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Obama: if women ruled the world — 76 Comments

1. Jacob Howland, Claremont Review of Books: Odysseus Against the Matriarchy, A Homeric battle of the sexes

   Primeval forces of the human psyche, mysteriously inflected by sexual differentiation and far too deep to be tamed by any projects of social constructivism, have once more erupted from their underground vaults and are struggling for domination of our public spaces and institutions. Many women are gleeful at the prospect that men, now widely understood to be agents of sexual violence and cultural patriarchy, may soon be subjected to an ultimate “reckoning.” For one who knows the Greeks, this language is as revealing as it is ominous.

2. sdferr:

   Yeah, the Furies were real sweethearts, weren’t they?

3. In my experience, women tend to be statists. So, no. But I can see why Red Diaper Barry would celebrate that.

4. “If women ruled the world” everything would be fine until the first time the car had a flat tire or the toilet wouldn’t flush. Then the world would collapse.

5. As Ann Althouse has noted, it’s OK to say men & women are different if you say women are better.
   Usually people who believe what Obama said will come back with “women are more empathetic & compassionate”. But another way to say it would be, “women react emotionally, not rationally”. If you actually want to achieve your ostensibly noble goals, then rational would seem to be the way to go.

6. Carrie Lam, Teresa May, Park Geun-hye, Yingluck Shinawatra… whatever bullsh*t spouted by this clown of a president can easily debunked by the horrific track record of female leaders around the world in recent years.

7. In the 19th century, it seems to me that the general attitude toward women was that they were deficient men. Now the pendulum has swung to the other extreme where we all too often choose to see men as deficient women. As Ann Althouse has often written, one can say anything one wants about the difference between the sexes as long as one notes that women’s differences are better.

   Leadership is a rare quality in either sex. For every Winston Churchill and every Margaret Thatcher, for every Daniel Patrick Moynihan and every Nikki Haley there are millions of men and women who can’t lead because they have no vision and neither can not nor do not inspire.

   As for speaking generally about women running things, the retort to Obama’s unctuous pandering is the refreshing Camille Paglia:

   https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/camille_paglia_159814

8. You know if women ran the world, the world would be very different but probably just as messed up. The reasons that the world is messed up is because it is run by HUMANS. It has the same problem as those who say women are more irrational than men. No both genders are grossly irrational just perhaps in different ways.

9. So Barack Hussein is a feminist as well as a Muslim.
   Some might say he is pussy-whipped by Michelle. Michelle is the more intelligent of the duo. Anyone who claims that XX would lead to a better planet than XY is stupid. Except, of course, that XXs outlive XYs and a modest majority of US voters are now XX.

10. As someone at Instapundit pointed out, if he believed this then why did he get in HIllary’s way in 2008? Would the country have been better off with her as president?

11. “As Ann Althouse has noted, it’s OK to say men & women are different if you say women are better.”

    I’m really looking forward to see how this conversation develops!
    I think women are better at some things. I think men are better at other things. I think we work much better in partnership.

    One of the interesting factors is the declining birth rate. Once upon a time, it was not uncommon for every married couple to have 2 to 5 children or even more. My husband’s cousin (or maybe cousin once or twice removed) was one of 17! All of whom lived. Men don’t really cope with multiple children especially well. They (men) tend to focus on individual things (you know – like hunting game!) but they’re not so good when they have multiple subjects vying for their attention at the same time. You know…they tend to lack the old “mom has eyes in the back of her head thing. Women tend to be much better at managing the multiple attention requirement. If they didn’t, not many of their offspring would survive – especially in the early times.
    So…we have women sort of looking for things to focus on because they’re no longer having children and/or not having the home care things to take care of. Have you thought about the things we don’t have to do anymore? (which I appreciate – greatly!)

    Anyway. I think men and women are equal. But different. Somehow we need to figure out how to make the best of the talents of both – and each. And recognize extraordinary talent no matter what the sex of the individual that has it.

