Matrocracy

Part time professionals = more full time lives.

2009-04-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

(Sixth post in a series on the book Matrocracy. Link to first post.)

If our economy is to obtain the maximum benefit from the millions of women trained and educated to diagnose, teach, manage and advise, we need to offer options that will allow them to continue to work if they choose to have families. Providing part time options in every career track will ensure that the greatest number of women are poised for leadership roles when their child bearing years are behind them. If women are forced to leave their jobs in order to have children, most will never recover those lost years in their careers. At the age when many men are at the pinnacles of the their careers, many women are reentering the work force with unequal experience. But how to change the existing employer mindset that so opposes part time opportunities for professionals? Here’s one idea:

When layoffs began in earnest in 2008 in response to the recession, there was much public debate about the merits of simply reducing many workers’ pay and hours proportionately in order to reduce the need for layoffs. Proponents argued that shortening hours would greatly reduce the number of families in dire economic circumstances, spread the pain of the recession more equitably, and lessen the chances the recession would go into free fall. In Germany this approach is called Kurzarbeit, which translates as short work. When companies reduce workers’ hours, the government uses money from a special fund to pay workers two-thirds of their lost salaries. The U.S. should consider using this approach. If it could jumpstart a change in employers’ attitudes toward letting employees work less than full time schedules, we’d not only be better able to weather economic downturns, we’d also have a more flexible and family friendly economy.

Rape victims revictimized.

2009-03-31T17:11:00.000-07:00

As further evidence that the U.S. is not making a serious effort to reduce the incidence of rape, a report by Human Rights Watch revealed that scores of police departments in Los Angeles County have not tested thousands of rape kits. That means hundreds or perhaps thousands of rapists will not face justice for their crimes and may rape again. Just as many women will be revictimized by the message that the justice system is not intended to redress the wrongs inflicted on them. Rape will continue to be one of the many injustices women face that makes it harder for them to attain a standing in society equal to men.

U.S. rape and domestic violence rates up.

2009-01-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

U.S. Department of Justice surveys show an increase of 25 percent in rape and sexual assault and 42 percent in violence by intimate partners against women between 2005 and 2007, in part due to a change in research methodology. "Except for simple assault, which increased by 3 percent, the incidence of every other crime surveyed decreased." You would think this would be big news, but it did not get much coverage in the media.

A number of blogs fail to point out that these numbers are based on telephone surveys of crime victims, which is only the start of the confusion. The surveys found that the percentage of rapes and sexual assaults reported to the police increased from 38 percent in 2005 to 42 percent in 2007. Yet at the same time, the number of rapes actually reported to the police decreased more than 4 percent from 2005 to 2007. Based on these numbers, one can only assume that the 25 percent increase in rape and sexual assault is because a lot more women are telling the phone surveyors that they were sexually assaulted, but either they are not reporting these assaults to the police as rape, or the police are not categorizing the reports as rape. Is that what's really going on here?

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

2008-12-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

What happened to the reporter who threw his shoes at W in Baghdad? "They kicked him and beat him until 'he was crying like a woman,' said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party," which is led by Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. These are the values we are promoting in Iraq.

Question for Palin.

2008-09-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

As Governor, what is she doing about the fact that Alaska ranks number one in the nation for the rate at which women are murdered by men, and number one for its rape rate? (Alaska only ranks 22nd for murders regardless of gender.) While she served as mayor, her town began charging rape victims hundreds of dollars each for the forensic exams used in prosecution of rape, and her police chief vehemently opposed a bill in the state legislature to prohibit charging victims for the exams.

Modernity increases gender differences.

2008-09-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

(Fifth post in a series on the book Matrocracy. Link to first post.)
As gendered cultural influences lessen, innate differences between men and women influence personality to a greater extent, concludes a 2008 global study spanning fifty-five cultures. It confirms previous findings based on multiple studies that gender differences in personality are smallest in the most traditional cultures and greatest in those that are the most modern, affluent and progressive. These conclusions are "counterintuitive" to the socialization (blank slate) theory of gender differences long favored by most feminists, which has presumed that boys and girls enter the world with similar cognitive and behavioral tendencies and that subsequent personality differences are attributable to the rigid gender roles found in more traditional cultures. The concerns of traditionalists who predicted that equal rights for women would homogenize the genders now seem unfounded.

For those whose blood pressure has been raised by this framing of the nature/nurture debate, please note the following: First, personality differences between men and women are not only caused by genes. The current scientific consensus is that nature and nurture have roughly equal influences on the behavioral tendencies that define personality. Second, the 2008 study and its forebears are not arguing that efforts to achieve equality alone create greater personality differences, but that prosperity also plays a huge role. Fortunately, we live in a world in which progressive societies prosper and prosperous societies – excepting a few oil rich nations – are progressive. We’ll be more effective in pursuing both gender quality and prosperity with greater awareness of the various ways each affects the other.

Eliminating cultures’ assignment of gender roles is a worthy goal, but not because of an expectation that gender sameness likely will emerge. Rather, the resulting greater range of working styles and perspectives should increase productivity and improve policy making. While the nature/nurture question is an important one, the more urgent need is to focus on the potential societal benefits of gender differences whatever their source. Women’s particular abilities to perceive, analyze, ideate, connect and act are not the same as men’s. Women’s decision making strategies and choices are different from those of the men historically and currently in power, and we need women’s wisdom.

A bombshell contained in the 2008 study: modern cultures are mostly changing and benefiting men’s personalities, not women’s. One theory offered to explain this finding is that industrialization has increased the relative power of men and acted to enhance male personality traits – in part because the benefits of industrialization do not flow as much to women, who are more restrained by the responsibilities of child rearing. The authors’ alternative explanation is that the struggle just to survive in non-industrialized societies suppresses gender differences in personality. Where advances in civilization have made life easier, innately influenced male personality traits such as assertiveness, dominance, risk taking and affinity for innovation have flourished. Where progressive governments have broadened opportunities, environmental effects matter less in success and inherited traits matter more. An analogous physical phenomenon is the greater differences in height between men and women in more affluent cultures due to better nutrition and medical care. (But progress is not uniformly advantageous for men. Gender differences in blood pressure, non-existent is some agrarian economies, are highest where modernity has liberated men’s personalities to focus on career competition.)

