Appoint or elect women to 50% of all leadership and management positions in government, business, and scientific endeavor worldwide

Civilization's best defensive measures against war, terrorism, technological stagnation, and economic ruin

A Presentation of jrm&aFLUX


by J.R. Mooneyham
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C. Get women into at minimum 50% of all leadership and management positions in government, business, and scientific endeavor worldwide-- and maintain that ratio (or better) into perpetuity; Also increase women's share of wealth, property, and business ownership across the board

There's overwhelming evidence to indicate that doing this one thing would vastly reduce corruption and armed conflict in the world, as well as poverty and suffering. And increase productivity and thereby living standards. Plus, it would only be fair-- as women make up roughly 50% of the population. Shouldn't they have 50% of the say in how we run things?

Note the implications of ramping up the role of women in leadership positions worldwide. They would necessarily include expanding women's rights and opportunities in many societies to at least roughly match those of men. Education of women would also be vital. Such things as this would seem to face the biggest obstacles in certain Islamic countries of the world, circa 2002.

Human violence at all levels is an overwhelmingly male phenomenon. Especially in terms of being initiators of violence, or acting offensively. For this reason the much rarer women who commit acts of violence are typically deemed much more newsworthy to modern media than the vastly greater quantity of men who do the same or worse. A similar truth about the differences between the sexes exists in the animal world. It appears that such male violence stems largely from the evolutionary drive for winning at reproductive competitions. And the bigger the differences in reproductive success a particular species' coupling practices provide, the more intense the competition and violence among the males of that species.

Polygynous species tend to be the most competitive and violent.

Of 849 human cultures or societies studied, 83.5% were polygynous, 16% monogamous, and around 0.5% polyandrous, according to the Ethnographic Atlas by George P. Murdock

Prior to the spread of largely monogamous Judeo-Christian culture and practices around the world, 80+% of human societies at least somewhat preferred a polygynous system of marriage. But even then, monogamy was often practiced by many out of necessity spawned from poverty, or few realistic choices in mates.

Statistically, murders are overwhelmingly committed by adult (rather than younger) males. And 37% of such murders are carried out for impulsive and trivial reasons.

In light of human nature, it is understandable that violence and risk-taking would be significantly higher among those males facing more social discrimination than other male populations-- and thus these males would end up statistically more likely to be charged with various crimes and imprisoned (thus, they get a double whammy; they are more likely to be imprisoned due to unjust reasons than others, plus are more likely to feel pressured to participate in risky behavior than others (raising their probability of being justly imprisoned); both these factors together would tend to push up their overall incarceration rates). Both criminal and terrorist groups thus find these males a fertile field for recruitment.

-- Evolution, Males, and Violence By DAVID P. BARASH; The Chronicle of Higher Education; May 24, 2002; page B7; Barash and Judith Eve Lipton are the authors of the book Gender Gap: The Biology of Male-Female Differences, Transaction Publishers, 2002

In one group of primitive peoples in the Ecuadorean Amazon studied by scientists, any given male possessed a 50% chance of being killed by another in the same vicinity. In general however the murder rate for males in primitive tribal societies appears to be around 30%.

The tendency to kill others seems to have evolved as a means for men to get ahead in tribal societies. The more they killed, the higher a status they gained in their society. The higher their status, the more wives they took, and the more children they likely fathered.

Fortunately, murder rates in modern civilization have diminished considerably compared to the tribal societies from which they sprang-- tribal cultures maintain rates about 50 times higher than that of modern developed nations, circa 2000 AD.

(Of course, societies in modern developed nations may simply have replaced physical murder with virtual murder-- as in actions of omission or commission which contribute to enemies losing their jobs, businesses, investments, savings, families, friends, allies, or other important elements of social stature. Keep in mind that symbolism and abstraction remain a hallmark of human development, and as such may still be progressing among us in a variety of ways. It would be interesting to see what the difference is between the physical murder rate in tribal societies and the virtual murder rate in modern ones-- if any difference exists at all. -- JR)

The measures here include the deaths in war as well as plain individual homicides.