12. I hate living in a world that this disgusting being is being hailed as the epitome of virtue, when trump, despite all of his shortcomings who clearly has a heart of gold illustrated by his unwillingness to send our children to death needlessly or taking thousands of lives just to show iran who’s the boss, is being condemned as the incarnation of evil. Obama actually was the president responsible for putting children in cages, it was trump who ended that.

13. Off the top of my head I can think of two effective national leaders — Elizabeth I and Margaret Thatcher — who were women but probably not the sort of women Obama, or the typical person voicing the superiority of female leadership, have in mind.

    I admire Elizabeth II too, though she is a more a symbolic leader with some behind-the-scenes clout.

14. Based on my experience with men and women in the 1980s and later, as a pre-teen and onward, I would rather work for and with men.

    I have found that groups of boys are more task-oriented than girls. As soon as you had two or more typical girls involved in any project, it stopped being about the project and started being about the people in the project. Because female social dynamics are … complicated … mileage may vary greatly on how well a given project turns out, given the genders of the team members.

    That’s about as gentle as I can be.

    Because reasons, I cringe at how badly teams made up of girls and feminized boys, both marinated in social media since the crib, perform in school teams and projects in the modern day and increasingly, in the workplace.

15. There have been very effective female leaders. But anyone who thinks women are always better has never worked in a female-dominated office. Some of us grow up. Some unfortunately behave throughout life as if they were still in the middle school and high school gossip mill.

16. The reasons that the world is messed up is because it is run by HUMANS.

    Matthew: It’s not just humans. Life on this planet requires survival against other competing life-forms. At some point one must be willing to fight and win or go extinct.

    I once read a book, “The Parable of the Tribes” by Andy Schmookler, which imagined a region occupied by several peaceful tribes living in harmony. However, eventually one tribe or an outside tribe becomes aggressive. Then the other tribes lose the choice of living in harmony. They must either flee or fight. No other choices.

    It doesn’t matter if a leader is male or female, the scenario remains the same. I think men have evolved to fit that role more than women. Nonetheless, if a woman leads, she will have to face the same survival imperative. She will, therefore, become more like man. Sad!

17. “Because female social dynamics are … complicated …”

    LOL, as I learned very quickly as my daughters entered their teenage years! Especially as they progressed to higher levels of soccer. Drama is the name of the game on such teams.

    More anecdotal evidence from the USWNT: Despite their World Cup victories, there were constant rumors of how the team and Jill Ellis were often at odds. As the search progressed for Ellis’ replacement, it was quite well-known that the team had let US Soccer know they wanted a male coach, and that’s what they ended up with. Most significantly, were the very public statements by Carli Lloyd about how she was finally being recognized for her talents once the new coach was in place in their last game about a month ago. I’ve heard many times, including from my daughters, that most female athletes greatly prefer a male coach. The women coaches tend to feed into the drama on the team as opposed to sticking to the task at hand of training and winning.

18. Based on my experience with men and women in the 1980s and later, as a pre-teen and onward, I would rather work for and with men. –KyndyllG
    ——–
    But anyone who thinks women are always better has never worked in a female-dominated office. –Kate

    KyndyllG, Kate: ‘Twas ever thus.

    In recorded Gallup polls since 1953, men and women say they prefer to work for a male boss than a female boss. In a 1953 Gallup poll, 66% of those asked said they would prefer working for a man than for a woman. Although the statistics have changed dramatically since then, the number of respondents stating that they would prefer working for a woman has never exceeded 25%.

    https://www.thebalancecareers.com/preference-for-male-boss-3515981

19. Or perhaps he’s paving the way for his wife Michelle’s entry into the fray? I’ve never seen her as inclined in that direction, but I suppose anything’s possible in this 2020 campaign, with its terrible Democratic field. –neo

    Whoo-hoo! Her neo-ness speaks.

    Should I get excited about Michelle again? Barack is such a tease! And his undercutting of Biden is priceless. He must want someone else for the nom for sure.

20. I hate such generalizing and try to evaluate each person on his or her own character and accomplishments.

    Almost everyone is ostensibly against generalizing in theory but very much for it when it suits their needs. So by first replying to Obama’s statements with “you’re wrong, men are better at running things” you’ve buried yourself to his despicable level.

