Women in power

Two years ago at our college, all but one person on 'President's Council', the group that wields the most power, were male.  Due to retirement, just about every one of these positions has changed hands, and presently, only one of the males remain.  This might represent a growing trend across our society.


I see it.  I look out at my classes of thirty students, and all but three or four of them are male.  While anthropology is rarely the choice of these students for a profession later on in life, it is through anthropology and other social sciences and humanities that students will become lawyers, architects, politicians, judges, psychologists, professors, and a host of other professions that carry influence and nurture our cultural heritage.  While I don't have empirical data in front of me, it seems at any rate that just about all of this cultural heritage and responsibility seems to be changing hands from males to females in this generation.


How important is the passing from one gender to the other the reins of power and influence?  In 1989, Chairman Mao was asked to assess the influence of the French Revolution at its bicentenary: he replied that it was too early to tell.  It could be the same for the issue of females in our culture gaining positions of power and influence: we simply cannot properly assess its importance at this point.


However, there is a very good chance that it could be as critical as some of the most important developments in western civilization spanning roughly three millennia.  Because I am feeling rather rash and irresponsible, as well as deliriously happy at finishing the marking for this term, I am going to throw a Mao-like discretion to the wind.


I think that the move away from patriarchy in our society is as important as any of the following things:  the setting aside of pagan gods and the embracing of Christianity in about the 4th C AD; the embarkation of European hoodlums and fanatics eastwards into the Middle East in the Crusades, and later westwards towards a 'discovery' of a New World; the re-discovery of the ancient texts during what we now refer to as the Renaissance; the breaking away from Scholasticism in the 18th C into a new world of unfettered enlightenment; a new method in science that has allowed us to answer efficiently age old questions at a dizzying pace; the setting aside of Newton in favour of a relative approach to physical things; the science of the mind and all those other cool ideas developed first by Freud and Jung;  the exploration and analysis of space, and the realization that we are simply on an insignificant rock in a vast universe. 


It is fun and exciting to think of our culture on the brink of a Brave New World, this time run by females.  Perhaps my daughter will be Empress.