The rise of more egalitarian societies and the decline of institutional and cultural barriers to opportunity are forces that should eventually equalize the relative opportunity each gender has for power and wealth. But the resulting changes in men’s personalities are creating new advantages for them that seem to be acting as a counterweight to the societal forces of equalization. To cite another analogy, in spite of laws equalizing opportunities in competitive track and field in the U.S., studies find a far greater percentage of men are close to the best runners of their gender than are women. Men seem to respond to greater opportunity by becoming more competitive, and the result is greater clustering at the top. This is part of the reason why simply putting more women into managerial and leadership positions has not made our political and economic vectors change quickly enough, and in the future may not be sufficient to steer us around the various catastrophes we face. As Harvard Law Professor Lani Guinier said, "it is not enough to just add women and stir." We have to do more to help women be more effective in creating social change.

Link to sixth post in the series.

Palin may hinder electing other women

2008-09-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Like many people, I’ve trying to wrap my head around McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin, Governor of the forty-eighth state (in population) for twenty months. While many theories abound, my best guess is that trying to pick up Hillary supporters with a woman may have been only one of three of his motivations. Perhaps more important is that McCain is running against what he describes as a celebrity. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to admit that Obama blows away McCain in the charisma department. Palin has a magnetic charm, according to her opponents in the Alaska gubernatorial race, that makes voters love her regardless of her positions on the issues. Unlike Mitt Romney, people tend to believe her sincerity. Also significant is that Palin’s Pentecostal and right wing views amp up McCain’s previously tepid appeal to his party’s religious right base. As more details of her public and private life and of McCain's hasty vetting of her are revealed, however, it is clear that McCain was so desperate to shake up the race that he did not conduct the rigorous investigation to which Vice-Presidential candidates normally are subjected.

Even if McCain and Palin lose, and as long as Palin doesn’t make too many mistakes, there is a potential upside to her candidacy. It may encourage party bosses to put forward more women as candidates in the future under the assumption that they will charm voters. But there are a number of downsides, including that it may set back efforts toward getting more women into elective office.

The first is that her candidacy may reinforce the popular belief that there are no women with the intellect, experience and ideological beliefs that make them qualified to be President – with the exception of Hillary Clinton. After Clinton’s run fizzled in May of 2008, The New York Times could not find a political strategist able to name anyone else likely to be the first woman President. McCain touts Palin’s executive experience, which presumes he sought that in a running mate. If wanted a sitting woman governor, he had only one real choice: Palin. The other two Republicans are in Hawaii and Connecticut. Hawaii’s Linda Lingle is a childless, twice-divorced Jew. Connecticut’s Jodi Rell signed the bill making Connecticut the first state (not acting under court order) to allow gay couples to join in civil unions giving them all the rights of married couples. Rell does not have a college degree. That left him with Governor Palin, a former beauty queen with an undergraduate degree in journalism from a mediocre university (University of Idaho), whose prior political experience was as the mayor of a small town. Her first trip outside the U.S. was last year. If she has any foreign policy expertise, she’s keeping it a secret.

The second downside would continue the popular belief that it may still be impossible for a woman to be qualified to be President and at the same time not have high negatives with half of the voters. In other words, if you’re a woman with the intellect, drive and toughness needed to be President, many voters will find you to be unfeminine and scary. Thus, the parties may conclude that the only way a woman can become President is to follow the lead of George Bush and be perceived as being a congenial sort, a person the average voter could talk to casually and not find intellectually overwhelming.

(An aside: In staking its future on the appeal of underachievers, the modern Republican party seems determined to prove that you don’t need brains to be President. Reagan started us down this path – his intellect was unimpressive to many journalists who interviewed him as his party’s nominee. The rampant corruption in his administration (see my previous post) reinforced this perception. Dan Quayle, who was a heartbeat away for four years under Bush the elder, could not spell "potato." W wore the notion that he was a C student and too dumb to be President proudly on his sleeve, as the candidate with whom you’d feel most comfortable having a beer. His administration’s numerous blunders – that now seem an almost forgone consequence of his incompetence – should have forever banished the idea that you can get by not understanding what's going on if voters trust you to pick smart advisers and cabinet secretaries.)

For a candidate to not appear to be too intellectual usually means the candidate can't actually be extremely smart. That's unfortunate, because the goal of electing more women is actually to make policy changes that both advance the needs of women and, as explained in my forthcoming book Matrocracy, create a more productive, cooperative, safer and happier world for us all. We need the best and brightest women to envision and implement these changes. If women (and men) are to free us all from the tyranny of the good ole boys club, we have to insist on extremely competent replacements. Picking women without the best intelligence and perspective increases the chances that the female leaders of tomorrow will be what some feminists refer to as "social males" – women who simply adopt a patriarchal view of the world and perpetuate it in their words and actions. The problem is more acute in cases such as Palin's, where the good ole boys do the picking. In this sense, Palin’s bid is for women as Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court was for African-Americans.

The third downside comes if the Grand Old Party ultimately does not succeed in dumbing down the office in voters’ minds, and through McCain’s premature death in office at the young age of 73 puts a clearly unqualified woman in the White House. If she does not do exceptionally well, this may block the pipeline for women for that office for decades to come. (The 2005-2006 series Commander in Chief may have prophesied the future of McCain’s administration. In the series, a Republican President dies and his female Vice-President, regarded by some as not qualified to serve, takes over. Too bad ABC impeached it after one season. Otherwise, we could have seen more of how TV writers would imagine a Palin Presidency. Art can imitate life: The TV series, 24, involving terrorist attacks thwarted by torture, has been reported to have significantly influenced Bush administration policy (see my previous post). It’s McCain’s favorite show.)

(Update: Somewhat ominously, in her acceptance speech Palin compared herself to Harry Truman. Less than three months after becoming Vice-President, Truman became President when Roosevelt died. He had been a US Senator for ten years before that.)

Even if you don't care very much about electing more women to public office, there are plenty of reasons beyond her lack of foreign policy experience why Palin’s selection is insulting to the intelligence of voters and disrespects the needs of the country. At this point we should be so past the need to question whether a woman candidate for political office is qualified. In particular, we should not have to raise this question about a woman’s candidacy for Vice-President in the twenty-first century. If McCain had wanted a female running mate, he had several experienced Republican senators to chose from. There is no excuse for putting forward a woman whose lack of qualification causes people to say that she only got the job because she's a woman, as people are saying about Palin. NY Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins hopes that in the Vice-Presidential debate Biden will say to Palin (in a reprise of the 1988 debate), "I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine, and governor, you’re no Hillary Clinton."

