Women-Only Leadership Idea Rejected

egads! who are the 6%? What was the final base size?

I imagine that the 6% are that demographic that live under bridges and can rightfully be referred to as “trolls”.

Hmmm.  The 6% who say that women ought not lead or vote are trolls.  I’m not saying they’re not.  But nearly 5 times as many appear to hold the same view about men.

The poll is oddly constructed.

For instance, one could hold the opinion that we would have less war and more peace if only women were leaders, and so be inclined to vote Yes. Yet one could still hold that barring men is not an acceptable means to that end and be inclined to vote No.

Alternatively, one could believe that all-female leadership would not make much difference in terms of war and be inclined to vote No, but not necessarily for the reason attached to the No answer - and such a person may yet want all-female leadership for other reasons not attached to the Yes answer.

Therefore, the results lack clear relevance with respect to the question.

likely purely for comedic value.

Well I almost voted for the crazy answer. Because I took it as a comedically formulated expression of: “These options suck”.

The new spitutally poll also lacks the answer I would prefer.

I believe this has been a very interesting and enjoyable discussion and I am quite impressed that 28% of IEET readers voted Yes.  Movements towards peace have started with far smaller percentiles.  Even if the proposal is never implemented, I believe it is valuable to discuss it, as a way of telling warlike male leaders that we’re sick of history’s military murders and we’re considering drastic reforms that could end it.

Unfortunately, Hank, military murders and nationalism, distinct from patriotism, go together. On November 2nd, the GOP/Tea Party sent a message: “this is our country, and we will do what we want with it.” The following link is to a shameless plug for ‘exceptionalist’ (nationalist) aggression, disguised in patriotic platitudes. You have to admire their tenacity, they don’t give up; they will fight to the last drop of someone else’s blood:

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/03/03/in-defense-of-american-excepti

Palin was an astute (for them) GOP choice: Palin is nationalistic, gun-loving; she is a rightwing feminist.
This is Cain’s collateral error:
“We see American Exceptionalism not as an empty cry for nationalism [...]”
Yet exceptionalism IS an empty cry for nationalism. Obama was correct, he said he is an exceptionalist as others in other nations are exceptionalists preferring their own national interests to other nations’ interests. Cain’s article is only another puff-piece for nationalism by someone trying to display their love of country; however to relate it to this blog, it shows how imbedded nationalistic & patriarchal memes are. If the GOP/Tea Party were baseball players, they would use hard balls (no pun intended); if they were football players, they would be the kind who try to break the legs of the opposing team’s members. However though they have direct power in America, they do not have such in other nations, they can’t fight every regime opposed to America without expecting other nations paying them back in their own coin. Iraq was invaded eight years ago because it was considered low-hanging fruit, Iran couldn’t be invaded, its military is too powerful. America certainly couldn’t invade Afghanistan, Iraq, AND Iran, plus wherever else a threat was considered high enough.

you’re right, postfuturist - Palin is a big obstacle in my theory.  I need to read the right-wing POV more often, thanks

Ok, I have to comment here - I did not vote in the poll, but I would have been with the 41%.

That said - shock at the 6% who want to rescind women’s vote, yet not shock at the 28% who want to rescind men’s vote?

I’m sorry, what?

dor, Philalethes - you’ve got some explaining to do. So those who want to rescind women’s right to vote are trolls living under bridges - but those who want to rescind men’s right to vote are ... what? Enlightened progressives? Happy smiley people?

@Snark

First, I was in the 41%, so let’s not make assumptions here.

Second, the proposal says nothing about rescinding men’s right to vote. That is included only in the “troll” answer, which is the reason I called it a troll answer in the first place.

So basically you made up the ‘rescinding men’s right to vote’ thing, then accused me of indirectly supporting it, then attacked this non-existent group of people with sarcasm, and then told me that I have explaining to do.

@snark

ditto what Philalethes said

Of course men should have the right to vote, especially the enlightened progressive ones. ; )

“but those who want to rescind men’s right to vote are ... what? Enlightened progressives? Happy smiley people?”

Snark knows the poll query ‘rescind male right to vote’ is a joke;
at any rate nothing to worry about, Snark, this is a Man’s world:
no danger—especially now that Islam is on the rise—that men will be dethroned.

I think a more appropriate solution instead of rescinding women’s right to vote is to make households only have 1 vote. Every election cycle have the household register which spouse would be the one voting so either party could decide instead of relying on income as the qualifier. In any event, this would be more in line with what the founding fathers had in mind as opposed to everyone and their brother being able to cast a vote. It was intended to be only people with skin in the game and assets on the line would be the ones voting (eg property owners).

I’d also like to see those on welfare or otherwise milking the govt teat not be permitted to vote until they are productive *contributing* members of society. The idea of everyone having a right to vote is a scary notion when you think about it and gives franchise to a lot of people who quite frankly just don’t deserve it.

“milking the govt teat”

Revealing metaphor in a thread concerning women.
At one time I listened to the Right, now it is obvious they want to replace a leftist welfare state with a rightwing welfare state. Why aren’t the Tea Party, rightwing libertarians, and the GOP seriously pressing above all for rump Entitlements—to cut Entitlements to the bone or altogether? why the nickel & dime cuts? because it is a feint; they want the state to help their people:
“Down With Big Government (that we don’t like)”

Postfuturist, it is true that the bulk of those in the GOP and Tea Party are not serious about cutting spending, but I do wish you wouldn’t say actual libertarians weren’t; they most certainly are, but simply are very seldom elected, and when elected are drowned out by other, more statist legislators.

