>'If I thought that women were automatically better people I wouldn't be wondering about whether or not we have another Mrs. Thatcher/pseudo male.'

Thanks for confirming. Wondering whether we have a faulty female, who is not acting like a real female, rather like the inferior male.

BTW: All words are made up. This one happens to be in most online dictionaries, and is well known to all but those who see most men as encapsulating the spirit of slave owners or deadly religious extremists.

I wonder how many 'pseudo male' type leaders pynch will have to see before the penny drops that it isn't the gender of the leader that is the defining factor. It will be hard for her to accept that power is corrupting, leadership requires leading and not pleasing everyone at once so conflict is inevitable, and that the history of humanity isn't actually a grand Adam vs Eve after all.

Houellebecq: Oh dear you're so sensitive. Sorry to have bruised your tender ego.

You're forgetting the first essential piece of information: Julia Gillard is a female!

The sentence therefore means that ANYBODY (male or female) can copy the worst behaviours of men in positions of power (which was a charge routinely made of Mrs. Thatcher).

Therefore, since JG is female, no female is automatically superior to any male in power.

(Btw you're starting to sound neurotic.)

*The sentence therefore means that ANYBODY (male or female) can copy the worst behaviours of men in positions of power*

Come on Pynchme, what about all the worst behaviours of women?
Men find it harder to just sleep their way to the top.
They are generally less bitchy, the list goes on.

You watch a couple of females fight over a bloke. The catfights
are unbelievable. Claws and nails and all.

True, true I can see what you mean overall Yabby.

"Men find it harder to just sleep their way to the top."

On the other hand women who do that aren't admired; almost all women who get anywhere are suspected of doing that (which has been very irksome for women who have worked hard and not used men who stupidly offer their sexual attentions); men usually don't have to - they have mentors and their own communication lines with people who can lend a hand up the ladder.

Women are only just starting to get a foothold in higher level powerful positions. That's a good thing; now we have to see whether as individuals they do a good job. I won't vote for anyone just because the contender is a female.

Come to think of it... I haven't voted for either of the two faces (Lib/Labor) of the one party (IMO) for a while. Undecided about which way my vote will go next time around.

The Australian two party system: "In any event...the real need for reform is not so much in the institutions of government as in the political parties. They have become narrowly based, factionalised, undemocratic oligarchies, apt to be controlled by too few people, closed to public view but open to manipulation and outright corruption. Reforming them would make the institutions of government work better without changing those institutions, but without reforming them the institutions cannot work very much better than they do at present." - Harry Evans, Clerk to the Senate in 'The Australian' 10 March 1997.

And I guess that Harry Evens was more qualified than most to make this observation...

pynch you're sounding more and more desperate (Even putting on that ol' patronising the little boy shuffle so common to a rad fem in a tight spot), and your argument is tying itself in knots.

'ANYBODY (male or female) can copy the worst behaviours of men in positions of power'

Of course, but that's not what you said. You used the term psuedo-male. A male cant be a psuedo male. So you therefore attribute the 'worst behaviours' of the male politicians to their maleness.

'which was a charge routinely made of Mrs. Thatcher'
Yes. The charge was that one would expect a woman to behave better than the previous array of male leaders due to being a women (ie the better gender), so the disenchantment with her had her labelled as being 'like a man'. That you lap this up confirms my point.

'Therefore, since JG is female, no female is automatically superior to any male in power.'

Not automatically, but expected. This is my point. Every new female leader pynch will expect to be better than all those nasty male ones. Then she will be disappointed every time. I had thought she would eventually learn it has nothing to do with gender, but obviously she just needs to cling to that men acting their gender stuff.