It is insulting to women to think that just putting a woman on the ticket, no matter her positions on the issues or her qualifications, will convince women to vote for a ticket that opposes equal pay legislation and other efforts towards women’s equality. It’s especially insulting when you realize how far behind the Republican party is in putting women in office, compared to the Democratic party. There are considerably fewer than half as many Republican women in Congress and in state legislatures as there are Democratic women.

At a time when the nation faces difficult challenges both environmentally and staying economically competitive with the rest of the world, it is appalling that McCain’s Pentecostal pick believes creationism should be taught in public schools. One of biggest problems with Palin's belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible is that it encourages our children to reject science. It creates a future in which we don’t make scientifically well informed public policy decisions and we won’t have the trained scientists and engineers we need to retain our stature in the world economy. Oh yes, and Palin may create an administration not well informed by science either.

Palin’s choice to bear a child she knew early on would have Down syndrome strikes me as hypocritical. If one is independently wealthy and prepared to accept all of the financial burdens of a child who will likely have significant medical problems and never be self-sufficient, that is a personal choice. Otherwise, the rest of us are sharing in these costs. Our society already is not meeting the emotional, medical, educational and mental health needs of millions of children. Each time a mother chooses to bring a child into the world that early in her pregnancy she knows is certain to have severe disabilities, that means there are fewer resources to go around for the rest of them. I hope someone will have the guts to call Palin on the hypocrisy of her choice in light of her party’s agenda to slash spending for programs to help needy families and her own inevitable reliance on some of those programs for her child. (As an attorney for children in foster care, everyday I see the impact of limited resources on children’s well being.)

Her agenda to outlaw abortion also ignores the fact that tens of millions of families in America without health insurance cannot bear a child with significant abnormalities without facing bankruptcy. It's immoral to force a mother to bear such a child in that situation.

The Alaska Governor’s Juno surprise – her seventeen-year-old’s pregnancy and impending shotgun marriage – illustrates the failure of her party’s abstinence-only message to teens. Although she claims to be "pro-contraception," she apparently failed to convey this message to her daughter. Voters will rightly question her integrity if she fails to repudiate McCain’s opposition to funding for contraception.

Hopefully all of these issues will enter the public debate about the HerMcCain once Gustav blows over.
(Update: they have on the Daily Show)

Making marriage work in the twenty-first century.

2008-08-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

There is lots of press now about gay and lesbian couples marrying, but not about some of those couples breaking up instead. The availability of marriage as an option in California and Massachusetts is forcing many couples to confront their individual expectations about commitment as never before. As I have heard from a number of my gay and lesbian friends, some are finding that those expectations do not match. Painful as this process may be for those couples, it may be for the best.

But there is a bigger lesson to be learned here. If we are to decode social gender roles and eliminate their unfair limitations on individual potential, we can’t just make changes in the workplace and schools. We have to change the rules in marriage and relationships.

Gay marriage is an unprecedented opportunity to help us do this. The religious right has this all wrong. Gay marriage does not threaten heterosexual marriage, it will strengthen it. Many gay and lesbian couples are creating committed, mutually satisfying relationships without all of the Mars/Venus gender stereotypes that have defined heterosexual marriage for hundreds of years.

Gay and lesbian couples will be taking on a lot of heartache in this process, but what they learn will help all of us transform marriage in a way that will make it work for more couples in the twenty-first century and beyond. This change will hasten the emergence of matrocracy and help more heterosexual couples bond and stay together as gender equality becomes reality.

How are we going to beat misogyny?

2008-07-20T22:51:00.001-07:00

I have to admit to being reluctant to comment on Hillary's candidacy, because I believe it is in legislatures that women's political power will be felt the most. The propensities of an individual executive are just that - individual. Women's fitness for office should not be judged by the performance and characteristics of one woman. That said, I was enormously disappointed her campaign met with defeat.

One of the lessons learned is there is still an enormous amount of misogyny in the United States that is tolerated by most people. Sexist remarks can go much further without prompting general outrage and condemnation than can racial slurs. Witness John McCain's laughing response to woman who called Hillary Clinton a bitch at a town hall meeting, and the fact that the day after his campaign had its biggest single day of online fundraising up that point. Imagine how his response would have by necessity been quite different if instead a person of color had asked him, "How are we going to beat the nigger?" Many other examples of woman bashing littered the public discourse about her.

Misogyny is also a theme of the top Emmy nominated television drama of the year, Mad Men, realistically portraying the 1960's workplace when women had almost entirely subservient roles and often endured sexist insults from their bosses. Yes, it's a historical drama and some women characters on the show will rise in the workplace over the long run. But, don't hold your breath waiting for an accurate historical drama in which a focal point is whites keeping down minorities on the job. Such realism would not likely be tolerated even on cable.

If the above observations fail to convince you that sexism fails to provoke outrage in the campaign, see the amazing video of McCain dodging the question of whether insurance companies that pay for Viagra should be forced pay for birth control. Imagine the uproar that would have resulted if he had avoided condemning a policy that failed to pay anything for drugs that would prevent a well-known condition that only affects a particular racial or ethnic group.

International Women’s Day.

2008-03-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

The American women’s suffrage movement spurred the creation of International Women’s Day in 1911. However, this annual celebration on March 8 fell into disfavor after it was adopted by communist countries and for years passed with scant attention in the U.S.

One of the organizations seeking to amplify the voices of women worldwide is the International Museum of Women. Visit their site in honor of International Women’s Day.

Hillary's emotions.

2008-01-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

Hillary's getting choked up on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and carrying the women's vote has been the subject of intense scrutiny and debate. Stay at home mom and columnist Judith Warner, in her typical don't-tell-me-women-are-weak tirade, bemoans what she saw as women being drawn to Hillary's apparent weakness and vulnerability. Maureen Dowd, a liberal whose efforts to draw readers with cynicism sometimes puts her in the same league as Ann Coulter, beats up on Hillary for what Dowd says was a display of narcissism. I agree with Dowd and Gloria Steinem that one of Hillary's biggest liabilities as a woman candidate is that she seems constantly driven to prove her masculinity and appear tough. So, I was relieved when she showed some emotion and vulnerability.

