Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Why Women Will Rule the World

If your only interaction with humanity was to observe middle schoolers, you'd be very surprised to learn that men, not women, are the historically dominant gender.

The girls in my school get better grades, write good papers and have impressive critical thinking skills. The boys struggle with school work, comparatively. Getting them to use any of the higher order thinking skills is like trying to squeeze milk out of a turnip. It's not just natural ability, its work ethic too. Females just work harder, they turn in their homework on time. They go above and beyond the requirements of assignments. They lead, volunteer and participate. Of course, there are exceptions on both sides, but overall girls are hands down the better students.

"Me. Love. Video Games!!!" -Typical middle school boy 

"But!" you say, eager to defend the honor of the male sex, "boys are at least stronger and faster!" Not in middle school. We just had a track meet and I timed the sprints. Girls run faster. Significantly. I helped with discuss. Girls throw farther. Significantly.

A close approximation of a middle school track meet.
At some point, obviously, boys turn to men and get muscles and all. And for most of human civilization that mattered. Power belonged to those who could kill their fellow man in hand to hand combat. But what made men strong and women weak in the past might now flip the table to favor the ladies.

To survive in a world dominated by brute strength, women honed their interpersonal skills. We've known this intuitively any time we mentioned "women's intuition, and science backs it up. Women are much better at recognizing faces and emotions than men. And any more, application of brute force much more likely to get us locked up than help climb the power structures of society.

We live in the most peaceful time in human history. Our society rewards creativity, innovation, communication and collaboration much more than brute strength. Recent studies have shown that women have some serious advantages. They learn quicker, posses higher IQ's, and have better personal skills. In today's world, it seems men are outgunned at every turn. Women even make better managers and investors than men. As more and more women throughout the world receive an education, I suspect  our society might look a little more like a middle school classroom.

Maybe that's a good thing. A world with more equal participation from women in government and business might have fewer wars and corporate scandals. No matter what happens in the future, at least men can take solace in knowing that unique pain and privilege that comes from passing a kidney stone.

You can never understand the bond we have!

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