    In my humble opinion it would be far more effective to begin with your chief principle – that people are individuals – and leave the obvious counter unsaid. Insisting that someone explain why women are superior in “running things” would allow them to display their hateful bigotry towards men, as well as neutering several other progressive talking points such as

    -there’s no difference between men and women
    -gender is a social construct
    -discrimination based on immutable characteristics is bad
    -feminism is not about hating men
    -women are ultra powerful and competent yet somehow always powerless

    Any opportunity to poke a hole in “man bad, woman weak”, however fleeting, is one we must effectively use if we’re to end this madness.

21. I’m with Matthew. XX or XY we are merely human and human beings are capable of greatness and utter evil. Men tend to be more goal oriented. Women tend to be more oriented towards social networking. But those are just tendencies. I would be happy with aThatcher like president with XX chromosomes.

22. Sex and sex-correlated gender. Equal in rights and complementary in Nature.

    Women, female, feminine, are not a monolithic bloc. They range from good to wicked, from competent to incompetent, from productive to lazy, from reliable to unreliable, from thoughtful to moron, from humble to narcissistic, etc. We should be wary of anyone who indulges or normalizes indulgence of diversitist thought and practice.

23. how badly teams made up of girls and feminized boys

    Feminized, maybe. Emotional, yes, subject to context. Empathy adds another layer of abstraction (and work) that is rarely needed to be productive, compassionate, etc. Consensus, too.

24. Here’s a trustworthy generalization for ya: whatever President Pseudonym pronounces as gospel, take its contra for a truth and you’ll be better off. He’s a putz.

25. Review Obama’s work history. He was an elected official with a staff where he had to work with other legislators laterally. He was the non-executive chairman of an philanthropic agency which he ran into the ground. He was an associate in a law firm that had all of 12 attorneys, and he was employed by some Alinskyite outfit where he didn’t have day-to-day supervision. His only experience in a conventionally stratified outfit was the two years he spent working for a company that produced corporate newsletters on contract. He knows less about the function of such organization from palpable experience than does your 25 year old grand-nephew.

    My own work life has allowed me a chance to see female supervisors and managers in action. Of the supervisors, I’d say two were capable, one was capable but alienated people, one had the makings of capable but was fried working in wretched circumstances, several were satisfactory given few challenges, and one was pleasant but had no business in a supervisory position. Of those in managerial positions, they varied in the degree to which they were unsuitable. Two of them were poor but did have some excuses, one was good-hearted but miscast as an administrator (the ideal job for her would have been as a buyer for a department store), and one was frankly bad and without excuses. The best you could say of her was that there was a male manager at the same company who was even more destructive (luckily not someone I worked for).

26. The psychologist Judith Kleinfeld has offered that the distribution of performance in various realms tends for women to be bunched around the median more, whereas male populations produce more star performers and more failures. The girl bell curve has more kurtosis. That’s consistent with my experience of life in general, FWIW. High level corporation executives are predominantly male. So are prison inmates. Nancy Hopkins is bothered by only one of these phenomena. Scr!w her.

27. Men have dominated to such an extent that their technology has made women equals in a man’s world.

    You’re welcome.

28. Sam:

    Are you taking a leaf from the Schiff book of summarizing?

    That is, stating a fantasy of what you imagine that someone says, rather than what they actually said? Your restatement of what you think I’m saying is a complete fantasy of your own making. And then you go on to criticize that strawman (strawwoman?).

    I made it very clear that I spoke only of my own actual experience with female-dominated groups, and asked other people to think about theirs. My experience proves that women are not necessarily better at running things.

29. As soon as you had two or more typical girls involved in any project, it stopped being about the project and started being about the people in the project.

    Bingo. I think women in professional-managerial occupations are more suitable for circumstances where they have to work independently or work in situations where they get assignments, apply technical proficiency, and return the results. Also, in circumstances where you need mastery much more than improvisation.

