I'd vote for Condi an a heartbeat. And feel GOOD about my vote for the first time in ages!

I don't care what philosophical differences we may have.

I TRUST her!
I trust her judgement and I trust her will.

Iran would not get the bomb if she were our next president. The fight would be over when the fight was won.

And a black woman! Sweeet icing on the cake!

I believe there are plenty of women capable. The only question is, would one that is capable please step forward and teach the present group of lackluster candidates a thing or three. The only thing in favor of her position was perhaps her recognition of the difficulties facing one at the time she expressed such a premise... when there was so much misogynistic antagonism. I believe men in the armed forces, are much more receptive to the idea of taking orders from a female commander in chief today if she demonstrated a strong, decisive will. Why not? It may have been a temporal condition, but I do not believe it should have been universal in her time and certainly it is less of a barrier today. I would happily vote for the right woman. I wonder what she would have to say about this today. We have had many fine examples around the world of strong women in high office.

The better measure is that HP lost ground under her leadership in nearly every sector they produce products in.

I have seen a board fire a CEO that increased revenue by triple over 8 years. Its makes no sense, but it happens.

In Fiorina's case Dell became the leader in Laptops and Desktop PC systems and when she started HP was.

Printers dropped in sales significantly but I am not sure that was her so much as just market changes.

All in all her CEO position was not what anyone can look at and rationally call a success. Her time as CEO of HP is not something that would raise her in my eyes as an executive that makes business grow.

I'm with you on this, zero. If a woman is qualified to be a successful secretary of State such as Condilezza Rice was, she is qualified to be the President. It takes a unique person to want the position in the first place. After all you compromise time with your family, if you have one, and your spouse, if you have one. Women serve in the military, are spies, some are great scientists and we know they can be important philosophers. We have female governors standing up to male Presidents. I'll admit I can' t understand wanting the job, but some do and I say go for it.

I've always thought that AR's objection to there being a woman president was inconsistent with her literary work. She created the characters of Dagny Taggart, who was the operating vice-president of a transcontinental railroad and Kira Arguonova, who wanted to become an engineer and build bridges. Both of these jobs require that the woman have authority over men. So if she's creating stories depicting strong, intelligent women having authority over men, why stop short of saying a woman can be President of the United States?

Thank You Very Much for that link -- very interesting!!! -- j

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I completely reject it. Judge people based on their own traits, not the traits of a group they belong to.

I would like to see a job description before I answer. What does a president do exactly? I think our current one would like to know too.

In Rand's context and looking at the ideal relationship between men and women, yes.

But, of course, we will never have candidates who hold the ideals that makes that so.

Thatcher was admirable in many ways, but certainly not feminine or admired by men for all the right reasons. Clinton - won't even go there.

Rand was a man-worshipper and a hero-worshipper. Her standards were just higher than those of women who fling themselves at rock stars and sports figures. Women choose to submit to men they see as outstanding, driven by their hormones to mate with the most superior specimens. No matter how romantically, intellectually or abstractly we try to categorize partner selection, most relationships between men and women have a sexual undercurrent. Men are generally less choosy, being willing to donate their sperm to all willing (and sometimes unwilling) candidates.

It is interesting to see how Rand conflates sexual surrender with abstaining from a position of authority over men.

There is a reason that women may not be appropriate for certain positions of power, such as the military. Women are the life givers and life nurturers. How does that fit with a role of sending men out to murder other men (and women and children)?

Or perhaps that would be the very best reason to put a woman in charge: put an end to all wars, killings and atrocities. Just look at how some of you talk about the brass balls of Thatcher. Yet the only excuse for men (the humans with balls intended for reproduction) to go out and kill other men is ostensibly to protect their own females and offspring, and to secure for their own the resources for a flourishing life, and the killing of others is excused because those others are seen as evil, or unnecessary, or as rivals.

Rand also did not approve of women's liberation. It is certainly admirable that she yearned for qualities in men that could be admired, and those with the highest standard of values would hook up with those of their own level, leaving, presumably, the lesser folk to each other's sex drives.

The royals of old, say, Queen Elizabeth the first, were wily users of their feminine wiles to keep foreign royal houses at bay with possible alliances, or marrying off their princesses to seal their peace treaties. Culturally females are trophies. We have a ways to go before we can give any female unqualified approval to make life-and-death decisions on our behalf. But if we can define a President as an administrative function, not as a queen bee, there is no reason a suitable female cannot perform that job. A woman president would not be a monolithic power. She would have hundreds of advisors, males and females, just as our male President has female advisors. Too bad so many of them try to compete against the males in degrees of brutality they accept as state craft.

I would happily vote for a woman candidate who promised to end all wars, bring all the troops home, deal with other nations through treaties, not threats, and form relations based on trading goods, not trading bullets. It is time for humans who value individuals and freedom and prosperity to eliminate the war meme from human relationships. If we don't stop it, enmities and all the evils that grow out of them will continue to escalate, and that is in no one's rational self-interest.

I have read it carefully, TD. Re-read just now just to be sure.

So - bottom line - do you agree? Women shouldn't be President?

Like I said - Just curious.

Excellent reply Zen and greatly appreciated.

I'm a smart guy, but no match for AR. I can never fault her logic. (That's why she's a Genius and her picture hangs on my wall.)

But as applied in this case, while I agree with the innate differences between men and women,

I'm not sure a woman trying to be President is "trying to be a man" or "do a function better done by a man."

