Socialism and Women's Leadership (was China Drafts Law to Boost Unions and End Labor Abuse)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/13/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> me:
> > > It's true that you're _always_ right, Yoshie. Instinct trumps
> > > intellect every time.  ;-)
>
> Yoshie:
> > I tend to think that intellect dwells in instinct and vice versa!  And
> > women always have more of both than men!
>
> on the first, you are right: instinct -- or rather intuition -- and
> intellect interact in a complex way are sometimes impossible to
> separate.
>
> You are also right on the latter, since I don't want you to get mad at
> me for disagreeing. But  you are right: women are _damn_ smart.
> They've conned men into taking responsibility -- and blame -- for
> almost all of the job of running governments and corporations, not to
> mention pre-capitalist organizations. ;-)

I remain a partisan of socialism, but there is one thing that makes me
doubt the excellence of socialism: virtual absence of women leaders in
hitherto existing socialist states and movements.  Rich social
democratic states (Finland, Germany, Norway) have had female heads of
state, rich liberal states (UK, New Zealand) have had female heads of
states, post-socialist Eastern European states have had a female head
of state (Ukraine), Israel has had a female head of state, Asian
(India, the Philippines) and Muslim (Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan)
states have had female heads of state, African (Liberia, Mozambique),
Caribbean (Jamaica), and Latin American (Argentina, Chile) states have
had female heads of state.  I'm not saying anything about these
women's politics -- I'm just pointing out that there have been quite a
few by now in capitalists states at all levels of economic
development, with all kinds of political orientations, and under all
sorts of cultural conditions.

The only female head of state in the hitherto existing history of
socialism is Milka Planinc (Federal Prime Minister of Yugoslavia from
1982 to 1986), plus Ana Pauker of Romania, the most powerful leader of
the Romanian Communist Party after WW2 till 1952, when she got purged.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
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