Female Supremacy Articles - Page 25
Feminine guys better for long-term love
Yahoo News
August 8, 2007
LONDON (AFP) - Women see masculine-looking men as more unsuitable long-term partners but men with more feminine features are seen as more committed and less likely to stray, researchers said Wednesday.
Scientists at the universities of Durham and St Andrews came to the conclusion by asking more than 400 British men and women to make judgments on character after looking at digitally-altered pictures of men's faces.
The web-based test asked participants to rate the face for traits such as dominance, ambition, wealth, faithfulness, commitment, parenting skills, and warmth.
Men with square jaws, larger noses and smaller eyes were classed as significantly more dominant, less faithful, worse parents and as having less warm personalities.
Those with finer facial features, fuller lips, wide eyes and thinner, more curved eyebrows on the other hand were viewed as a better bet for long-term relationships.
And healthier-looking faces, for example those with better complexions, were seen as more desirable in terms of all personality traits compared to those who looked unhealthy.
Older faces were also generally viewed more positively compared to younger ones.
The scientists said there was a "high amount of agreement" between women about what they see in terms of personality when seeing a man's face and they may well use their impression to decide whether or not to engage with him.
"That decision-making process all depends on what a woman is looking for in a relationship at that time of her life," said Lynda Boothroyd, from Durham Universitys Department of Psychology.
Her colleague, David Perrett from St Andrews, said: "Our results contradict claims that machismo denotes fitness and disease immunity. Masculinity may buy you dominance but not necessarily tip top physical condition.
"Instead women see a healthy guy as the source of wealth, and fit for family life."
The research is published in the latest edition of the journal "Personality and Individual Differences".
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For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor
By SAM ROBERTS
The New York Times
August 3, 2007
Young women in New York and several of the nation’s other largest cities who work full time have forged
ahead of men in wages, according to an analysis of recent census data.
The shift has occurred in New York since 2000 and even earlier in Los Angeles, Dallas and a few other cities.
Economists consider it striking because the wage gap between men and women nationally has narrowed more slowly and has even widened in recent years among one part of that group: college-educated women in their 20s. But in New York, young college-educated women’s wages as a percentage of men’s rose slightly between 2000 and 2005.
The analysis was prepared by Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, who first reported his findings in Gotham Gazette, published online by the Citizens Union Foundation. It shows that women of all educational levels from 21 to 30 living in New York City and working full time made 117 percent of men’s wages, and even more in Dallas, 120 percent. Nationwide, that group of women made much less: 89 percent of the average full-time pay for men.
Just why young women at all educational levels in New York and other big cities have fared better than their peers elsewhere is a matter of some debate. But a major reason, experts say, is that women have been graduating from college in larger numbers than men, and that many of those women seem to be gravitating toward major urban areas.
In 2005, 53 percent of women in their 20s working in New York were college graduates, compared with only 38 percent of men of that age. And many of those women are not marrying right after college, leaving them freer to focus on building careers, experts said.
“Citified college-women are more likely to be nonmarried and childless, compared with their suburban
sisters, so they can and do devote themselves to their careers,” said Andrew Hacker, a Queens College
sociologist and the author of “Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Men and Women.”
Kelly Kraft, 25, is one of those women. A native of Indiana, she came to New York after graduating from
the University of Dayton, got a job in publishing and now works for an advertising agency. “I just felt New
York had a lot more exciting opportunities in different industries than Indianapolis,” she said.
“In women’s-studies courses you always heard that men were making more money, and it was a disadvantage being a woman,” Ms. Kraft said. “It’s great that it’s starting to turn around.”
New York may also be more attractive to college-educated women, some experts said, because many jobs in the city pay higher salaries than similar ones elsewhere in the country. “New York is an achievement-based city, and achievement here is based on how well you use your brain, not what you do with your back,” said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
In 1970, all New York women in their 20s made $7,000 less than men, on average, adjusted for inflation. By 2000, they were about even. In 2005, according to an analysis of the latest census results they were making about $5,000 more: a median wage of $35,653, or 117 percent of the $30,560 reported by men in that age group.
Women in their 20s also make more than men in Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and a few other big cities. But only in Dallas do young women’s wages surpass men’s by a larger amount than in New York. In Dallas, women make 120 percent of what men do, although their median wage there, $25,467, was much lower than that of women in New York.
Diana Rhoten, a program director at the Social Science Research Council in New York, said well-educated women were migrating to urban centers where there are diverse professional opportunities and less gender discrimination than in smaller cities and suburbs. There may also be nonworkplace factors at play, she said.