Voters may be attracted to women as leaders and policy makers because they hope women will bring some humility, compassion and desire for cooperation to the job. After all, been male ego and monolithic thinking have gotten us into so many of the messes facing our nation. Many voters are tired of leaders who try to solve international conflicts with force, are unable to see the nuances in complex situations, and are unable to admit their mistakes. I hope Hillary will show more emotional complexity in the future.

Abortion and women's rights.

2007-12-18T23:23:00.000-08:00

Abortion opponents boast of their moral outrage at killing, but most of them support the death penalty and don’t bat an eye if a lot of innocent people in other nations are killed in order to eliminate a few terrorists. They also don't tend to support policies that would lower the inexcusable U.S. infant mortality rate below its present level, which is higher than virtually all of Europe.

Opposition to abortion is mostly driven by fear that making abortion easily available leads to sexual promiscuity and women not assuming their proper role in society, thus destroying the social fabric. An excellent book on this subject published by Cornell University Press analyzed the history of laws in all fifty states affecting women's rights and freedoms and those affecting the protection of life. It concluded that the states with the strictest abortion laws also offer the poorest protection of women's rights and worst protection of life in all areas other than abortion, and that restricting women's rights was a much stronger motivator of anti-abortion laws than fetal protection. (The Journal of Christian Ethics described the book as a balanced prescription for a "seamless garment of love for unborn children.")

U.S. slips in gender gap rankings

2007-11-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

(Fourth post in a series on the book Matrocracy. Link to first post.)
According to the Associated Press, the U.S. scored lower in the annual Global Gender Gap Report because the percentage of female legislators, senior officials and managers fell in 2007, and the pay gap between women and men widened.

Why is the U.S. 31st in the world in gender equality and not in the top ten? In part, it's a choice voters and potential voters are making. Young single women, whose opportunities are most affected by this gap, are a group that has in the past been least likely to vote.
Link to fifth post in the series.

The default image of a leader is male.

2007-11-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

So say a recent op-ed and an article in the NY. Times. To succeed, Hillary tries to appear tough (but probably doesn't have to work too hard at it), and women in general have to be more aggressive negotiators, observe the women writing these pieces. But Hillary is reportedly cultivating her girlfriend advantage, and a researcher is examining whether cleavage helps women in sales. Women have to work both sides of the gender divide to succeed seems to be the message. No wonder women's brains are better wired for multitasking than men's.

Perhaps men ought to imitate the opposite sex.

2007-08-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

Says Brent Bowers in his column Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Business.

The nature vs. nurture debate about gender.

2007-05-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

(Third post in a series on the book Matrocracy. Link to first post.)
So-called "gender" feminists assert a blank slate theory: that men and women are inherently the same. Apparent cognitive and behavioral differences between men and women are purely a product of women’s subordination in a repressive patriarchy, they say, and should gradually disappear as women rise to a more equal footing with men.

But if the opposite were true, it could mean that we've been doing feminism all wrong – which could explain a lot about the movement's widespread stall after more than thirty years of trying to realize its promise.

Neuroscience has revealed gender differences in every major part of the brain. Many studies show brain regions that manage emotions, reasoning and even motor control are not the same in men and women. There are also huge gender differences in hormones that affect brain chemistry. One theory asserts that gender differences in brain function and chemistry largely cancel each other out so as to preclude gender differences from being seen in behavior.

In contrast to the feminist model, matrocracy embraces the alternative concept that men and women are inherently different. Culture has not accentuated these natural differences, but instead largely has acted to impose gender sameness in thought and behavior. In this view, the goal of reforming patriarchal institutions to end cultural strictures would not be to eliminate gender differences, but rather to enable women’s unique nature to more fully emerge. Women’s decision making strategies and outcomes are different from those of men historically and currently in power. (See previous post.) Recognition of gender differences is not an impediment to social progress – it is the key to finding solutions to some of humanity’s most difficult problems.
Link to fourth post in the series.

U.S. media discover Iraqi refugee crisis.

2007-05-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

The N.Y. Times has finally run a feature story in its Sunday magazine about the crisis, observing that now fifteen percent of Iraqis have left their homes because of the war. Thousands of desperate young Iraqi women have been forced into prostitution in Syria. See my previous post about what you can do, and how just one day's interest on the U.S. debt for this war would relieve the refugees' suffering.

Is gender insulting to women leaders?

2007-02-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

Sadly, gender denial by women in power seems to be seems to all too common in 21st century America. Responding to a question about her gender, Drew Faust, Harvard’s first female president, replied, "I’m not the woman president of Harvard, I’m the president of Harvard." N.Y. Times blogger Judith Warner agreed, arguing that attributing the newly appointed Faust’s notoriety as "a people person" to her gender "is to cut Faust off at the knees." A N.Y. Times reporter researching an article recently found very few female CEO's willing to say anything about gender. Could it be that women executives still regard their gender as a professional liability?

Yet gender is clearly an issue surrounding Dr. Faust’s appointment. It brings the number of female Ivy League Presidents to 50% - nearly to the percentage of women in the general population. Dr. Faust replaced a man who alienated many with his imperious style and his comments about gender differences. Dr. Faust, it is said, listens and makes people feel heard and included. Doesn’t it make sense that Harvard might want to bring on a woman as president at this time?

It’s time for female academic and business leaders to stop pretending that gender is irrelevant or unimportant. An increasing volume of scientific studies show that women and men’s brain structures, motivations and styles of interaction are, on average, a bit different. Yet many people, and especially feminists, remain convinced that if there are any behavioral differences between women and men, they are entirely due to socialization. The problem with continuing this difference denial is that it distracts us from the critical issue of what we do about differences.

It is time to explicitly recognize that we need more women leaders, and to take more steps to create opportunities for women at the top. This is not, as Judith Warner implies, insulting to women. We need to do this for the good of humanity.

No women leaders in the U.S. seemed insulted by a recent UNICEF report calling for more opportunities for women in developing countries. The report gave numerous examples of how with a greater role in family decision-making and with independent access to income, women make better choices for their children than men do. The same is true when women attain more influence in local or national policymaking: the people in their regions and nations are better off for the choices women make. To name just a few of the public policy consequences of placing greater emphasis on the welfare of children: economies are stronger, health care and schools are better, and wars are less likely. We could use more of this good judgment in the U.S.

Don't know much about politics.

