As I said poirot, 'jokes aside', I know what briar rose was up to.

'Men are warriors and women are nurturers '

Well, are they? From my reading of feminist comment over the years, it's considered 'nature' when it's something positive for women and negative for men, and it's considered 'nurture' when it's something positive for men and negative for women.

But Houlley that works both ways. The "it is men's nature" argument also absolves men of some responsibility in some situations like infidelity or promiscuity. Women are betrayers or slats, men are doing what is 'natural'. That view is not uncommon.

I don't think much is achieved in this argument (even though I have used it myself) because it is evident there are clear negative and positive stereotypes for men and women. Fact is women and men are different and the same, and if we are going to use 'nature' as an argument when it suits but ignore it, or shout 'stereotype', when it doesn't just adds to the continual cycle of outrage and miscommunication.

Houlley where are all these articles you are reading about women make better managers or politicians. I have not seen one for decades. Most of the articles and seminars about building better managers do not mention gender at all. I cannot see a Maggie Thatcher, a Sarah Palin, or a Hilary Clinton making a decision not to go to war just because they are female. The Quaker movement was a pacifist movement and that was influenced by men in the earlier experience of that cause.

Over the years I have worked closely with various politicians and their staff and women make no better or worse politicians than men.

Gender may influence the sort of person we become, in the same way as where we were raised, the people we were influenced by etc, but it gender is not the sole agent of shaping the person we become.

pelican "where are all these articles you are reading about women make better managers or politicians"

I know it's annoying but sometime give vanna's challenge a try. A few hours spent reading some the output of some of countries gender studies departments is an informative process.

One of the things that stuck out was how consistently negative behaviors are identified as masculine and positive ones as feminine. That often was tied back to management styles, males can be OK managers if they behave in a feminine manner. Females struggled because the dominant paradigm all to often required them to act in a masculine manner (aggressive, non-consultative, lacking in empathy etc).

The issue then becomes a matter of how important you believe those underlying themes are to the shaping of public policy. I'm of the view that many of those who set or implement public policy in area's where gender is a significant factor have received at least some of their training from that same group.

The next step is to see how often some of those same assumptions get parroted closer to the coal face.

R0bert

Some more interesting comments from RObert, Pelican and the rest of you, but Houllies comment as to feminism as euphemism for female supremecism deserves attention.
On the whole no, I'd say- merely about understanding society better and working out how to make it fairer and more efficient.
But like most other ideologies or faiths, it presents opportunities for a form of colonisation, so to speak. So as patriotism can deteriorate to racism, say; amongst rad feminism and the sort of women this appeals to, with its similar essentialism, a similar deterioration, in this case to sexism.
I should say the same applies to blokes. That's a given, of course, but if I don't say it I'll be accused of sexism myself.
With rad feminism and its notion of patriarchy (as conscious, premeditated and malicious), there does seem an invitation for subscribers to withdraw to isolationism and separatism, as rad feminism seems to see all men as universally and incorrigibly bad, rather than as fellow travellers who are also victims of both patriarchy and capitalism.
But rad feminism is only one of numerous interpretations of feminism and its topic of interest, the relationship between culture capitalism and patriarchy, was always ripe for further investigation given the previous history of the twentieth century, alone. Rad deserve a read and think and its not all bs, but the aggressiveness of some its followers and lack of nuance in its truth claims makes it inaccessible to many men and thus likely counterproductive to its own aims as to social change.
Personally, social democrat feminism, with its underlying social critique to back it and its call for engagement, sits well enough with this writer.

Houllebecq you are quite right, wars are started by a particular kind of masculinist hegemony that doesn't actually engage directly in the slaughter itself, but calls upon other men to do it for them.

The paradigm that allows this is supported by both men and women. As I think I said before somewhere, capitalism wouldn't last five seconds without the support of women. Likewise, the warmongering paradigm would also fail without women's support.

Women in power aren't men, they're women in powerful positions within the existing hegemonic masculine paradigm. They are there because they support that paradigm. There are many men who don't support it and live out a different kind of masculinity.

It's the paradigms, if women support the existing dominant paradigms, as currently they must if they want to be powerful, nothing much will change

briar rose what makes is a masculinist hegemony?

I don't see any valid way of claiming that it's masculine while it's both supported and rejected by both genders and were the indications are that when women get to power they do pretty much the same thing.

R0bert