women are simply not as rapey or violent as men. If we had more female politicians there would be less Pradeshiya Sabha Chairmen thinking that they can rape and kill foreigners (a la Tangalle) and less shoot-outs between politicians in the street (a la Duminda Silva).
This is not to say that women can’t be violent or rapey, they’re just not. Partly I guess because of testosterone but also because societal pressure makes that behavior unacceptable for women. There is no female Tony Soprano. That sort of violent but powerful anti-hero isn’t compelling as a female, whereas that sort of anti-social personality is actually the template for more uncivilized leadership throughout history.
Honestly, I think there should be a quota for women in office, and it should be damn close to 50%. As I think Sonia Gandhi said, people say that you can’t find women to fill the quotas until you impose the quotas. And to get back to Speaker Rajapaksa’s complaint:
“This is not something I am saying. When women take the lead there is a tendency to not listen to anyone else. It is like this in a lot of places. It becomes difficult to work. If a woman is in charge of a District Secretariat or Divisional Secretariat or any other high office, they have a tendency to exert their authority over that place. So because of that, sometimes justice is not done,” (Colombo Telegraph)
If women assert power, so be it. That’s called politics. That’s what politicians should be doing, talking and – yes – scheming and plotting. The Speaker here seems to be saying that they don’t play along with the boys club, which is a good thing. That’s better than colluding to share the spoils of violence, rape and a mafia government while marginalizing the 50% of the population which earns, maintains homes, social connections and has just as much a right to political power, if not more, than men.
Well we did have woman running the country from 94 to 05. And it was a disaster.
We had men running it before, who created the disaster.
Come Sack, even if we accept you claim that it was a disaster, it was’nt because she was a woman that it was a disaster?
@Jack Point,
1995 – Mandaitivu, jaffna – 90 KIA, 41 WIA, 17 MIA
1996 – Mulativu- 1,173 KIA
1996 – Pulukunawa, Batticola – 44 KIA, 35 WIA, 3 MIA
1997 – Paranthan – 158 KIA, 392 WIA, 65 MIA
1997 – Vavunathivu, Batticola -73 KIA, 98 WIA, 2 MIA
1998 – Kilinochchi/Paranthan – 89 KIA, 405 WIA, 26 MIA
1998 – Kilinochchi – 30 KIA, 256 WIA, 33 MIA
1998 – Kilinochchi – 857 KIA, 936 WIA, 171 MIA
1999 – Oddusudan – 117 KIA, 1459 WIA, 117 MIA
1999 – Vettalakerni, Jaffna- 197 KIA, 1921 WIA, 28 MIA
1999 – Kadjuvatta, Batticola – 80 KIA, 450 WIA
2000 – Elephant-pass – 708 KIA, 2576 WIA
2000 – ariyalai/ thanankilappu – 628 KIA, 5129 WIA, 301 MIA
(KIA- killed in action, WIA- wounded in action, MIA- missing in action)
That the butcher’s bill on security forces (army navy, air force, police) due to major LTTE attacks during CBK period excluding the ones in operations conducted by the government.
I hope these numbers would provide sufficient evidence for you to accept my “claim” that it was in fact a disaster. And it wasn’t because she was a “she”. It was because she was a awful leader.
Well my point is that woman are perfectly capable of making “disasters” and “thuggery” (as you may remember beating people, burning houses, murder are things that CBK got personally accused of). And it want be all “rosy” if we fill our parliament with woman.
So true. I find it amusing how Chandrika now casts herself as some incredible leader who cared for everyone else.
Men like Sirimavo?
We’ve had good men and bad men as leaders. Both the women we’ve had as leaders were pretty bad. That’s the stats if you believe in stats.
I don’t think it makes any difference whether it’s a man or a woman; just the quality of the man or woman.
Just a question though. Wasn’t it JR who started everything? Completely let down the minority population in Sri Lanka, allowed the riots to break out, and gave room to a bloody war that has now ended as suppression of tamils in the north. And what’s happening these days? History repeating itself. Muslims being sidelined with orders being given directly from the top to let mobs throw pig meat into mosques while people pray and then sending orders to have said mosque being closed down. And of course that stuff doesn’t appear on the media. Eventually it’ll be riots again right? There’s only so much you can kick people before they strike back and then it’ll be another civil war. And who is at the top of the country right now? Men. Brothers. Sons.
I wish I could present a more fact based argument but I couldn’t find time to research so this comment stands as mostly a casual observation. Having said that, I still put the question forward, isn’t what is happening in our country just a run up to the repeat of ’83? And was it a man, or a woman, back then that led the country?
An all female leadership isn’t without fault either. Any of us who have worked in a company where there’s an all female HR department will know how that can end. At the same time, we’ve seen all female leadership, all male leadership, and balanced leadership that works. Just goes to show that that in the end David Blacker’s comment is the one that makes the most sense really. It’s not the gender. It’s the person.