If women were in charge, the world would be a better place

I know many, many fine men with whom I’d trust my life. There are also men who I’ve read about or seen, or heard about, who are clearly good and decent people. I’ve grown up and lived all my life with men who have respected me for who I am, with us regarding each other as equals in our relationships. So, personally, I have nothing to complain about when it comes to gender equality. I’m fortunate to live in a society that has a sex discrimination commissioner whose role it is to advance gender equality, which still has a way to go.

The tragedy, and that is not too exaggerated a term, is that, more and more, we are not seeing any of those good men in power in so many countries, and we are certainly not seeing women in power in most countries.

Wounded Palestinians, many of whom are women and children, wait for treatment at the al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City.Credit: AP

Right now, when our world should be pulling together to fight climate change before the planet is ruined for future generations, what we are actually hearing are more and more of drums of war, beaten by men for all sorts of reasons: territorial ambitions, extremist beliefs, grabs for power, self-interest and self-aggrandisement, or differences that are pronounced to be irreconcilable.

Women and children are the collateral damage. And it’s simply crazy. Women, half the population of the world, still have virtually no say in how it’s run.

Instead, we have the most aggressive of males constantly repeating the history of wars and conflicts, all of which, as anyone looking back can see, are the most ineffectual approach to resolving differences in a way that benefits all. Instead, the aim is to go all out to subjugate the opponent, who eventually rises to fight back. And so it goes.

The craziest thing is that we humans have the intelligence to develop the most remarkable inventions. Think of medical science. But, tragically, that intelligence has not been partnered with wisdom.

Intelligence and wisdom are two different things.

We are now watching aghast as the horrors of the Hamas attack on Israel are being followed by the horrors of Israel’s attack on Gaza, overshadowing, for the present, the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine. But these are only two of the armed conflicts (as defined by international humanitarian law) that have been fought in recent times around the world, with many of them ongoing.

The Geneva Academy has identified more than 110 of them, most within countries, and some between countries. The most affected region is the Middle East and North Africa, where there are have been more than 45 armed conflicts: Israel, Palestine, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara.

There have been more than 35 in Africa: in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, with Western powers and/or neighbouring countries intervening in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria and Somalia.

Twenty-one armed conflicts have been identified in Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines, with two international armed conflicts, between India and Pakistan, and between India and China.

The world should be pulling together to fight climate change. Credit: Bloomberg

There have been seven conflicts in Europe: the war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Russia currently occupying Crimea (Ukraine), Transdniestria (Moldova), as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia), while there are two conflicts within Ukraine, in the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and Azerbaijan is reclaiming parts of Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia.

With the six in Latin America, within Mexico and Colombia, some involve drug cartels organised to military strength. And we should also be counting those countries buying into some of these conflicts.

To see all these on a map is horrific, with each representing many deaths and countless refugees, becoming homeless and desperately trying to find refuge in countries which are feeling overwhelmed and defensively closing borders. Countries not directly affected are becoming destabilised, both because of this, and because of internal conflicts between residents originating from countries, or regions, or religions in conflict with each other.

Just look at what is happening in Australia, with supporters of Israel and of Palestine, understandably antagonistic to each other, and at risk from each other, right here.

Looking at that, let us take in the wisdom of 97-year-old Holocaust survivor Sarah Saaroni (one of Israel’s original Jewish settlers before moving to Australia) regarding the tragedy unfolding on both sides. Her main message, recently expressed in this masthead, is that “in a war, nobody wins”, the real victims are “the innocent people on both sides ... [They] always lose the most”, and “everyone has the right to live where they want to live, and how they would like to live, in peace”.

So, are we all just going to sit on our hands and do nothing while the planet is blowing up around us, here, there and everywhere? Or can the women and the children of the world – allied with all the good men that there are – come together and cry enough? Before it is all too late.

Dr Anne Ring is a health sociologist and freelance writer.

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