The world run by men is a like a bloody episode of Game of Thrones – with a far inferior cast of characters, writes Adrian Ephraim.
Let me just come out and say it – men are idiots. We just are. We are fundamentally more stupid than females, and that makes us more dangerous. I believe there is biological evidence to suggest this too.
We care not for the nuances of soft power or the subtleties of manipulation. The side eye and the silent treatments are totally lost on us. Probably closely related to multitasking. For all intents and purposes we are retarded when compared to women, and yet we are able to rise to positions of power with ease.
What we do have going for us is the ability to make people believe our bullshit. We baffle them with deep words and our booming voices of authority – when all we’re thinking about is food and sex. We’re born rabble-rousers, and the rabble are as ignorant as we want them to be.
Patriarchy and poor leadership are joined at the ageing hips of old men – on the continent and around the world. Through the ages, religions, cultures and communities we have bowed down to these men who assume power by force under the guise of fatherly love and protection. Protection from what? Other men masquerading as protectors?
Our sense of entitlement is bred at birth, by our mothers who revere their sons over their daughters and by a society that favours men by rewarding them unfairly and placing them in positions of power undeservedly. It is this sense of entitlement that is killing us, quite literally.
How else do you explain a pasty, white man born into privilege (who is clearly losing his mind) now running for the most powerful job in the world on the back of bigotry and segregation?
How does a king, again born into privilege by virtue of his gender, stand up and claim that a genocidal system of oppression was a good thing?
How dare a president risk the wellbeing of every citizen under his protection by playing Tetris with his political acolytes, slicing the throat of the one man who could stop the country going bust? It’s a like a bloody episode of Game of Thrones – with a far inferior cast of characters.
Father knows best. Trust daddy. Who’s your daddy? Every day we’re bombarded with imagery of the safe and reliable father figure, the brother leader, knight in shining armour, the mighty saviour who will deliver us from poverty and strife – and he has a big penis. Yet daily we are greeted with the carnage and human loss that patriarchy, entitlement and pseudo masculinity has brought us.
In Syria, Palestine, Russia, the United States, Burundi and South Africa there are men who believe they speak and act on behalf of their people. That their patronising opinion matters and that they need to demonstrate their power by riding bare-chested on a horse, copulating with a bevy of women or dropping bombs on the heads of those who oppose them. Let’s call it what it is – a dick measuring contest – and we’re all just gawking spectators.
In declaring German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Time’s Person of the Year, the magazine’s editor Nancy Gibbs wrote. "You can agree with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested only when people don't want to follow. For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME's Person of the Year."
Merkel is only the fourth women to be chosen. That in itself is telling.
True leaders are not born. They are created by the people they grow up to serve. A weakened and subservient populace will elect a man who portrays himself as strong, virile and benevolent. First and foremost, they will elect a man. Or rather he will force himself upon them. We deserve the leadership we get.
The world does not need more patriarchs, clinging to life and power. Too often we have surrendered our lives to feeble men in powerful suits who constantly feel the need to prove themselves on some stage or another. All they’re interested in is acquiring more stuff they didn’t earn. We need leaders who are selfless and subservient to the people who “elect” them. We need leaders who are not man enough to be sucked into violent confrontations at every corner.
Above all we need leaders who are not stupid.
* Adrian Ephraim is managing editor of IOL.
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