30. Obama is so full of it and always has been.

31. Usually people who believe what Obama said will come back with “women are more empathetic & compassionate”. But another way to say it would be, “women react emotionally, not rationally”.

    Or, perhaps, that they lose sight of institutional goals in an effort to accommodate a particular person’s problems.

    Inside Higher Education used to have a regular column by one Susan O’Doherty, PsyD. One of her columns was a brief memoir regarding her employment at an elementary school with a large population of slum youth. IIRC, the behavioral issues of one youth merited a paragraph from her. The opinion was offered that if you want to run a school, you need to sequester the trouble-makers. Her response to that was to whimper “how could I do such a thing?” They’re disadvantaged. “I was just trying not to make things worse”. Of course, the other kids in the school lived in the same neighborhood, so it wasn’t his social ‘disadvantage’ that made him distinctive and his unpleasantness was preventing the teachers and the other pupils from getting much work done. Our ’empath’ was focused on the feelings of this obstreperous youth (and, likely his mother), but more her feelings about her job and the society in which she lived.

32. What he’s forgetting is that women rule certain subworlds right now: elementary schools, child protective services; museums, libraries, and archives; literature faculties, HR departments, floral shops, nursing stations, tax preparation firms, veterinary practices, residential real estate agencies, temp service agencies, retail pharmacies, and generic philanthropies. Some of these venues run better than others.

33. Comments about this subject by a man can only get him in trouble. That being said, as lawyer owner of a practice with primarily male lawyers and a large primarily female support staff, it has been my experience that friction or the potential for it is much greater in the staff than among the lawyers. Many of the women are very focused on the pecking order and perceived favoritism. In conclusion, we do have an excellent staff, many of whom have been with us for several decades and without whom we could not function.

34. “If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, ” —
    as many people pointed out above, it all depends on WHO the women are: their character, skills, and goals; just as it matters who the men in leadership are, for the exact same reasons.

    As Neo cautioned, generalizations never yield accurate results.

35. I grew up on a farm in the 1950s. Mom managed the house, the vegetable gardens, food preservation (with child labor), and the kids when they were sick. Dad managed the hard work (with teen age males) like plowing in early December in an open tractor for 24 straight hours to get it done before the ground was frozen too hard to plow, and to butcher hogs (although mom slaughtered the chickens). They relied upon each other to make things work. To put food on the table and a bit of money in the bank to start the cycle all over again.

    Good times. Each knowing they couldn’t do it alone.

36. In the 20th century the ideal leader was stoic in nature – not buffeted by emotion. In the 21st century that ideal still exists for men – on the whole. Women, on the other hand, are encouraged to display and give into their emotions. And then there’s Trump! I think I’ve finally stumbled on the reason some conservatives have such a hard time accepting him.

37. As Neo cautioned, generalizations never yield accurate results.

    No, one has to be aware that generalizations are probabalistic assessments, not categorical ones.

    What Obama said was “If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, former US President Barack Obama has said.” That might be true if women were less likely to foster (in the public sector) arrangements which generate rent-seeking behavior (a debatable proposition), if women were more likely to foster process improvements in the public or private sector (a debatable proposition) or if women were more likely to foster technological innovation in the private sector (likely false).

38. Eva:
    I’m going to assume, as many do, that the reason upon which you believe yourself to have stumbled is that Trump gives in to his emotions.

    Au contraire.

    In the face of the incessant spittle-flecked vituperation that has been heaped upon Trump from (and before) the time he was elected, his ability to remain focused upon, and thereby achieve many of, his campaign promises — to make America great again — evidences stoicism, courage, and a heart of oak that we are not likely to see again in our lifetimes.

39. parker, the way you grew up is how people lived for most of history. The idea that men worked and women stayed home really came to be during the Industrial Revolution. What people really did is both stayed home and both worked like hell!

    There were different jobs for men and women, but the women’s work was tougher than sitting at a desk typing on a computer which is what most people of either gender do now.

