The Good, But Not Best Argument
for women in leadership
The Argument: “There’s nothing particularly wrong with having women in leadership. It’s just not the best, and why would we want to settle for anything less than the best? Having women in leadership is good, but having men leading with women following along is beautiful. It’s like the singing of a duet. Men sing the melody and women sing the more beautiful harmony. If we both sing the melody, we lose the beauty of the song. Why would we want to do that?”
Counterargument 1: This argument assumes that men are naturally better at singing melody (i.e., leading) than women. The two disagreeing parties would need to agree on what qualities make the best leaders and then see if those qualities belong to one gender.
Counterargument 2: If men were better suited for leadership than women, we would see women-led groups suffering far more than men-led groups. Historically, I don’t believe this is the case. The increased crime rate among young men without fathers does not act as a suitable case study. An argument showing that an absentee father causes more social damage than an absentee mother does not prove who is the best leader. It just proves which is the lesser of two evils. Likewise, the loss of a leg makes mobility more difficult than the loss of an arm, but better to have all limbs present and functioning towards one objective.
Counterargument 3: The metaphor of women singing the melody instead of the harmony assumes that if women were to lead, they would do it the same way as men. This is like saying, “If a father takes charge of the children, he will do it the same way as his wife.” This is an incorrect assumption. As seen throughout history, leading and parenting are done by men and women in many different ways.
Counterargument 4: This metaphor claims that if women sing the melody, the harmony part of the song will be lost. However, this argument does not explain what that metaphorical loss might be. If it implies child-rearing, it would have to prove that child-rearing is incompatible with or altogether different than leading. Furthermore, to follow the train of argument, to whatever degree women are barred from leadership, men would need to be barred from child-rearing to ensure men don’t sing harmony with the women.
Counterargument 5: This argument claims that the harmony is more beautiful than the melody. However, if the harmony of a song is sung by itself, it loses its beauty. It becomes just as plain as the melody. Sung separately, both melody and harmony lose something. What makes each part beautiful is that they are both submitting to the Conductor and his sheet music as they sing the song together.
To read more arguments and counterarguments like this, click on the links below