“Previously, female migration patterns were determined primarily by their husband’s educational levels or
employment needs, even if both were college-educated,” she said. “Today, highly qualified women are moving for their own professional opportunities and personal interests. It’s no longer an era of power couple migration to, but one of power couple formation in places like New York.”
Dr. Beveridge, based his findings of young women’s earning power on data from the census bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey used to analyze people working at least 35 hours a week 40 or more weeks a year.
It is not clear whether this is the front edge of a trend in which women will gradually move ahead of men
in all age groups. Typically, women have fallen further behind men in earnings as they get older. That
is because some women stop working altogether, work only part time or encounter a glass ceiling in
promotions and raises.
But as women enrolled in college and graduate school continue to outnumber men, gender wage gaps among older workers may narrow, too, experts said. Even among New Yorkers in their 30s, women now make as much as men.
In New York, the pay gap between men and women varied by borough, profession, race and ethnicity, the
analysis found.
Young women from the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens make more than young men from those boroughs. Young women from Staten Island make the same as men. Among Manhattanites, the median wage for workers in their 20s was $46,859 for men and $45,840 for women.
The gender wage advantage for women in their 20s was widest among whites with some college education, blacks and Asians with advanced degrees and Hispanic women who were high school or college graduates.
Young men in the city still make more than young women in a number of jobs, including psychologist,
registered nurse, high school teacher, bank teller and bartender. In high-paying Wall Street jobs, men
heavily outnumber women, which is one reason that Martin Kohli, a regional economist with the federal
Bureau of Labor Statistics, described the women’s wage gains as “a surprising finding.”
But in jobs that were once defined as male preserves — including police officer and private investigator — where gender barriers are crumbling, young men and women in New York had the same median wages: a little more than $40,000. And women in their 20s now make more than men in a wide variety of other jobs: as doctors, personnel managers, architects, economists, lawyers, stock clerks, customer service representatives, editors and reporters.
Melissa J. Manfro, a 24-year-old lawyer who was raised in upstate New York, offered her own theory on why younger female lawyers are outearning their male peers: a desire to begin their careers earlier to
prepare for starting families.
“It seems that women tend to take less time off between college and law school, and therefore become
more senior, and, hence, make more money, at a younger age,” she said. “I would, of course, like to think
that means that women know what they want sooner than men. But it probably has more to do with the
unfortunate fact that women need to keep in mind biological time constraints and feel a great deal of
pressure to build an entire career before refocusing on marriage and children.”
Though Dr. Beveridge’s analysis showed women making strides, it also showed that men were in some ways moving backward. Among all men — including those with college degrees — real wages, adjusted for inflation, have declined since 1970. And among full-time workers with advanced degrees, wages for men increased only marginally even as they soared for women. Nationally, men’s wages in general declined while women’s remained the same.
Several experts also said that rising income for women might affect marriage rates if women expect their
mates to have at least equivalent salaries and education.
“When New York college women say there are few eligible men around, they’re right if they mean
they’ll only settle for someone with an education akin to their own,” Professor Hacker said.
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Kings don’t rule the castle — Queens do
Women are the deciders, dominant ones in relationships, study finds
MSNBC
July 23, 2007
Men might throw their weight around at the office, but at home, women are the bosses.
A study, which was just released, finds that wives have more power than their husbands in making decisions and dominating discussions.
"The study at least suggests that the marriage is a place where women can exert some power," said lead author David Vogel, a psychologist at Iowa State University (ISU). "Whether or not it's because of changing societal roles, we don't know.”
The results counter past research.
“Most of the research literature in psychology has suggested that women have less power,” Vogel told LiveScience. “They have largely based that on the fact that traditionally men earn more money and so therefore would have the ability to make big decisions in the relationship.” That wasn’t the case in this study.
Spouse survey says ...
Vogel, Megan Murphy, also of ISU, and their colleagues surveyed 72 married couples in which the spouses were an average of 33 years old and had been married for about seven years. Most of the participants (66 percent) were Caucasian, followed by Asian (22 percent), Hispanic (5 percent) and African American (4 percent). The final 3 percent represented other nationalities.
Each spouse answered questions about relationship satisfaction and overall decision-making ability. Then, each spouse noted a relationship problem that could not be resolved without the spouse’s cooperation. While money and housework were popular picks, sex didn’t come up much as a marital issue.
