This country's leadership has suffered an acute lack of testosterone in recent years. Congress has had it for far longer than the administration. The wimp factor is more understandable in Congress and probably a lot less harmful than it is in the presidency. Leadership, no matter what gender the person in the main office is a masculine role. There's a reason for that. Men tend to be goal directed problem solvers.Women tend to be conflict managers and nest builders.
A feminized approach to governance is necessarily a socialist approach. Everything must be fair and by fair she means equal. No one must upset the social order. There is a reason it was "Mother" Russia during the days of the Soviet Union.
The last high testosterone president we had was Ronald Reagan and he scared the bejeebers out of the sissy pants diplomats in the Congress and even in his own administration.
Don't get me wrong - this is not some misogynist rant. Margaret Thatcher, who passed away today, had more leadership testosterone in her little finger than President Obama has in his whole cabinet. Women have a place in leadership. Golda Meier was a tremendous leader. There are plenty of other examples out there, but the point I want to make is that the style of leadership involved in mothering is different from that involved in fathering and not good will come of putting a mother of whichever sex in the big chair. There is a reason God set up families with male leadership. The system works well. Dad's do well at driving the family agenda forward. Mom does an amazing job of keeping the peace and soothing hurts and fixing boo-boo's. We need a government that leads like a father and governs like a mother. Instead we have devolved into a nation that is led by Mom and governed by a cranky, paternalistic bureaucracy.
There is a reason God gave us fathers and mothers. The job of running a family, and - I maintain, a nation - requires both types of approaches. They laughed at George Bush when he referred to himself as "The Decider", but he hit the nail on the head regarding what a president's job is. It is a matter of setting goals and achieving them. Such a task often requires upsetting people and even making them angry on occasion along the way to getting things accomplished that need accomplished.
Lady Thatcher once said something to the effect that a nation that governs by consensus has no leadership.
The feminized diplomat worries about building consensus - making things fair and equal and preventing conflict. When a hormonal North Korean Munchkin starts threatening to start a nuclear war, diplomats start waving their hands and running around squealing and in the process, may start pressing buttons in a panic.
Right now we need a steely-eyed, iron-nerved Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Captain Prissy-Pants is just not to be trusted in situations where he doesn't have a teleprompter to instruct him. If the Munchkin does set off a nuke, the current bunch of little girls that make up our nation's leadership is far more likely to do something incredibly stupid in a panic.
Where's a "Decider" when we need one.
Tom King - (c) 2013
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