> Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking to amend the Infection Protection Act so federal authorities can force coronavirus lockdowns and curfews in areas with high infection rates, even if regional leaders resist them.
As a German, I feel betrayed and deeply offended.
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Germany: Protest erupts as parliament votes on COVID rules | Coronavirus pandemic News | Al Jazeera
@0 @Br0m3x BTW, "Female-led countries handled coronavirus better, study suggests" => https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/18/female-led-countries-handled-coronavirus-better-study-jacinda-ardern-angela-merkel
@resist1984 @0 @Br0m3x "Countries sensible enough not to disregard half the population for leadership positions have better policies in the first place." The female leaders are symptoms, not the cause. The Guardian's writer overestimates the role of the leader, as any good member of the patriarchy would. ;)
@Steinar @Br0m3x @0 That is a factor, among others. https://hbr.org/2020/12/research-women-are-better-leaders-during-a-crisis
@resist1984 @Br0m3x @0 Remember such numbers will be extremely culturally biased, and making universal statements across cultures is very complicated. Countries with a culture of machissimo will score very different from countries where leaders are expected to be examples or more nursing characters. As my wife put it in regards to the pandemic, "It's not women being risk averse, it's men being risk-attracted." Which is very much a question of culture. I felt that was missing, from both sources.
@resist1984 @0 @Br0m3x My point was simply the signal is complicated, and it is easy to overemphasize gender and underemphasize culture. A woman can be a risk-attracted, irresponsible macho, but if the culture doesn't reward that enough, that woman will never be leader there. If we are talking about an arbitrary German, not Angela Merkel, then we must look at what the arbitrary German decided, and that was having Merkel as chancellor.
@resist1984 @0 @Br0m3x (As for the basic question, which gender makes for the better leaders I'd just like to add I don't protest women being better, as I'm not qualified to hold a strong opinion in the matter. Real life, though, you must choose between individuals not genders, and in humans, pretty much all individual differences are far greater than those prescribed by gender. I live in a country led by a woman, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't our female leader who's done the best job here.)
@Steinar @Br0m3x @0 Where the study is most useful is in countering the conventional wisdom myth that men are better equipped for national security, a myth that prevents female individuals from getting due consideration when the reality is more of an inversion of that. I believe women are /less/ likely to send soldiers into war, which is important for a trigger-happy country like the US.
@resist1984 @Br0m3x @0 Good point on the study being useful countering myths on job qualifications, absolutely agree there. As for women leaders being less war mongering, I think making blanket statements like that also may be a problem. Tatcher wasn't exactly the least triggerhappy European leader in recent memory... I think we should judge individuals on an individual basis, and especially when it comes to positions like leader, where there is no aggregate mass.
@Steinar @0 @Br0m3x there's always individual variation, but there are also patterns that would be short-sighted to ignore. E.g. studies show that women are likely to die of a treatable heart condition because they are less likely to seek help, because they have a propensity to feel guilt over burdoning the health system. We don't ignore that study and say "individuals differ".