2007-02-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

(Second post in a series on the book Matrocracy. Link to first post.)
A recent op-ed by Linda Hirshman complained that women, particularly liberal white women, don’t know as much about current affairs, politics and government as men do. She cited polling data to back up her claim. Similar complaints have been lodged at minority groups in the past over the challenges of making societal reforms via the ballot box.

With only sixteen percent of the seats in Congress held by women, versus eighty-four percent held by men (see previous post), it’s no wonder the activities of that body and other legislatures don’t hold as much interest for women as they do for men. If you don’t think your voice is being heard anyway, and your expectation of actual participation in the legislature by you or others like you is low, you tend to tune out.

It is critical that we be proactive in increasing women’s participation in government. With more women legislators, governors, and presidential candidates, the political dialog will change to include more issues women care about. With rising expectations, hearts and minds will naturally follow. Then, what a wonderful world this would be.
Link to third post in the series.

Counter-veiling arguments.

2007-01-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

Last October, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said full-face veils (niqabs) worn by women were a "mark of separation" keeping women from fully participating in society. Blair was backing House of Commons leader Jack Straw, who had requested that a group of Muslim women meeting with him remove the veils that prevented him from seeing any part of their faces except their eyes. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi also said "it is important for our society" that women should not be hidden behind veils. Is this more than just another example of men telling women how to dress?

A preliminary issue about the veil is choice. Some veiled women insist that the choice is their own, but it seems apparent that for most veiled or burqa-clad women in the world the choice is religiously or culturally imposed. Removal of the veil in public would subject many women to social ostracism, beatings or death. So the veil issue is both about personal choice and about Western acceptance of a non-Western religious rule.

The controversy over veils in driver’s license photos was the subject of a recent dinner conversation. One of the participants, a male lawyer, argued that if a fingerprint could somehow be encoded onto an identification card, it would allow a woman who chose to be completely veiled for her driver’s license photo to nonetheless be uniquely identified in a traffic stop by police equipped with a fingerprint reader. This would eliminate the concern about identification that currently prevents some veiled women from obtaining driver’s licenses in the U.S. A woman who was part of the conversation countered that a full veil would still constitute a safety hazard, as it would obstruct both the peripheral vision and hearing of the driver.

Another male participant said that as a democracy that cherishes the full participation of all citizens in nearly all aspects of our governance and social values, we should show our collective disapproval of cultural norms that significantly restrict the full participation of either gender. Although the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution was never enacted, gender equality guides our public policies and values. We should impose those values on some of the privileges of citizenship, such as a license to drive a car, so as to discourage cultural practices that foster gender inequality.

A fourth member of the dinner group, a woman, said that we should follow the China model. The U.S. doesn’t approve of the Chinese government’s human rights policies, but has decided that making China a full player in the world economy will distribute economic power within Chinese society. The resulting affluence will be a force for freedom and democracy, and the people will demand change. Similarly, we should allow veiled women to drive so that they will have greater mobility and not be prisoners in their own houses. Once these women have a taste of freedom, they will demand change within their religions and cultures. Preventing them from driving will only maintain the separation of these women from mainstream Western culture and inhibit change.

Although the intersection between personal choice and practices imposed by long-standing and deep power inequities is difficult to navigate, it is a fundamental question in dismantling a hierarchy. What rules do you think we should impose on veil wearers?

A longer view of compromise.

2007-01-27T23:33:00.000-08:00

An NPR News series called Crossing the Divide examines political and cultural differences and how they can be bridged. The episode on Friday’s Morning Edition (Jan. 26) linked reconciliation in chimpanzees to game theory in politics. It’s no small coincidence that the book Matrocracy also examines what chimpanzee behavior and game theory tell us about gender differences.

Compromise, the third topic in the NPR episode, featured an interview with author Robert Remini about Senator Henry Clay, "the Great Compromiser." Clay’s Missouri Compromise of 1820 put off the American Civil War for another two generations at the small price of keeping the institution of slavery alive and permitting its westward expansion. But what was left unsaid by NPR is that we need a vision of compromise that doesn't mean the perpetuation of wrong, and that takes a both a larger and a longer view.

Matrocracy examines how women generally are more open to compromise than men, and shows how women’s greater influence likely will spread more cooperative approaches that will benefit our world. At the same time, Matrocracy argues, women generally take a larger and a longer view in policy and problem solving. Women are more likely to include everyone in decisions, including the less powerful, and to think about the consequences over a longer term.

My hope and expectation is that as we increasingly search for compromise and cooperation, and as women’s influence grows, we also will increasingly take a longer view. We should avoid compromises in the tradition of Clay that our descendants in the next century likely would judge to be as barbaric and immoral as we view slavery today.

Matrocracy: the book. First in a series.

2007-01-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

Matrocracy is more than a blog; it is also a book in development. In this series of posts, I will preview some the key concepts of matrocracy that the book treats in depth. I welcome your comments and suggestions.

A recent exchange between Senator Barbara Boxer and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice highlights one difficulty in staking out a clear vision of women’s roles in the twenty-first century: women, like men, make different choices and do not share a single set of priorities. In a Senate hearing, Boxer tried to say that many of the Iraq War policymakers do not have as much as stake as the military families whose sons and daughters face death and injury in battle. Secretary Rice's supporters later complained that Boxer seemed to be criticizing Rice for not having children.

This conflict between two women policymakers illustrates a challenge for matrocracy: How can we devise social policies that improve the outcomes of the seemingly impossible choices currently facing many working parents, while at the same time acknowledging the right not to procreate? Should people of either gender who choose not to procreate have the priorities of their workplaces set my those who do, or vice versa? My answer is that we already work too hard in the U.S., with not enough time spent on the activities that constitute the rest of our lives. We’re stressed out and overweight. If creating a more manageable work/life balance for parents will help create a more sane life for the rest of society, that’s a step forward.

Another lesson from the Boxer-Rice exchange is how quickly policy conversations can turn into partisan political fights that distract from the real issues. One of Rice’s supporters, Rush Limbaugh, rolled out the Clarence Thomas lynching metaphor to describe Boxer’s treatment of Rice.

Matrocracy proposes a model that will accelerate the attainment of political power by women. Matrocracy may, on its face, appear partisan, because the political party that is furthest along with this effort – the Democratic party – seems most likely to benefit from matrocracy's model. The Republican Party, though, with further to go, stands to gain standing by being the most improved.

