Morgan forgets she came late to the party:
The funny thing is, Nate, that you do get a pass here. If you weren’t a regular here and some liberal guy came in and said he stayed at home and was supported by his wife, every yahoo in this place would call him a panty-waist, pussy-whipped Nancy Boy.
The Pan-Gargler never got any such pass, as yahoos and non-yahoos alike certainly made all of the requisite dismissals before we eventually got bored with it. Hence the occasional “don’t you have some ironing to do”, etc. But the way in which he comported himself during that time made it clear that the label didn’t stick very well; the process was, of course, classic male group dynamics. By the way, if you’ve never read the old post about Nate and Bane surviving TEOTWAWKI together, you’ve truly missed out.
If Dr. Who went down to the bank tomorrow and took your name off the bank account and refused to give you a penny or allow you to make financial decisions, the only recourse you would have would be to divorce her. She is kind to you, though, and doesn’t do that. However, she has the power. You don’t. Ergo, she is the leader.
Morgan commits three errors here. First, she conflates leadership with earned income. This very sloppy thinking can be easily disproven in the broad sense either by comparing the dictionary definitions of the two concepts or by the various examples already provided. Indeed, in the case of the corporate CEO, he is hired to provide leadership by those who are in authority over him, the owners. They have the power, he is the leader and the question of income is irrelevant because it can flow to the advantage of one or the other, or even be negative for the owners, depending on the financial circumstances.
Her second error can be seen in the narrow sense of power, leadership and income within the married relationship. Morgan implicitly accepts core feminist ideology here, which states that an unemployed married woman is under the power of her husband due to his income-earning. This is why many women believe they must have careers, in order to maintain their independence even within the context of a married relationship. This is a poisonous and destructive belief; it is also false.
As Camille Paglia points out, when one party labors and the other party spends the greater part of the fruit of that labor, the power clearly rests with the latter party. Is it the employer or the employee who is considered to hold the power? Morgan and the feminists have the matter precisely backward,
Her third error is, in light of the other two, relatively minor, but it is a howler and reveals her fundamentally feminine outlook. If Dr. Who were to cease providing funds to the Pan-Galactic one, divorce is far from his only recourse. Being a man, and therefore oriented towards problem-solving, it would be the simplest of matters to get up, ignore the household chores and go out to work, thereby obtaining the means to buy the truck, motorcycle or whatever else Dr. Who might wish to deny him. In fact, I daresay that divorce would not even enter into his mind, because most men do not consider it their inherent right to be provided for, even those men who are sufficiently provided for. Even if we accepted the feminist notion of income=power, it would be clear that Dr. Who holds that unique power only as long as Nate is willing to sit in his hot tub playing X-Box.
Now, as to a proper practical definition of leadership. The leader, in any household, is the one with two votes in the event of disagreement. If a woman wishes to homeschool her children and her husband wants them in the public schools, the probable leader of that household is easily determined by how the children are schooled. In fact, women are the heads of many households; I believe this is a common reason for female marital dissatisfaction as the natural desire to be in control conflicts with the natural desire to not be responsible.
The good leader takes into account everyone’s wishes, makes the best decision he can and accepts responsibility for the consequences. While it is not impossible for women to be leaders, in general they are much happier to be influencers as a distaste for decision-making and an absolute hatred for being held accountable by others are very common traits among the female sex.
And no, there can never be two leaders, especially not in a relationship. One need only survey the ignominious history of matrix management or organizations with two heads to understand this. If there are two “leaders”, then there is not a leader, there is only the inevitable power struggle until a leader is settled upon.