Talking about governing a country, we can see that the majority of the country leaders are men. Why is it not a woman? Is it because men are more capable and wise compared to women? And what about in terms of pressure, could women face it better than men? And could they lead a country better than men?
I really don't think that gender is the deciding factor as to whether a person would be a good leader or not. Men have traditionally been leaders in most societies because women simply weren't allowed to up until about 1920 I believe. Tradition is one of the hardest things there is to change. People will fight to the death to prevent change that makes them uncomfortable and preserve tradition. I don't think that the male trend in politics has anything to do with a woman's capability to hold office; I think people are still just used to voting for men.
That being said, I also don't believe that women would be any better or worse at leading a country than men. That goes for all races, religions and sexual identities as well in my opinion.
Any thoughts?
For many reasons it seems that this holds true for leaders in general. Most religious leaders are men- The Pope, the Dalai lama, Gandhi, Louis Farrakhan... historically I can only think of Mother Theresa. Also, according to wiki only 12 of the Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. I think it's not exactly controversial to say that sexism is alive and well in today's world percolating in from an extremely sexist history. If we say that women in general are not in politics as much as men because men are more capable and can handle pressure better, then we might as well say men are also more spiritual, closer to their god, better at understanding money and capitalism. Does anyone actually think this is true? I hope not. Women do not hold positions of power in society because for thousands of years they were told they couldn't, and it is only recently that things are beginning to change in a few places. I think that's what sex has to do with the leader of a country.
@ojan0011: I have another example of female leader. That is Margaret Thatcher, Great Britain PM back in the 80s. http://bit.ly/hWTvgp
FYI, there's an interesting example from Southeast Asian history, check this out http://bit.ly/fC0NOo
"What's sex got to do with... leader of a country?" I believe that the connection with "politics of sex" is the stereotypes society makes. For example, as we discussed in class gender roles have a significant affect on how individuals behave. In society people unfortunately still consider men as a "leader figure" because of the fact that they are viewed as strong, masculine, and tough even if that is not the case.