40. CapnRusty, I’m going to use my woman’s prerogative to be indecisive and say that I both agree and disagree with you. O wait a minute – that was John Kerry’s line. In any case, the conservative ideal is the strong silent type – and for some conservatives – appearances are more important than reality. Hence the admiration of George W Bush. He never replied to his critics. On the other hand, he never fired anyone after 9/11, etc. Trump keeps at attaining his goals but complains all the way.

41. Several years ago read a column by a mid-level woman exec titled “Why I prefer working for a man”. One of her reasons was: I don’t want to reach a consensus on it, have meetings about it, find my own feelings about it. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it done.

42. This is a subject in which I’ve always taken an interest. I could say a lot but as I’m too busy to do that I’ll just observe that Obama is kind of a twit.

43. Bill M on December 16, 2019 at 8:40 pm said:
    Several years ago read a column by a mid-level woman exec titled “Why I prefer working for a man”. One of her reasons was: I don’t want to reach a consensus on it, have meetings about it, find my own feelings about it. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll get it done.
    * * *
    Indeed.

    “If I were queen of the forest…”

44. Trump keeps at attaining his goals but complains all the way.

    Eva Marie: You’re quite right that Trump doesn’t do “strong silent type.” And it does seem unmanly, unleaderly in comparison. It bothers me.

    My current thinking is that his emotions are real enough, but the “complaining” is more a controlled performance that gives him leverage over his opponents. They become hooked on their emotions, while Trump is mostly playing a game. My bet is that Trump keeps quiet about the things which really bother him.

    I think back to Muhammad Ali, who had an obnoxious, immature, bragging style. I believe Ali enjoyed the style — it suited his personality — but his real intention was to get under the skin of his opponent. Judging by his championships, it seemed to work.

    Then there’s Larry Bird, the legendary Celtics basketball player, who off-court was very much the strong silent Midwest type. But on court, hoo boy, even the black players said he was the worst trash talker ever. It was all psychology. Of course, if you watch the old games and hear the old stories, you can tell Bird enjoyed it too.

    “7 Stories That Prove Larry Bird Was THE GREATEST TRASH TALKER OF ALL TIME”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5o1rd09R1Q

45. This is what Ann Althouse writes about Trump: “ . . . I have often talked about how feminine Trump is (even as he has some obviously masculine things about him). I’d also point to his gestures and the tone of his voice.

    Trump’s use of language is a great mystery. Obviously, some people react very negatively to it, perhaps because they have a prejudice against women and instinctively feel that human beings who are too emotional and relationship-oriented should not be trusted with power. Others respond very enthusiastically to him, even way out of proportion to their alignment with his policy issues. I’m thinking of the religious social conservatives but I’m also thinking of myself. I don’t agree with much of what he says and he strikes me as ridiculously underprepared for the responsibility of the presidency, but I am strangely drawn to him. What is it with very unusual man? Possible answer: He’s so womanly.”

46. Huxley, I think the worry is that Trump is undisciplined. What we’re finding out (especially his opponents) is that he is often unpredictable but never undisciplined.

47. In general (and when one makes comments about the behavior of an entire gender, they can only be generalizations), I find women in leadership positions tend to emphasize process over production, or form over substance. Nevertheless, it can work well for them, if they have the right subordinates.

48. Eva Marie: You are a woman (I assume), and, Chevy-Chase-style, I am not. Does Trump seem “womanly” to you?

    This strikes me as a classic Althouse miscue: showcasing her self-love for her special perceptiveness. I’ll admit — she’s hit a few homers (though I can’t remember any at the moment). She has her gifts and she’s kept her blog going. Good for her.

    But Trump womanly? That’s almost as nonsensical to me as Clinton being the “first black president.” (A long story.)

    In my view Trump is an alpha-alpha-male, who has added trash-talking to the POTUS repertoire. (Maybe Andrew Jackson did too, but I don’t know pre-20th C history well enough to say.)

    I’m not crazy about a trash-talking POTUS. It does seem another slippery step down-slope towards idiocracy.

