Re: Since we're getting things off our chest . . .

Yeah, and females are to blame. They select them and have for thousands of years. If females didn't select them, they wouldn't reproduce and their traits wouldn't survive. For every female that goes for the gentleman, ten go for the thug.

Nonsense. For most of history men took what they wanted and the females had no choice. Thus it was the aggressive males who won out the most, at least until the invention of monogamous marriage (also a male creation, I suspect), because one wife per husband assured that even weaker, less aggressive males had a better chance to pass their seed. It's all very genetic, which is incredibly depressing. It's true that many women today still choose the assholish males, but probably because it's what they're used to (from Daddy), and because the alpha male brings home the bacon . . . and then some.

Me too. We're looking into cloning Maggie, but experiments are taking longer than hoped for.

Thatcher was not a feminine leader. She is exactly what I mean when I speak of women being successful in leadership roles by mimicking males.

Mmm, explain? Masculinity as you defined is a genetic trait. Patriarchal thinking, as in "thinking" is a cultural trait.

It's both genetic and cultural, but both can be counteracted by will alone.

Patriarchal thinking is the legacy masculinity:

--authoritarian leadership style, both outside and inside the home

--hierarchy is valued, and the higher one is on the hierarchy, the more valuable they are thought to be (thus, morality is dictated from "on high")

--males generally in control, but not always

--wealth/asset accumulation more important than human bonds

--rigid, inflexible and often simplistic thinking

--pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, is highly controlled

--a focus on tradition over innovation, especially socially conservative tradition; roles are immutable

--resolutions solved by aggression rather than more peaceful means

If you want to understand what I mean, compare two animal populations which are almost identical genetically but very different culturally: the male-centered chimpanzees and the female-centered bonobos.