Numbers illustrate the parties' progress. The Republican Party dropped support for the Equal Rights Amendment in 1980. Of the sixteen women U.S. Senators, eleven are Democrats and five are Republicans. Of seventy-one women in the House of Representatives, fifty are Democrats and twenty-one are Republicans. Of nine women state governors, six are Democrats. Women are just over sixteen percent of Republican state legislators and nearly thirty percent of Democratic state legislators. (Two sets of data used.) In 2005, women held 12.5 percent of all leadership positions in state legislatures – 20 percent of Democratic positions, but only 4.5 percent of Republican positions.

Matrocracy proposes to significantly increase the percentage of women officeholders across the board. Because the parties are starting from different positions, that would create higher numbers of Democratic women officeholders than Republican. For example, increasing the number of Democratic women in the House of Representatives by fifty percent would add more than twenty-five more female Members of Congress. Doing the same for the Republicans would only add ten. By working harder to catch up, the Republican Party may benefit more in the long run.

However, creating mechanisms by which many women are more likely to attain power does not necessarily mean that Democrats will attain the positions of the greatest influence. Right now, for example, the most powerful woman in American politics may be Condi Rice, not Nancy Pelosi.

Finally, the Boxer-Rice exchange also demonstrates how procreation and children are still regarded as women's issues. If the exchange had been between two men, it would have generated much less attention and criticism. It shows how far we still have to go to achieve gender equality.
Link to second post in the series.

Children of Men

2007-01-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

If you like or can tolerate great war and spy films, but worry they encourage the nationalsim and paranoia that encourages support for some of the more disturbing aspects of the present War on Terror, see Children of Men, currently in theaters. Set in 2027, it’s a pity this film was not made before the Iraq war began, given how much of the film feels like the mess we're in now. The dystopian P.D. James book on which the film was based was published in 1992. As usual, Michael Caine is charming and Julianne Moore is radiant. The sound track is great.

What follows is plot spoiler, so if you have not seen the film, but plan to, read the rest of this later. The premise of the film is that humans can no longer reproduce, and though never explained, it is presumably due to some environmental catastrophe. A scene in which hundreds of people, including soldiers in mid-battle, show sheer joy and utter admiration for a baby girl is not to be missed. It serves in stark contrast to the fate that awaits some female fetuses in cultures inhabited by a majority of the world's people in the present day.

Iraq war created world's largest refugee exodus in over fifty years.

2007-01-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

Just one day's interest on the U.S. debt for this war would relieve the refugees' suffering.

One of the consequences of the Iraq War that has been under reported in the United States is the plight of refugees from the violence that has been raging for nearly four years since our invasion. One in eight Iraqis have now left their homes, with up to 50,000 people leaving each month. The United Nations' refugee agency, known as the UNHCR, recently announced that this is the largest long-term refugee movement in the world since the displacement of the Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948.

If you haven’t seen the brilliant David O. Russell film, Three Kings, starring George Clooney, or your haven’t seen it in while, now would be a good time. This action/adventure builds to a moral dilemma for the protagonists. Should they spend a fortune they’ve worked very hard to acquire to rescue a group of refugees?

This is the moral imperative we now face in Iraq, except that, relatively speaking, it won’t take a fortune to rescue the refugees. Just one day’s interest on the U.S.’s borrowing to finance the Iraq War would relieve much of the immediate suffering of the refugees created by that war.

I’ll explain the math in a minute, but first, some more about the refugees. The UNHCR has issued an urgent appeal for 60 million dollars in emergency aid for those fleeing the violence in Iraq. Many of these refugees, often including entire families and children, live in deplorable conditions. Two million Iraqi refugees live outside the country, while nearly that same number remain inside Iraq, politely referred to "displaced people." The total number refugees may grow to almost five million by the end of the year. Human rights and women’s organizations are alarmed over growing evidence that desperation is forcing some young women to turn to prostitution so that they and their families can survive.

Now for the details on the interest on the debt: U.S. expenditures for the Iraq War so far are estimated to be more than $356 billion. The entire national debt actually has increased six times that much during the war, so every penny spent on the war is being borrowed. The interest on the debt is just under five percent per year. That means we are paying interest on the war debt of nearly 18 billion dollars a year, or more precisely 50 million dollars in war debt interest each and every day.

50 million dollars, or one day’s worth of interest on what we’ve spent so far on the war, is nearly the amount the UNHCR says is needed to relieve the suffering of the millions of souls displaced by that war. A donation of that amount in America’s national interest.

Whether you think it is a just or unjust war, millions of people have been forced to flee their homes because of our invasion. If we truly want to show the world that we are worthy of the leadership role we claim in trying to make the world a better place, shouldn’t we make this small gesture to relieve some of the suffering this war has caused?

Please let your elected officials know how you feel about the plight of Iraqi refugees, and make a donation to any one of a number of international refugee organizations that are working to help Iraq’s refugees. Whether you favor surge or withdrawal, this should be a cause that transcends political divisiveness over the war. The amount that’s needed is equivalent to every person in the U.S. donating 17 cents each.

Click to donate. Click to send a message to Speaker Pelosi.

Republicans tell Pelosi how to lead: Don't be like us.

2007-01-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

As Nancy Pelosi prepares to take over as the first woman Speaker of the House, an NPR story reported on advice Republicans offered. One request was not to shut Republicans out of the planning process for new legislation - the way that Republicans shut out Democrats during their twelve years in power such as by "not letting them see bills until they were to be voted on." That request is going to be ignored during the first 100 hours the new Congress is in session - Republicans will not be allowed to amend any bills.

Another request came from President Bush in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: don't "pass bills that are simply political statements." Let's see, how much time did Congress spend in the past six years on legislation that was intended primarily to make political statements that Republicans could use to paint Democrats as being soft on taxes, abortion, terrorism, war, gay marriage, etc.?

Will Pelosi simply turn all the Republicans' tactics against them in the name of "justice," or will she set a new example? The question, "What would Jesus do?" comes to mind, but does not seem particularly apt here because the religious right is so deeply embedded with the substance and style of the Republican leadership. Pelosi will probably have political effectiveness as her primary goal, but how will that translate?

Matrocracy

2006-12-30T10:55:00.000-08:00

Next-Generation Democracy
Fulfilling Feminism's Promises in the Twenty-first Century
© 2009 by Robert L. Waring, all rights reserved.