-- Ask Dr. Universe Survival of the meanest? Evolution hard-wires humans for violence, expert believes, May 9, 2000, The Seattle Times Company, AskDrUniverse@wsu.edu. Dr. W.S. Universe, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-1040. http://www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/ Ask Dr. Universe is a service of Washington State University

Fighting and conflict seem to initiate chain reactions in the males of species observed by scientists, possibly leading to an endless loop of aggression and struggle. Merely witnessing such struggles increases the chances that a given male will himself become involved in fights in the future.

Perhaps worse, these male tendencies seem virtually undiminished even when some combatants are directly related to one another.

It seems that the world economy and society themselves were likely heavily shaped by these decidedly male characteristics during the Industrial Revolution, and later through the 20th and 21st centuries.

In light of the effect that witnessing violence has on encouraging still more violence among males, the huge emphasis on violence since the 1960s in the entertainment media of western nations may have been most unfortunate-- considering those same nations tended to be controlled in following generations by males raised in an environment which saturated them with same. Might the late 20th century and early 21st have turned out differently if violence in the media of the time had been more subdued?

Would the arts/sciences of economics and governance developed over past millennia have been more humane and equitable if women had had a larger say in their development?

-- Must men fight? Probably by ANNE McILROY, January 27, 2001, The Globe and Mail; Globe Interactive; Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc.

-- Boys compete 'for the sake of it'; New Scientist

Currently women own only 1% of the world's land, mostly due to local traditions or laws being heavily biased against them in such matters of property. Women are more productive at farming than men and would produce more food from the land if they had the acreage.

-- Land for Women Answer to Hunger, Food Summit Told By Luke Baker; Yahoo! Health - Reuters; Jun 12, 2002

In Indonesia's Western Sumatra, the four million strong population of Minangkabau possess a matriarchal system where partnership and cooperation rather than competition rule the day. The resulting culture is "almost violence-free".

-- Indonesia's matriarchal Minangkabau offer an alternative social system; ; EurekAlert; 9-May-2002; Contact: Pam Kosty; pkosty@sas.upenn.edu; 215-898-4045; University of Pennsylvania

The scientist discussed in the above article is named Peggy Reeves Sanday, and has written the books Women at the Center: Life in a Modern Matriarchy; Cornell University Press, May 2002; A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial; Doubleday, 1996; and Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus; New York University Press, 1990

The long isolated Mosuo culture (numbering around 50,000) in the Yunnan Province of China is "...one of the most harmonious societies on the planet...", largely because the women rule and the men have no control or power over important social issues (and thus nothing to fight about).

Their vocabulary doesn't even include a word meaning war. Crimes like rape and murder apparently don't happen there, and they have no need for jails.

Unfortunately, encroaching modern civilization and its male-dominated, violent and competitive ways is now threatening to ruin this seeming paradise. But at least it has given us a glimpse of what could be for human civilization, if suitable changes were made.

-- Where Women Rule By Mark Litke and Chito Sta. Romana; May 19, 2002; ABC News

-- Educating girls has a high payoff; Worldbank.org

By 1999, most all women everywhere on Earth (but for a few Muslim nations) can vote in their native states.

-- World Turned Toward Freedom in 1999, U.S. Says, Reuters/Yahoo! Top Stories Headlines, February 25 2000

-- Arab Development Lags Behind; ABC News

-- Broken Countries' Secret Strength Women; Businessweek

-- When are two dads better than one when the women are in charge

-- My two fathers -- Not new invention in South America; eurekalert.org

-- A Jury of Their Mothers' Peers

-- White male juries are hanging juries

-- Wives' employment increases marital stability; Eurekalert

-- Men Avoid Preventive Health Care in Sickness and in Health; ABC News

-- Where Are All the Educated Bachelors?; ABC News

-- Marriage can reduce life of crime; Eurekalert

-- Married men have less testosterone; New Scientist

-- 'the future is female'


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The above article(s) come from and make references to a collection copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 by J.R. Mooneyham (except where otherwise noted in the text). Text here explicitly authored by J.R. Mooneyham may be freely copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes in paper and electronic form without charge if this copyright paragraph and link to jrmooneyham.com are included.

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