If you remember the pictures of past dictators pictured in class yesterday, they all had one thing in common. They were men.
If you look at past leaders who massacred and/or oppressed huge numbers of their people, you’ll find 99% of them are men (with the exception of some past monarchies and feel free to give other examples)
Is there something more inherently dictatorial about men than women?
Or do you think this is simply the case because men have had more access to power until relatively recently?
I am currently researching this for an article, but would love to hear your opinions.
I would just add that men having more access to power 'until relatively recently' is very debatable and in many countries where women are still extremly oppressed, obviously not the case.
ReplyDeleteThey exist in fundamentally patriarchal societies... So, if the societies have an inculcated patriarchality, and men and women live in these societies, it seems logical that the people who rise to power are going to be men. And given the like statistical chance/probability of people being inherently evil (i.e dictators/Hitler etc) and that societies have historically been preponderately patriarchal, it's obvious that more men would have been dictators, but simply because more men have ruled, and thus have formed a much larger sample size, rather than like some murderous blood-hungry urge-to-rape-and-rule, tick that all men harbour...
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't the real point of feminism to highlight that gender is a societal construct, and that the ostensible differences between men and women arises through society's affect? If this is so, which I think to a certain extent it is, then can you really blame these men for who they are?
(I just don't like this ravenous urge to generalise all men as potential dictators.. I mean, perhaps it's that all of us, men and women, are?)
MIA FEMINISTA
ReplyDeleteTo say that because most dictators have been men, there must be something inherently dictatorial about men is like saying that because most teachers, musicians, lawyers etc throughout history have been men, there must be something about men to make them better suited for these things, which is ridiculous and obviously false.
I don't think MIA FEMINISTA is trying to say that only men are the only ones that can be dictorial, I think she is just highlighting that there has been a common pattern of men being these well known dictators, and it is true. Men made up the vast majority of 'dictators'.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of is about the power than women have previously held in the political world, only now are women beginning to get into power leadership roles, though there is still a long way to go. In NZ for example, over the half of the population is female, yet far less than half of our MPs are women.
There have been some women who have stuck out though. Imelda Marcos; while she wasn't the head of state she still stuck around and didn't stop her husbands oppression of the people of the Philippines. And Mao's last wife Jiang Qing helped him out quite a bit. Ranavalona I of Madagascar tortured and kill just about half of her population! Catherine II of Russia did some pretty horrid things too.
But no really prominent female dictators - but who knows, with women gaining more power politically, there may be one hitting a country near you soon!
*cough* Thatcher *cough* Nice post MIA FEMINISTA, I think it is something worthy of being discussed.
I would say that countries with dictatorial men leaders at the moment would be countries where women simply haven't had the opportunities that men have had. You must remember that the progress made in western society is different than other countries whose values might be not so focused on feminism at the moment. In patriarchal society, only strong men can really make it to the top to fight off challenges from other ambitious men in the power structure. A certain amount of ruthlessness and type-A-ness is needed to make it that far.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think MIA stated anything as fact there, she just asked what we felt the case was. I think it’s an interesting question MIA, and the same kind of thing has arisen in recent years in terms of gender and war, i.e. are male leaders more likely to go to war than their female counterparts? To which people did point out Thatcher went to war over the Falklands as an example of a female leader that challenges the rule. I’m with Damian in that I think that in a lot of countries where there have been dictatorial power or patterns of dictatorship, there has also been the prevalence of patriarchy and so it’s hard for us to judge either way. Maybe it’s too early altogether for us to judge yet. I’d like to see in the future, as we see an increase in female leaders (possibly even in dictators) and we have a bigger sample, to see if there are different likelihoods between gender and policy decisions etc.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't looking at the blog when i wrote what i wrote so i had only red up to what gabriel said. No intentional repeating of what behood wrote.
ReplyDeleteI think that is simply the case that society has been structured in a way that favours male leaders, thus the high proportion of male dictators.
ReplyDeleteHowever you could make the argument that men possess a physical charisma that women do not which enables them to fire up rallies and garner feverish support. It could just be through lack of opportunity but I just cannot see a woman having the same oratory appeal as Hitler for example. I don't know whether this is due to inherent sexism or not. Although I am sure there has been a study done on the effects of male and female voices. It would be plausible that the female voice would be more calming (I admit this is a unfounded claim), thus the juxtaposition of an outraged woman would be unsettling and unappealing, hence the lack of woman dictators.
One could also claim that the importance of the military in a Dictatorship leads to men being more likely to be dictators. This is mainly due to the patriachal nature of the military which endures to this day. However this could be countered with examples of Hitler who, despite serving in WWI, did not rise up through the ranks of the military to take power. But you could argue that the military, being male dominated, are far more likely to consider supporting a male.
