Toxic patriarchy

Published on 19/07/2012 00:00

Emma Cowing, in her piece about motherhood and women’s careers (Perspective, 18 July), is dead right: numbers of female senior managers are irrelevant if they are expected to behave in the same way as toxic male managers in a culture that is macho, workaholic and self-serving.

You reported earlier this week on managers who are working ever longer hours and in the process of exercising their power over others are bullying subordinates who are afraid to tell them the “bad news”.

We have seen many examples of this recently in the stories of unethical behaviour by banks and now the G4S debacle.

One hopes that such 
relics of a deeply patriarchal 
culture are on the wane. It is one of the less attractive features of the “Abrahamic” religions –
Judaism, Christianity and Islam – that in their extreme versions they still appear obsessed with sexual procreation and an emphasis on the “male” values of hierarchy, aggression and submission to a patriarchal “God” figure.

We will know that female values have been accepted when we see real evidence of tolerance, compassion and kindness on the national stage as well as in the workplace.

(Dr) Mary Brown

Dalvenie Road

Banchory