    But as Donald Rumsfeld said, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

    We are at some kind of war with Democrats. We have gone to war with the president we have, not the president some of us might have wished for. I’ll settle for that.

    Plus his trash-talking seems to work.

49. This is a portion of a Trump/Clinton debate with gender roles reversed – all dialogue, gestures and voice inflections are exactly portrayed: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yC7-JsR2Fk

50. Eva Marie: So the video shows that Trump is womanly because he uses his hands more and inflects his voice? So did Hitler and Mussolini. (Which is not to say Trump is a Nazi or a Fascist.)

    Not getting it.

51. Given that the video comes to us via the Guardian, I guess the moral is supposed to be that people would have seen through Trump in a hot New York minute if he had been a woman. Then realized that Hillary was the right, sane stuff. Hillary’s real problem was sexism, obviously.

    My response was female Trump was even more persuasive than male Hillary. If Trump were a woman in 2016, he would have absolutely been unstoppable.

52. One more thing and I’ll get off the video.

    The video shows that Hillary was essentially a bad male candidate. Wooden, forced, robotic. Unable to make an emotional connection.

    Bill was more womanly than Hillary.

53. At the core men and women are very much alike. So in the video you see 2 very ambitious people debating each other. But the filters we see them through have changed. Hillary Clinton’s condescension becomes more pronounced and Trump’s emotionalism is magnified. In Trump’s case that highly emotional pitch works in part because even with the outsize gestures and exaggerated language the vocal tone is always measured and quiet. There’s always that display of emotion and control. Maybe the visceral reaction that people have to Trump depends on how they perceive and value those. I think that’s what Althouse was trying to point out. But it doesn’t mean anyone has to agree with it.

54. Now I’m going to add a comment. I didn’t care for female Trump. She reminded me of Elizabeth Warren!

55. I don’t think this is a woman/man thing. Some people are better leaders than others. Historically these people have been men but that’s due to cultural expectations on the part of both men and women. Also, historically, a lot of leaders were just complete crap – they inherited/took the job and then were not very good at the job once they had it. Truly great leaders can be born or made by their environment, but it’s usually a little of both. You have to be able to continue to learn on the job and adapt to changing conditions. These people are rare. So rare that I would hesitate to say it’s a male versus female attribute. So much easier for a person – male or female – to go through the motions, read from the script, and run with the herd.

56. “…indisputably better…”

    This from the worthy who has claimed repeatedly that his administration was scandal free:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/19/has-the-obama-white-house-been-historically-free-of-scandal/

    Sigh. (Why are we even talking about this?)

    Obviously, what we need is a little (blue?—red and green are already taken) book of his awe-inspiring aphorisms, thoughts and ideas…which we can then pore over, discuss and wave high in the air when necessary.

57. This is a typically obvious divisive ploy intended to get the raging dummies all stirred up. Yay Team Woman! Yay Team Man! It’s frustrating and depressing to see how easy it is to manipulate them.

58. One of the most important difference between men and women is that men are naturally inclined to honor a fair competition and a struggle for dominance, and tend to accept defeat by a more competent guy and its consequencies. This way they form stable hierarhies and chains of command needed for any complex task. Women are natural schemers and manipulators, since this is the only way for them to secure a safe position in a family and to make men fulfil their wishes. That is why almost any women-dominated workplace is permanently a place of intrigues and covert attempts to overthrow the leadership at every rank of organization hierarhy. For me, this is not a way for effective administration of anything. So I conclude that the patriarhy is the only effective way to run the things, both in politics and business.

59. ” I hate such generalizing and try to evaluate each person on his or her own character and accomplishments” Neo

    Ditto. And because I’ve had a life-long positive experience in a world of men, personal and corporate, I find it ignorant and insulting to men in general when people make assertions about the superiority of women. Victor Frankl in his statement about the human race composing the decent and the indecent pretty much covers generality. No need to distinguish between the sexes, ethnicities, socio-economic status, etc etc.