As to World Leaders not accepting a Woman as the World's-Most-Powerful, well, honestly, given the right woman, that would be an error made at their own peril.

As with all people, I'd judge her by her actions.

I've known plenty of tough women you'd be a fool to cross.

And as to the "all-or-nothing" claim. I can only humbly disagree.

(I know you're not 'sposed to be humble but it's okay, I'm not.)

Albert Einstein was as great in his profession as She was in Hers. But he was wrong about quantum physics. That didn't negate his life's work.

In truth, I think most of AR's objection had more to do with the time she lived in than a timeless objective reality.

But I'm not saying she's wrong and I'm right.

I'm saying it's not outrageous to disagree with her on an minor point.



(Sorry, still can't edit out the line feeds.)

The problem with this logic is that there is not one woman and one man. There are millions of each gender with a wide variety of skills and abilities.

Even if there is a difference between the means of the two populations there is a wide overlap between them so each individual must be judged on his/her actual skills not the theoretical abilities of the the group they belong to.

And, finally, I'm not sure we even know what type of skills are actually important in a good president. And even that may change from era to era.

But, it has some merit, if we agree men and women have different physical make ups, mental processes and even disregarding cultural imprinting. If women are different fundamentally from men, maybe there is some foundation for Ayn's opinion

Rand was expressing an opinion here. I disagree with her. Would I have agreed at the time 40 years ago? I don't know. Possibly.

I do find it disappointing that many objectivists disagree with one point of Rand's and then believe Objectivism itself has flaws. She based her beliefs on reality, and her reality was reflected in this opinion. Had she been asked the same question today, I'm sure her answer would be very different, because her reality would now include Margaret Thatcher. Even those who disagreed with Thatcher's politics (even violently), few deny her role as "Commander In Chief" was admirable in the Falklands conflict.

But Hillary has the look of a real bitch. I just don't see her winning, regardless of all the smiling pictures her handlers get the media to show us

Very well said

I don't see anyone running that's fit, honorable, or trustworthy enough for the job. The women that are running are looters and incompetent at business. (As are the men.)

I think Ayn Rand makes the mistake of projecting her personal problems onto all other women. We all have seen varying types of romantic relationships, with different degrees of success that did not correlate with the 'type' of interaction - the success depended on the individuals.

For someone to define what aspects of a relationship must be important for someone else...and the go on to say that she would not vote for a woman to be president because of her concern for the ability of that woman to have an equal relationship with a man is just uncalled for.

All reigning queens (including Maria Theresa of Austria, who was just 'the wife of the king') have a spouse who is definitionally 'less than they are'. And why should it be essential for a woman to have a husband at all? Maybe she wants to be a single President.

I am, by choice, single and childless. It is not Ayn Rand's prerogative to dictate that I am required to long for a husband and therefore am ineligible to run for President. (NB I do not object to the idea of having a male significant other someday - and he would have to be what I considered an equal. Whether or not I were President would have nothing to do with it, and my hypothetically being POTUS would not have any impact on my choice. There are many types of power, and 'equal and alike are not the same'.)

Jan

Thanks for sharing that text. I believe this is the part that she got wrong, "The issue is primarily psychological. It involves a woman's fundamental view of life, of herself and of her basic values..."

I think she's mistaken about "a woman's fundamental view of life." Is there a way to measure a person's fundamental view of life so we could compare by gender?

Ayn Rand did indeed say that. I read an essay in which she gave an explanation of her remark that she would not seek the job, nor vote for any woman who sought it.

It had nothing to do with lack of experience in military service or command.

It all had to do, believe it or not, with sex.

She took the position that no rational woman could derive any sexual satisfaction by being with a man less powerful than herself. And because the President of the United States would be the most powerful person in the world, any woman holding that job would never find a man to be her equal. Any relationship she had would necessarily reverse the usual roles of man and woman in bed.

So she said.

Now the best contrast I ever heard, were these lines by Mr. Aaron Sorkin for his play, "A Few Good Men"--or at least for the lines in his screenplay, as Jack Nicholson so brilliantly voiced them:

"There is nothing on this earth sexier...that a woman you have to salute in the morning. Promote 'em all, I say, because this is true. If you haven't gotten [f__o] from a superior officer, well, you're just letting the best things in life pass you by. Now my problem is, I happen to be a colonel. So I'll have to go on taking cold showers until they elect some [woman] President, heh, heh, heh."

I cringed when I first heard her say that. The problem was the times. Her assertion doesn't seem to have been based on observable, measurable facts and I don't know of anything in Objectivism to support her statement.

To my experience Objectivism has remained timeless, which any good philosophy should be. Every complete philosophy should explain reality, and reality itself doesn't change. There was a section in her Introduction to Objectivist Episomology where she compared the mental capabilities of Man to that of Animals, and some of the facts that she used have since been discovered to be incorrect.

As I recall it didn't ruin her discussion but it at least affected it.

Go back to AR's paragraphs on racism and substitute gender. Does it all still fit? If yes then her comment about a female POTUS is incorrect. (Even if it doesn't fit she's incorrect, we just can't use that particular text to demonstrate it.)

Mainly fired because her policies lead to a big drop in profit. I used to remember the details but it was too many years ago.

This is where I also part company with Ms. R. I think her attitude toward women and politics is an inheritance from her Russian upbringing. Well...no one's perfect.