Ralph Peters actually thinks women have aided the West’s capitalist advantage:
The sudden transition of women from men’s property to men’s partners in our own country unleashed dazzling creative energies. In the historical blink of an eye, we doubled our effective human capital — and made our society immeasurably more humane. Our half-century of stunning economic growth has many roots, but none goes deeper than the expansion of opportunities for women.
But such unprecedented freedom threatens traditional societies. Behavior patterns that prevailed for millennia are suddenly in doubt. Relationships that granted males the power of life and death over female relatives have disappeared from successful cultures. Defensively, the failing cultures left behind cling harder than ever to the old ways amid the tumult of global change.
The true symbols of the War on Terror are the Islamic veil and the two-piece woman’s business suit.
The math is basic. No civilization that excludes half its population from full participation in society and the economy can compete with the United States and its key allies. Yet Middle Eastern societies, especially, have dug in their heels to resist change. Some, such as Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, have tumbled backward….
The good news is that the forces of oppression can make plenty of tactical mischief but can’t achieve strategic success. No society in which women are veiled and sequestered can achieve the dynamism and force of one in which women are senators, judges, CEOs, doctors and military pilots. Freedom will win, if not swiftly.
Of course, the small fact that America and the Western European countries were establishing colonies and achieving a position of total dominance in the world prior to the establishment of the Equalitarian Society that Peters is lauding here tends to pull the rug out from under his argument.
I’m very curious about his notion of “stunning economic growth” considering how the growth today is slower than it was in the 1800s, and he offers absolutely no explanation of how the expansion of opportunities for women have created this “stunning” growth.
As for female military pilots, I’m sure their ability to kill themselves trying and failing to land on carriers has got the Chinese Air Force pilots shaking in their flight jackets.