60. “…indisputably better…”

    There are phrases used that tell the truth if you know what they really mean:

    Indisputably = No hard evidence whatsoever

61. “One of the most important difference between men and women is that men are naturally inclined to honor a fair competition and a struggle for dominance, and tend to accept defeat by a more competent guy and its consequencies. This way they form stable hierarhies and chains of command needed for any complex task. Women are natural schemers and manipulators…” Sergey

    This reminds me of a question I independently asked a dog breeder of 30 years (a woman) who showed dogs and a renowned trainer ( a man): Did they prefer male or female dogs? (They had no connection to each other and had both sexes in their personal pack.) Each one said “male” and for the same reason. They said the male dogs were more honest and the females more manipulative. I found that fascinating that in such succinct language there was a uniform one sentence response.

62. Whenever you here some silly broad making a lame and poorly supported (usually by phony sounding personal anecdotes) case for why women are superior, think of this:

    One of the most important difference between men and women is that men are naturally inclined to honor a fair competition and a struggle for dominance, and tend to accept defeat by a more competent guy and its consequencies. This way they form stable hierarhies and chains of command needed for any complex task. Women are natural schemers and manipulators”

    Read it in HillaryClinton’s voice. Now do you hear it?

63. What Iago and other sociopaths and con-artists have in common is that they predominately use women’s strategies to achieve their goals: deception, slander, lies and insinuations. They put on charms, flatter, try to convince you in their sincerity and trustworthiness. Their motto is “If you can fake sincerity, you can fake everything”. Notably, such behavior usually seen as acceptible in women, a form of traditional flirt and courtship, but as shameful in men.

64. This reminds me an argument one Catholic had against ordaining women as priests. He did not mention custom and tradition, but instead argued about the substance. “One of the most important things the priest does is an absolution of sins. Women simply can not do this: they forgive nothing. They can put the matter to rest and never rise it again, but in their heart of hearts THEY NEVER FORGIVE ANYTHING.”

65. Sergy said “THEY NEVER FORGIVE ANYTHING”.. I often said that if President Truman had been a woman, she would have built a 100 more atomic bombs to drop on and completely destroy the Japanese Island and people for vengeance.

66. Like Pavlov’s dogs. Or a coven of feminists prattling about their various hurts.
    Do you get that you’re doing exactly what you accuse all women of doing?
    The rest of the world is not your Ex or your mean mommy or withholding daddy and we’re tired of being blamed for all your shit and/or having to listen to you whine.

67. he believed this then why did he get in HIllary’s way in 2008? Would the country have been better off with her as president?

    If Obama says “men are taller than women”, does that mean he is saying he is taller than Sun Fang (7′ 3″)? Or is he making a statement about averages?

    It’s not inconsistent at all for Obama to say “women make better leaders” and at the same time consider himself a better leader than Hillary Clinton.

    Probably nearly 100% of Americans of any political stripe would agree that he was (and is). Not necessarily a compliment though. 🙂

68. For every trait, good or bad, physical, mental, emotional, there is a way to quantify it. Lying, telling the truth, playing chess, leading, height.
    For some, like height & IQ, there are accepted ways of measuring, which can then be compared. In theory, all could be measured, including Agreeableness (one of the Big 5 personality types Jordan Peterson talks about).

    For every trait, a curve can be plotted with a y axis (up from 0) showing the number of human individuals with and x axis of a specific number in the range of numbers. IQ is an “Intelligence Quotient” number, with an average of 100. It produces a Bell Curve. If men (XY folk) are on a different graph than women (XX folk), the two curves will look a bit different. The women’s curve will be higher in the middle around 100, and less around the low tail of 60, and less around the high tail of 150 (start of genius).

    For any individual, they could be in the range of less than 60 thru to greater than 150, but the vast majority will be between those numbers. SAT scores are similar, with a Math and a Verbal (reading & writing, now), with a max score of 800 for each. It has so far been the case that more men score an 800 math SAT score than women. Larry Summers was fired by Harvard for mentioning this fact.

    For any trait, individual differences are greater than the avg differences between men and women, or the avg differences between races, or ethnicities, or religions.

    People should judge each other as individuals.

