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

For most of history men took what they wanted and the females had no choice.

Women have always been easily able to abort or infanticide their children. They could very easily deny any man to have descendants.

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.

Ah.

That is, I repeat for the nth time, about power, not about what chromosomes the powerful have.

There is no other way to have, exercise and keep political power. That it is associated with masculinity is a byproduct of males having exercised more political power in history, not an inherent feature of masculinity, even the macho masculinity you decry. Any historical man with power who lost it, squandered it or made a fool of himself can show you that. And conversely, this means that no woman with power will ever be feminine enough for you: you are looking for a personality that cannot competently hold power, whether male or female. (Regardless of ideology; obviously Hellary and Bachmann are also different in other respects.)

And sorry, but this week was the Lady's birthday (86), which I and some like-minded friends celebrate every year, so I was immediately reminded.

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

In most East Asian cultures, the woman has the authoritarian leadership inside and the male outside.

And the Far East is monogamous - for that matter, in "hard" polygamist cultures (ie, where most of the households have a polygyny family), since the women outnumber the men in any house, they rule de facto, by collusion, even if the letter of the law says otherwise.

--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")

How is that masculine? That is about power, again, not gender. It is correlated by history, but not caused by chromosomes.

--males generally in control, but not always

Agreed. But this is about the only thing I can agree with without any qualification.

--wealth/asset accumulation more important than human bonds

Every society accumulates. Every society needs to, because you never know what the next winter/monsoon/drought/tsunami/whatever might bring. Every society that doesn't, perishes or severely diminishes its standard of living (Easter Island, the Maya, apparently the US Southwest Natives) [*]. And only modernity has created a tradeoff between both - even the pre-modern West and Middle East didn't see a tradeoff. Of course, Modernity creates that because production became unlinked from nature: factories don't have to close in winter or at night, unlike farms, fisheries, and even mines.

Interestingly, had you said "bourgeois" values, I could agree on this one. Even if it makes me sound Marxist.

[*] I would also talk about Bubbles, but it is not needed. Easter Island was, of course, a Bubble.

--rigid, inflexible and often simplistic thinking

How is that masculine? There are dunces in every gender!

--pleasure, especially sexual pleasure, is highly controlled

Greece and Rome? For that matter, several of the ancient Middle East cultures, but they come to us deformed by the prejudices diffused from both the Bible and the early Christian writers. But yeah, Babylon was Babylon - and was patriarchal.

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

All cultures go through processes of progress and of stagnation. It is cyclical; and there is (yet) no good meta-theory of why this happens (Khaldun notwithstanding). The West is currently in stagnation, and I don't say this in a disparaging way, it is just its current stage, and I am sure it will bounce back same as it has done before. But take very long term, non-Western cultures: China, Japan and India, they all show periods of fervent innovation, followed by strangling stagnation, followed by innovation anew fought by the old order. The West is no different. It was different in that the last innovation period lasted for so long - from about 1350 to about 1970 - I know of no other culture that climbed for 600 years straight. But if today you are looking for new societies and new roles, you should be looking east or south.

--resolutions solved by aggression rather than more peaceful means

â¦because girls don't bully. Riiiiiight.

That girls call you names rather than beating you physically doesn't mean they are more peaceful and less aggressive.

(And alternatively, that boys beat you physically rather than call you names doesn't mean the opposite)