For millennia, humankind has been dominated by males, but it looks like the tide is gradually shifting. This article makes the case for the world being on a bumpy path to a more equitable society.
Women are now dominating college graduation rates and change seems inevitable.
This success in academia should change dynamics in the home, corporate America and politics.
According to The Street almost 50% of US women are the primary breadwinners for their family.
According to the World Economic Forum, the participation of women in the C-Suite increased from 17%-21% between 2015 and 2020.
Parliamentary membership has increased from 11% in 1995 to 26.5% .
If the future is a female-led, society has to change. How would that look? We explore this through a few different scenarios: the stay-at-home dad, the next generation two-income household, the workplace and politics.
The home manager husband (HmH)
HmH is really going to embrace being a house husband and actually feels insulted by the term homemaker. He refers to himself as home manager. He believes that it is his god-given duty to do a fantastic job of taking care of the home and family.
He makes sure that the children’s birthdays are absolutely perfect. Napkins will be customized with a picture of Tyler swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. The gift bags will be amazing and cause admiration and jealousy amongst his peers.
Our man is up first making sure that his family has a nutritious breakfast and that the cleaning man has clear instructions before heading to the gym. He wants to look good for his woman!
But he is not too self-absorbed to forget about giving back. He has a leadership position in PTA, volunteers with scouts and makes sure that the family volunteers at the foodbank before stuffing their faces at Thanksgiving.
All in all, HmH, leads a busy but vacuous life. HmH is quite proud of himself and the fact that he does it all by himself with the help of a cleaner, a gardener, a babysitter and his wife’s income. He is appreciated by his wife because dinner’s always on the table, the kids are doing great and he looks good in those tight jeans! His peers wonder how he’s able to do it all and be so happy.
A more realistic house husband
Transitions are hard and most people can’t live up to the standards of the House Manager Husband. Men may feel resentful by what they believe to be their right to be head of household and the endless drudgery of household chores. So, perhaps this spurs new innovation. For example, instead of drawers and hangers, we just get clean hampers (champers). Clean clothes are thrown directly into the champer - no folding needed!
The next generation two-income household
A couple meets in college. She earns a law degree while he got his Computer Science degree. At the beginning of their careers, they both put in the hours, but her career accelerates while his stagnates. Her potential is recognized by her leadership team while his boss expects that he will probably slow down once he has kids. She whips out a kid and gets right back to work. While she is entitled to take 6 months off thanks to the generous parental leave act of 2035, she sees it as career suicide. He takes advantage of the leave and spends the time bonding with the new baby.
On the surface, they have it all. They have a nice home, a Tesla and fond memories of the Amalfi coast.
As their child grows, they both juggle career and childcare but he makes subtle decisions to prioritize his child’s needs over his career. For example, he never hangs out with his colleagues after work and avoids roles that involve extensive travel.
So, what happens. She earns a lot more than him and sometimes resents how he spends their money. She feels like he doesn’t understand the sacrifices she makes for the family. He also expects so much of her! After she comes back from a business trip to Asia, he immediately expects her to jump in with household chores and looking after their child.
But she’s not the only one harboring resentments. He feels that she galivants around the world while he has to work on the volcano project, do laundry, provide the damn oranges for soccer practice and find someone to fix the roof. All this while holding down a demanding job and fending off a horny boss who’s overly huggy.
Sexual harassment training video 2040
Cue the corny music and scripts written by lawyers.
Exercise 1
Maxine, Raul’s manager, keeps commenting on Raul’s looks. She says that she really appreciates that he puts effort into his appearance because a lot of men these days just don’t bother.
What should Raul do?
a. Report the issue to HR?
b. It’s no big deal. Maxine hasn’t been physical with him. It’s just harmless flirting.
c. Tell Maxine to stop, it makes him uncomfortable.
Exercise 2
Raul has been killing it at work this year. He has not only exceeded all of his targets, he even brought in the big Johnson account. He should be a shoo-in for promotion. But wait, he didn’t get the promo and worse still, Jacky got it. Jacky, the person who he had to bail out multiple times this year. Maxine always favors Jacky - they hang out at the bar after work all of the time.
What should Raul do?
a. Report the issue to HR.
b. Ask Jacky to be his mentor.
c. Try and get in with Maxine. Try and be one of the “gals” and hangout at the wine bar with Maxine.
d. Ask Maxine what he can do to get that promo next year.
Women in politics
With women taking more control of government, some intractable problems could get de-politicized and therefore be addressed. For example, 62% of women favor stricter controls on gun sales and 63% of women support abortion rights. We could also make progress on family leave legislation with the people making legislation actually having skin womb in the game.
Based on my extensive, Bing, research. Women are less physically aggressive but dare I say, more bitchy, than men. Man, this is a dangerous statement!
This could change international relations with the world becoming less violent but a lot more passive aggressiveness.
So, what does it all mean?
On the surface this article describes the lives of many people today but with swapped genitalia - not very clever.
Product Managers assess products health using NPS (Net Promoter Score). These are those annoying surveys you see: “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to recommend this dish towel to your friends?”
Imagine if Western society was asked “On a scale of zero to ten, how satisfied are you with inter-gender relationships.” I believe that we would rate our overall satisfaction would be 6/10 today but would change over time.
I think we will go through some challenging times with thought leaders (so tempting to put that in quotes) such as Jordan Peterson trying to pushback against change and thrust us back into the 1950s but longer-term I think society will be much better off. Men and women will find a more equitable equilibrium. Society will benefit from more innovation by having diversity in leadership and perhaps the world will be a more peaceful place.
So readers, I will leave you with two questions:
How you would answer the question “On a scale of zero to ten, how satisfied are you with inter-gender relationships?”
On average, do you think men or women would score the survey higher?