Gender Differences In Leadership

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In the run-up to his re- election, Mr Museveni went on a spree, dishing out districts to whoever wanted one. In the end, those who wanted these districts returned the favour as seen in the NRM majority. Indeed, if Parliament relents as expected, soon we’re going to have over 200 districts —all in the name of service delivery. Uganda, according to a 2008 London School of Economics (LSE) study, has the biggest number of sub-national administrative units and the smallest population per unit.

Sadly, the creation of these administrative units has now become a cross the taxpayers must carry. While the viability of districts will be a discussion for another day, the truth is that these new political entities have not improved the service delivery as expected. Instead they have become a liability to the taxpayers and in end, created a monster in the name of increased cost of public administration.

That said, women in the House began on a rather peculiar note. If I may borrow a word from a renowned controversial feminist, Dr Sylvia Tamale of Makerere University, they got themselves metabolically “drunk” with leadership positions in a female-led Parliament— reminding colleagues in a male-dominated House that “behind every successful man there is a woman” and that they are also competent to chair Committees.

But the popular view is that promoting gender openness, women’s empowerment and ending violence against women is essential to achieving human development, poverty eradication and economic growth. There is no dispute over this fact, but it’s also true that women should be appointed to leadership positions in the country not because of their femininity but because of their competence to lead. This way, the feminism struggle in the country will achieve its objectives.

As seen from the events in Parliament last week, it has become apparent that women need men as allies in their emancipation struggle. At the same time, women’s rights activists must embrace reality and deal with the bottlenecks while reflecting on where they have come from and where they are going. In the same way, the fact that men have been far too silent on gender debate, a silence which has probably been misinterpreted as men feeling guilty, is also part of the dilemma.

Women emancipation has suffered badly owing to their misconceived notions of liberty. They failed to recognise the emotional relationship between a man and a woman, yet it’s important to educate ourselves as to the basic gender differences which exist between men and women, and accept the fact that the differences are there, are real, and are not going away. This way, feminists can learn to use the differences to enrich the emancipation struggle other than using confrontational means.

Leadership in the Family and Gender Differences (a ... - Blogspot

As I said, I was watching the girls play when I realized that girls determine leadership very differently than boys.  The girls decided on a general theme for the game, "school."  Then the battle began.  Everyone started trying to make the rules for the game: who would be the teacher, the students, sit in which desk, etc.  The leader of the group was the one who finally asserted her will and was allowed to make the rule for the game.  For girls, the leader is the rule maker. Growing up, I was one of three brothers.  When we decided to play a game the rules were agreed upon prior to beginning the game.  Eg. Kickball:  Number of outs, boundaries, can you get someone out by hitting them with the ball, etc. are all determined at the outset.  The leader is determined by who picks the team.  For boys, the leader is the team captain. Can you see how different these two methods of determining leadership are?  Now, consider the impact that this has on our spousal relationships.  Who is the leader in the household according to these two different methods?  The husband thinks that he is the leader of a game (marriage) whose rules are set.  He is the leader because he picked the team (he gave her a ring and asked her to be on his team).  He is the team captain, and when you are the captain you are the leader for the duration of the game ('till death do us part!). Can you see the chaos that can ensue?  The husband thinks the rules are set and the wife keeps changing them.  But every boy knows that you can't change the rules once the game starts!  The wife, however, cannot understand when her husband is having such a hard time adjusting to the rule changes on the fly.  After all, every girl knows that the leader has the right and is full expected to exert her authority by adjusting the rules in the middle of the game.  It is the followers job to keep up and adapt.  The way that we learn how leadership is determined and exercised, according to our gender, impacts our expectations of marriage in our spouse, but we are playing with two very different expectations. These two views of leadership within the marriage are not only incongruent, they are incompatible. Both think they are the leader, and are likely making each other crazy because the other is not playing according to the same leadership definitions and expectations.

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