Proposal:
Three billion people – half the world’s population – suffer from extreme poverty. Many experts believe the risks of widespread destruction from terrorism, warfare and environmental recklessness have never been higher. Bad news is so endemic that we tend to think it inevitable – but collectively, we all make choices about how the world works. With one better choice, we could make our world more peaceful and prosperous.

That choice is matrocracy (rhymes with "democracy"), a political system in which women and men truly share leadership and decision making. As the book Matrocracy documents, women are on average more empathetic and less violent than men. With substantially greater female influence, governments likely would become more compassionate and less militaristic, allocating additional resources to reduce suffering and the risk of humanity’s annihilation. As 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus said, women "have a longer vision."

Matrocracy uses sociobiology to show that patriarchy is but one possible method of social organization. Matrocracy imagines a better world in which women have as much say as men in shaping social, political and economic institutions. With greater power, women’s priorities would enrich social values and shift the tipping points of many public policy issues. Matrocracy offers concrete steps to move society closer to democracy’s full potential.

Recent remarks about women’s professional competitiveness by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers refueled the debate about gender differences raised by such books as Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (Harvard Univ. Press 1982). Although some steadfastly deny that gender differences exist, a stream of new discoveries adds to broad scientific consensus about the existence of innate differences in behaviors and aptitudes. The success of the new bestseller on gender differences, The Female Brain (Random House 2006), demonstrates there is exceptional demand for more information on this topic.

Conventional feminist doctrine remains entrenched in the mistaken belief that inherent gender sameness has been corrupted by patriarchy. Matrocracy turns that notion on its head and argues that patriarchy’s often destructive agenda has been fostered by culturally imposed sameness in men and women’s beliefs and behavior. Rather than being an impediment to social progress, recognition of inherent gender differences is the key to finding solutions to some of humanity’s most difficult problems. In differences we also find explanations for and methods of overcoming some of the obstacles to women’s progress in attaining more leadership roles in government and business.

Today’s headlines feed the thirst for more information about how women will lead. Writing about the 2006 midterm election, N.Y. Times Columnist Maureen Dowd described the "longing for a more maternal approach to the globe." For the first time in history, a female Speaker of the House is two heartbeats away from the Oval Office. A woman was the runner up in the contest to be the Democratic candidate for President in 2008, and another was the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Women are leading nations in every corner of the globe. On the crest of this wave are Bangladesh, Chile, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Liberia, Mozambique, New Zealand, Norway and South Korea.

To imagine the differences matrocracy could make, picture yourself in a boat on a tropical river. On the north bank lives a patriarchal culture. Its male members vie for power by murdering each other and the male offspring of rivals. On the south side, by contrast, females hold the power in a matriarchal culture where murder is unknown. One need only travel to the Congo River in Africa to see these paradigmatic differences between humans’ nearest relations: chimpanzees and their closely related cousins, bonobos. A seemingly arbitrary variance in social structure profoundly affects the lives of these two apes. Matrocracy draws on recent discoveries in sociobiology, anthropology and psychology to examine the striking difference gender makes in creating social reality for both apes and humans.

Other writers have explored women’s further potential to change the world, but Matrocracy is the first book that deals with the earthshattering and counterintuitive finding in a 2008 study that cultural changes wrought by progressive societies are actually exacerbating some advantages men have in attaining power and wealth. That the feminist author is a man brings yet another fresh perspective. Because it contains numerous examples of how increasing women’s political power would benefit both women and men, this may be the first book about feminism that both genders will find accessible and compelling.

Outline:
The preface recounts the author’s personal journey – inspired by progressive visionary Charles Reich, primatologist Frans de Waal and his suffragist grandmother – that led him to imagine matrocracy. The first chapter, entitled Matrocracy: Next-Generation Democracy?, shows what is at stake: real risks to human survival exacerbated by the violence, hierarchies and religious oppression men use to maintain their dominance. The system is broken, and the most effective way to change policies is to change the people in charge. That said, the book explodes the notion that there is a set percentage of women that will be a "critical mass" for change. The percentage is highly situational, a fact reflected in book’s recommendations for how to attain matrocracy.

Chapter Two, The Bonobo Code: Lessons from Our Cousins, paints a picture of the possibilities if we adopt matrocracy and the perils if we do not. The narrative takes readers on a tour of the dramatically different ape societies on opposite sides of the Congo River. Comparing peaceful bonobos with their better known and war-prone cousins, chimpanzees, Matrocracy describes theories of how and why bonobo culture evolved to be a matriarchal, relatively non-violent society in which harmony is a common objective and sex is the social glue. The discussion of bonobo society constructs one framework for Matrocracy’s predictions of how greater power for women might alter human culture.

The Patriarchy Tax, Chapter Three, reviews the social costs of gender inequality. Many women in the U.S. face harsh conflicts between career and motherhood. We’re losing the full benefit of women’s talents in both arenas. Violence by men against women takes an enormous toll. In the U.S. alone, estimates of annual costs affecting the labor force, child well-being, housing, social services, health care, and the criminal justice system exceed seventy billion dollars a year. The costs of wars we’re fighting or preparing to fight are greater than at any time in history.

In Chapters Four and Five, Better Together: Life in a Gender-Balanced World and Public Policies & Business Practices in a Gender-Balanced World, readers witness the power of matrocracy in action. Matrocracy would not be a gender-reversed mirror image of patriarchy, but instead a society where women have social and political power equal to that of men and are enabled to wield it differently. Equalization of power would benefit both men and women.

Business productivity would grow as more women entered managerial positions and utilized more cooperative rather than authoritarian management techniques. With women’s greater influence, resolution of global, local and personal conflicts could become opportunities to nonviolently create gains for all sides. The "family values" of matrocracy would assign greater economic value to nurturing families, and women in power positions would bring the pragmatism necessary to better utilize society’s resources to help more needy families. Freed of male dictates, more women might become "sex-positive," pursuing sexual satisfaction on their own terms. As the book explains, this change would lead to greater fulfillment for both genders. Matrocracy’s predictions encourage male and female readers to work together to make the necessary social and political changes for matrocracy to emerge.

Chapter Six, Roadblocks to Matrocracy, sheds light on some of the reasons we remain mostly mired in the status quo. It surveys obstacles that are delaying women’s attainment of more social and political power in the U.S. and other developed nations, including the counterintuitive finding that progressive social changes in some ways are benefiting men more than women. It also highlights unique challenges in developing nations. Chapter Seven, The Need for Speed, distills concepts in the prior chapters to resolve the central questions raised by the book: why should we accelerate women’s acquisition of power, and if we do not, what are we risking? One conclusion is that the slower we go, the more likely it is that women’s unique approaches to resolving conflict, their desire for social justice and their emerging leadership styles will fall victim to the power of patriarchal assimilation.