“The idea that everyone having a right to vote is a scary notion when you think about it and gives franchise to a lot of people who quite frankly just don’t deserve it”

The “scary notion” is that anyone would be disenfranchised in employment, housing, education or voting rights.
Where we are born in life has a great deal to do with our ability to “have skin in the game”. We do not start out on even footing.
The great shame of developed nations is the degree to which we continue to allow enormous quanitities of human intelligence and human ingenuity to lie fallow by not eliminating poverty and hunger.

“but I do wish you wouldn’t say actual libertarians weren’t; they most certainly are, but simply are very seldom elected”

They can’t get elected because most libertarians are rightwing extremists, they are souped-up Republicans who secretly want the state to help their own people, and when such is pointed out to them they clam up—why shouldn’t they? they can’t cease the duplicity without losing a percentage for their people. Many libertarians are rubes, cornballs.
They are wasting their time not others’, as too many now know what the deal is. To the extent libertarians have been able to shrink government they have been absolute failures.
IMO libertarianism is mostly only valid as being clubby—libertarianism is merely another political social club. Nothing wrong with it as feel-good, organized religion is feel-good, politics is as well.

BTW, libertarianism and the Libertarian Party are dominated by men, the women involved are only puppets manipulated by men, when you examine how men behave and not merely what they say. Even Palin, despite her high position today—as high up as a women can go—is free virtually exclusively in the context of a Man’s world.
Margaret Thatcher’s situation was quite similar.
Palin’s position has been granted to her because she shares the far Rightist values of her male mentors: gun fetishism, hunting, love of the armed forces; perhaps war itself.

Another reason libertarians seldom get elected: they slay each other before they even get to the starting gate. So I made up the following joke about them: how many libertarians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? one to call the other a statist; the other to smash the bulb and stalk out of the room. Who will I vote for?: Obama; we do not need another Bush-type, or another Nixon, another Ford, a Dole or a McCain for POTUS. For now we are stuck with the GOP-Dem duopoly—we can’t mount the future like a horse and yell “Giddyup!”
If you were to have a valid suggestion, we would listen, however it is always the same suggestion—donate to the Libertarian party and vote libertarian. No thank you.

@postfuturist.. I’ve got some quibbles with this as well

1. Religion and politics are not the same. Religion is basically devotion to a set of beliefs and/or rituals. It may or may not be “clubby” (but does have a tendency to be). Politics can also be clubby, but for me can best be described as “what happens when humans interact to make decisions”. It’s often clubby, it’s often downright ugly…but hey, that’s what happens when human apes interact.

2. I don’t know much about the Libertarian party in a US context, but surely C. Wendt has a point: there’s a distinction to be made between people who espouse a genuinely libertarian philosophy (however few and far between, and/or misguided, they might be) and people who have hijacked the term for political ends. For that matter I have no problem with people who are genuinely “conservative” - there is much that is worth conserving, after all, and it’s good to have some people (and political parties) that represent those who are naturally cautious and resistant to change. We should not villify them.

That said I think I’m coming round to your point of view about Palin and her place in a male-dominated world. Actually I think she might be playing a useful role as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the whole Tea Party movement.

But back to the subject (“women-only leadership idea rejected”): in my opinion there was an answer missing among the options, something that was somewhat less negative about the idea than the 41% (the language in that answer is too strong for me), somewhat more positive about the general idea that we should be promoting more women in leadership positions, and something that considers non-technological ways to promote peace and prosperity, alongside the technological ones considered by the 16%. That I would have voted for.

“1. Religion and politics are not the same.”

Glad you replied, as many Europeans are easy to discourse with; the UK, though it might not be much less violent than America, is a cultured nation.
For fundamentalists, religion & politics are de facto one ‘n’ the same. Doesn’t matter that life in a given nation may not be fundamentalist, true religionists think of their lives as being dominated by a Sharia-type ether wherein religion and law are fused. Naturally, libertarians are not like that, and my own quibble is not at all with libertarianism itself but only with Rightist libertarians themselves. Not that such even means anything, because obviously it is only my opinion concerning complex, complicated matters. One can’t write ‘IMO’ every paragraph.
All the same, Rightist libertarians do hobble their electoral chances by being fratricidal—so they fail by their own lights. And again, to the degree libertarians have been able to reduce the state they have been absolute failures. In fact large governments will probably exist for many decades, no one knows how many—perhaps more than a century. As futurology exists to encourage people without really offering anything substantial to back the optimism up with, so too does libertarianism. In other words it is to string people along until things do change; it is cheerleading, as we all know.
Come to think of it, I have little to offer on this topic, as it appears there is little that can be done to encourage women, let alone em- “power” (free) them at this time. We can see now what a long haul it will be for women in the Mideast and Africa, what painfully incremental changes will occur. Depends on the casualty rate: if not too many are killed and maimed (including women & girls) in for instance Libya then it is acceptable save for those who are the casualties. Now, IMO it would be to some unknown degree better if women ran the world, yet that is naturally hypothetical, similar to writing “what if people could run their own lives?” Too open-ended.
One example, rather ludicrous, is: one libertarian blogger at IEET mentioned something I always wanted to discuss, he mentioned being nude in public, ‘why can’t I do so?’, he asked. Being nude requires no paraphernalia or clothing- no clothing at all. Doesn’t require a Bureau of Nudism or a Commissar of Naturism. However it cannot be arranged, most people would have their feelings hurt by seeing naked people. It’s simply not practical. So when you think about it you realize people actually cannot do what they want because too many sensibilities are disrupted; consensus on what to do, how to go about it, is inobtainable; in matters great & small we have to defer to what others want, so liberty (and libertarianism) is negated in the process.
Libertarianism and feminism appear to be mostly modus operandi.