    However, a free market economy allows customers to determine, thru their democratic choices of buying under budget constraints, which companies are more successfully satisfying the buying public’s desires at the current time. There are huge numbers of small companies of 10 or fewer employees. About as many seem to be run by women as by men. Above 100 up to 1000, the vast majority are run by men, and are companies which grew while being run by men. Far fewer companies over 10,000 employees, few of which were built by the current top CEOs & managers, but in the top Fortune 500 of companies, 33 are now run by female CEOs, about 6.6%

    They might be the best CEOs; they might be the worst; they might be closer to avg. There’s NO evidence that female CEOs, in general, run companies better. There’s some recent studies giving evidence that more women on the Board of Directors means lower shareholder returns. IF women were better CEOs, that would mean owners hiring men instead of women are failing to earn money. That seems quite unlikely.

    I supported Carly Fiorina in 2016; and even before in CA Senate elections. She was a CEO of HP, and guided their merger/takeover of Compaq. This was a good decision, altho some Big shareholder children of founders Hewlett & Packard were against it. She promised good to great results; got avg results and was fired in 2005. Because Dell was doing so great. IBM at that time sold its PC business to Lenovo.

    Fiorina said her experience in both the private sector and politics give her qualifications others don’t have. “I understand executive decision making, which is making a tough call in a tough time, for which you are prepared to be held accountable,” she said. “(This is) something that at least Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a track record of.”
    https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/why-was-carly-fiorina-fired-n356731

    Judging individuals as members of a group, first, is a little inevitable – you don’t know about them as individuals yet, just as a person of the male or female group; of some white, black, or other race; as American or other citizen. But one should be judging everybody as “good until specific suspicion of them being bad”.

69. Add this inane comment to the long list of his inane comments.

    Rarely does he have anything useful or insightful to say, being a cultural Marxist, obsessed with anti-colonialism, mentored and raised by stridently anti-American Communists, who has never earned an honest dollar in his life.

70. Rarely does he have anything useful or insightful to say, being a cultural Marxist,

    He isn’t. While we’re at it ‘cultural Marxist’ is a nonsense term.

    obsessed with anti-colonialism,

    No indication of that either.

    mentored and raised by stridently anti-American Communists,

    That’s a cack-handed description of his mother and bears no resemblance at all to his step-father or his maternal-side grandparents.

    who has never earned an honest dollar in his life.

    That’s not true, either. He was a slouchy underperformer, but law firm associates and copy editors provide real services people buy willingly on the open market.

71. Here’s an interesting set of studies on the existence and importance of sex differences in personality.

    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0029265

    It is argued that previous personality-measurement comparison used variables that were too aggregated: for example, the metric for Extraversion encompassed both warmth/affiliation (higher for females) and dominance/venturesomeness (higher for males), so the average Extraversion scores for males/females show more similarity than you get if you disaggregate into the two components.

72. I would also like to add a personal observation (no source) that the personality and style differences between men and women tend to narrow with age. This makes sense to me as our sexual hormone levels of testosterone and estrogen also decrease with age.

73. Tom Gray: You are completely right about different bell curves for men and women in every measurable trait. What it means in practice is that at the right tail of these distributions the number of men is significantly bigger that the number of women, and the farther to the right you look, the bigger the difference is. There were, for example, just 3 female mathematicians with contributions comparable to thouse of about 150 male matematicians, and the same for Nobel Prize laureats: male/female ratio about 50. So when you need an extraordinary talent the chances to find one among men are dozens times higher than among women.

74. “Or perhaps he’s paving the way for his wife Michelle’s entry into the fray? ”

    Since everything seems possible, I suggest that Michelle will enter the fray as a block to Hillary, if a Dem frontrunner doesn’t emerge.
    I’m assuming Michelle hates Hillary enough to run and give Barack a third term.

75. For some strange reason, i’ve found that if I get to know someone personally, I nearly always like them. They are like pizzas or cats.

76. VTC:
    VAST Testicular Concavity ie.

    Barack Hussein Obama

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