I am aware that I have made some outlandish claims. In a democratic society where intellect and political manouevering are mostly what matters it is far easier for women to attain political power but in societies or forms of government where other factors such as physical charisma and masculinity are important men have an advantage over women.
While the overall pattern MIA notes is correct, it is worth noting that there have often been queens in history - and monarchies are your typical small coalition, small selectorate system (non-democratic). I don't know of any studies that systematically look at the difference (if any) between queens and kings (e.g., do they last the same amounts of time? Are they as ruthless?) - BeHood notes some examples above, but a more systematic study would be interesting.
ReplyDeleteDamian, I don't possess any ravenous urges. Well, atleast not to characterise men as potential dictators. My post was simply raising a question,as I think it is often interesting to look at matters from a gender difference point of view. And I disagree with your definition of feminism. Most feminists would argue that there ARE inherent differences in the sexes and that these should be celebrated rather than the female traits portrayed as weak or less worthy.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it is a ridiculous question. Men have (or at least for the majority of history have had) a different role in society as breadwinners, heads of the family, protectors. And implicit in that is physical force and agression.
I have read plenty of articles (mostly to do with environmental issues and women) that argue women, as child bearers and raisers, have a higher value on human life and more compassion.
It is worth questioning whether, like Damian said, patriarchal societies, which I believe we still live in, do mean that men are more likely to become dictators because of the societal structure- I certainly don't think that is an outlandish claim.
In this sense I think men may possess more of the traits necessary for dictatorship. This doesn't mean I am arguing they are 'evil' or anything similar.
No raging man-hating here(atleast not today), just something worth discussing.
And Behood thanks for the examples, very interesting.
ReplyDeleteHey Mia, really interesting question, one I will think about more after the blog post. I was thinking of a couple of things.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I think dictatorship by itself can be persued by men as well as by women. I think it’s inherent to humankind when a person is exposed, gained or inherited a disproportional big amount of power, not surrounded by many critics and enjoys to be a leader that this person can become quite dictatorial or abusive of its powers regardless of its sex. I’m pretty sure there’s some research on this topic, I don’t know if you can compare it a 100% with a dictatorship, but first thing on my mind was the experiment that was done with prisoners divided in prisoners and guards, and see how power structures would play out..the project had to be stopped. Or in Ireland in the 60ties and 70ties where nuns re-educated girls there were considerd crazy or not proper totally abused their power.
Secondly, maybe a banal explanation, but seen from the animal perspective, males are most of the time the strongest and biggest compared to females, which gives males naturally an advantage of becoming the dominant one, just by looking you are already more intimidated, take the male lion. Moreover when it would come to a physical competition/fight, because the female challenged the male, she would most probably lose. And I think this applies to a big extent to human power relations as well. And, pregnancy is another physical disadvantage, it’s quite long, can’t hide it and women are more vulnerable in this stage, not good for dictatorship.
Then there is the culturally, historically and socially constructed considerations. Historically most leaders have been men, and most dictators have been men, which implies some sort of jusitfication for men as leaders. Culturally, in most cultures around the world women are seen as the care-takers, not as the hunters,hero’s of war or another status which would give them an authoritative status. From the socially constructed view there are tons of examples. The macho-attitude of you’re not being told by your ‘women’ what to do, are you? So certainly this man won’t except a woman as his highest leader. Or I talked with this student (male) about american presidency the other day, and he stated deadly serious that he wouldn’t want a woman as the president of the USA, because when it would come down to serious decisions she could mess up, when she would decide to something based on her emotions. So in his perspective men can separate their emotions from what ‘needs to be done’ and women can’t. Ok.
I think the point I want to make comes down to his. Men have naturally by their physical appearance an advantage to be considered more authoritative then women. Next to there are the cultural, historical and socially contructed arguments which seems to let appear male dominance as a natural phenemenon, not only physically, but also mentally, a man as being more capable to lead, and cultures using emotions like pride and prestige, ‘I know who’s wearing the pants in this house..’kind of thing. In the end though, I think women can just as much as men be dictators, bad leaders and good leaders.
I think this is an interesting question and first I would like to make perfectly clear I do not intend to insult anyone in this comment. That there have been statistically more male than female dictators especially in recent time is as far as I can tell is a completely accurate statement but could this be rather than male vs female or dominant male traits just a matter of who at the time in those circumstances had the qualities required or which enabled them to take a position of power. I also like the idea that if either a male or female gained a position of power and refused to give that power up that either would be capable of anything. perhaps all we need is time for more female figures to gain positions of power which while may not be as high as some would like at the moment is steadily increasing, perhaps then we can make a more educated guess on whether Males are just more predisposed to dictatorial regimes than women or if it has been simply coincidence
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