Getting to Matrocracy Now, the concluding chapter, offers many specific suggestions for accelerating women’s attainment of greater power. Of particular note is a multi-faceted advertising campaign modeled after the successes of anti-littering and anti-smoking ads and designed to speed up changes in social attitudes. In light of the fact that it is unclear what percentage of women in positions of power would create the critical mass needed for change, and that women are not taking full advantage of egalitarian changes to take power in social and political institutions, Matrocracy urges the establishment of a nationwide mentoring program for all girls and women and graduate level leadership academies for women. If those changes are implemented, a unique gender quota system in legislatures could further aid women’s advancement and be enacted by a single ballot initiative in many states.

Marketing
There are several markets for this book:

Progressive readers dissatisfied with the state of the nation and the world who desire new social values, such as increasing diversity, investing more resources to create a better future and encouraging nonviolent conflict resolution. Readers aspiring to these values will want to read Matrocracy, give it to friends and family, and discuss it with their children.
Readers interested in feminism, both those in support and in opposition. Those who own books by other feminist authors will want to add Matrocracy to their collection, in part because it offers a fresh perspective from a man. Opponents of feminism will find self-interested reasons to rethink their views. Both groups will find their previous views upended by Matrocracy’s discussion of the 2008 study showing that men are being helped more by progressive social changes than are women.
University political science and women’s studies classes. Matrocracy’s fresh approach to key policy debates makes it well-suited for in-depth study and classroom discussion.
Women who experienced the first wave of workplace feminism and have grappled with both the opportunities opened and the price paid by the emerging societal pressure to "do it all" in a man's world.
Young women considering the strengths they can bring to their individual futures and our collective well-being – on their own terms.
Parents who hope to gain insight that will help them to raise sons and daughters who flourish and nurture each other into a peaceful and prosperous future.

Promotion
The promotional plan includes:

Targeted press releases to national and local women’s organizations, policy groups, political and business decision makers, book clubs and media outlets.
Magazine articles based on the book (currently ready to be submitted for publication).
Media tour. An accomplished public speaker, debater and media spokesperson, the author is available for print, radio, television, and speaking tours.
Matrocracy.com, an informational website that promotes the book, provides updates about matrocracy and will offer connections to the matrocracy community such as a monthly newsletter, message boards and the like.

Competition
Books related to the themes in Matrocracy mostly fall into three categories. Books with a scientific perspective that document differences in male and female propensities include the bestseller, The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine (Random House 2006). Other titles in this group include The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen (Perseus Publishing 2003), The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker (Viking Press 2002), and Demonic Males by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson (Houghton Mifflin Co. 1996). Some feminist writers fear that granting legitimacy to innate differences will perpetuate discrimination. Examples are Rosalind Barnett and Caryl Rivers’s Same Difference (Basic Books 2004) and Carol Tavris’ The Mismeasure of Woman (Simon & Schuster 1992). (Barnett and Rivers employ a number of false or misleading assertions and references; Matrocracy sets the record straight.)

Other feminists welcome the highlighting of gender differences and argue that both biology and culture give women talents that ideally suit them for key leadership roles. Examples include Dee Dee Myers' Why Women Should Rule the World (Harper 2008), Marie Wilson’s Closing the Leadership Gap (Viking Press 2004), Helen Fisher’s The First Sex (Ballantine Books 2000), and Sally Helgesen’s The Female Advantage (Currency Doubleday 1995). Matrocracy stands out from this group in part because its author is male. Unlike Fisher and Helgesen’s books, it offers a strong political vantage point derived from the author’s political and policy experience. Unlike Wilson’s book it includes the perspective of scientific behavioral research, and it updates, corrects and expands the limited references to such research in Myers’ book.

A crucial difference between Matrocracy and other books in this genre is its scope. It uses the latest findings in sociobiology and cross cultural psychology to transform readers’ basic assumptions about gender, and connects this new understanding to real world problems and concrete policy proposals.

About the Author
I reached adulthood at the dawn of the modern women’s liberation movement, and vividly recall the place women had in society prior to that revolution. I studied public policy at Princeton University and spent six years as a legislative strategist for California’s judiciary. I saw first-hand the different policy priorities of female legislators and how they work with each other and with their male colleagues. Through working with hundreds of judges, I observed how women handle power, and how that difference affects those who are subjected to the judgment of the courts.

As an adjunct law professor, I saw how many young women now take their rights and freedoms for granted. They rarely experience the overt discrimination their mothers faced, yet their access to positions of power remains limited. A whole new generation is ripe for reinventing the political power of feminism.

As an attorney representing children in foster care, I understand the impact of short-sighted and misguided social policies on parents and their children. I have seen women at their worst when they have utterly failed in their responsibilities as mothers. I also have seen women at their best in the dedication of the mostly female attorneys and social workers with whom I work and in the mothers who beat the odds of a system often stacked against them.

Finally, as a passionate, humanist scholar, I’ve spent years researching, writing and talking about this topic. I developed Matrocracy as the urgent solution to the dysfunction that historically has burdened our society and now is mutating with breathtaking virulence and speed.

Conclusion
Matrocracy attacks critical problems facing humanity from a perspective that will provoke controversy and discussion. The book combines the passion of revolutionary thinking with the strategic viewpoint of a policy analyst. Seeking to accelerate the multi-millennial struggle for gender equality, Matrocracy prescribes practical, immediate tactics that could put humanity on a different path in the twenty-first century. Whether male or female, readers will be eager to explore the roadmap to gender-enlightened democracy that could dramatically better the world in our lifetime.

The fallout from Pelosi's loss in the Murtha contest.

2006-11-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

Some of the hottest ire came from NY Times columnist Maureen Down and her antagonists. For an example, see Palermo's blog on The Huffington Post.

How women lead: Speaker-to-be Pelosi's first week.

2006-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Machiavellian is one way to describe her choice to cut off Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, her past rival for party whip, in his quest for her most recent job as majority leader.
Is setting a new tone on ethics taking a back seat to personal loyalty? Or is she bent on creating unified leadership to better achieve some higher purpose? Time will tell...