Topics chosen by husbands/wives included:
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Money — 18 percent (husbands) / 13 percent (wives)
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Housework — 15 percent / 15 percent
•
Friends and family — 10 percent / 19 percent
•
Feelings and emotions — 10 percent / 13 percent
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Time together — 13 percent / 10 percent
•
Making decisions — 18 percent / 4 percent
•
Sex — 4 percent / 1 percent
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Intimacy — 1 percent / 1 percent
•
Communication — 3 percent / 4 percent
•
Children — husbands never chose this topic; 3 percent of wives
•
Other relationship changes — 4 percent / 17 percent
The scientists videotaped the couples while they discussed each of the issues for 10 minutes.
Women power
Trained volunteers coded the videotapes using a scale that rated couples’ interactions based on words and behaviors associated with blame (blames, accuses and criticizes the partner); demand (nags, pressures for change, requests); withdrawal and avoidance (avoids discussing the problem by hesitating, changing topics, diverting attention or looking away); and discussion.
Wives were more demanding — asking for changes in the relationship or in their partner — and were more likely to get their way than the husbands. This held regardless of who had chosen the issue.
The women were not just talking more than their husbands.
"It wasn't just that the women were bringing up issues that weren't being responded to, but that the men were actually going along with what they said,” Vogel explained. “[Women] were communicating more powerful messages, and men were responding to those messages by agreeing or giving in.”
One reason for in-charge wives could be that they carry the weight of making sure the family farm is running smoothly.
"Women are responsible for overseeing the relationship, making sure the relationship runs, that everything gets done, and that everybody's happy," Murphy said.
Wife power could signal a harmonious couple. "There's been research that suggests that's a marker of a healthy marriage — that men accept influence from their wives," Murphy said.
The study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology, was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health along with ISU.
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Adam's Curse - A Future Without Men
A Story of Sex, Genetics & the Extinction of Men
By Kimberly Powell
About.com
Are men an endangered species? According to Bryan Sykes, the answer is yes. A cross between scientific journal and science fiction novel, his new book, "Adam's Curse," explores the fascinating science of sex and gender, in an engaging, highly-readable format. Some of the sensitive issues and surprising theories presented in this book obviously invite controversy, but it's still a captivating read.
No more dirty bathrooms with the toilet seat up! Taking a look 125,000 years into the future, leading genetic scientist Bryan Sykes has concluded that men, slowly but surely, are headed for extinction.
Written in anecdotal style, his recent book, "Adams Curse: A Future Without Men," is inciting controversy with its startling theory that the male of the species will only last for another 5000 generations before irreparable damage done to the Y-chromosome consigns him to the history books. Sykes uses his own research to show that the all-important male Y-chromosome is degenerating as it advances through evolution, rendering men infertile with increasing frequency, and the female X-chromosome (mDNA), which has a "twin" and can repair itself to minimize bad mutations, is slowly taking over. In other words, women are winning the evolutionary battle of the sexes.
By rendering men infertile, isn't the female chromosome also architecting its own destruction? Sykes addresses this issue as well, saying that men could be rescued with "massive intervention," but it would be quite possible to survive without them.
"We could survive as a species with no men at all by arranging fertilizations not between sperm and egg, but rather between one egg and another, and the techniques for that are already here." Sykes actually goes so far as to envision a world made up entirely of women - a world where even lesbian couples could have babies with genes coming from both parents. At this point he quips, "It is almost certain to happen and, unlike human cloning, I doubt there would be serious ethical objections. Men are now on notice."
Controversially, Sykes also speculates on the answers to such questions as: Is there a genetic cause for men's greed, aggression, and promiscuity? Is there such a thing as a male homosexual gene? Some of his theories are surprising, and many are likely put forth, at least in part, to invite debate and controversy.
An entertaining and insightful read, "Adams Curse" is a book of theories, not facts, obviously written with "bestseller" in mind. Bryan Sykes, professor of genetics at Oxford University, is certainly an intelligent man, doing a remarkable job of presenting complex theories in a way that the average lay-person can grasp, but he also can't seem to resist a bit of grandstanding.
"Impressing females is a costly business, as many of you know," he says, as he describes the efforts of the male of many species to cajole or coerce females into accepting their sperm.
Unchauvinistically, Bryan Sykes even proclaims a benefit from men's extinction and the lifting of Adam's Curse. When sperm no longer fight one another for access to eggs, he says, the "destructive spiral of greed and ambition fueled by sexual selection diminishes, and the sickness of our beautiful planet eases." Sounds good, although a bit far-fetched. A lot can happen in 125,000 years.
While it could benefit from more discussion of alternative theories, "Adam's Curse" is both educational and enlightning - a book that makes you question, wonder, and want to learn more.
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It's a woman's world on campus
Brendan O'Keefe
July 04, 2007
WOMEN continue to outnumber men on Australia's university campuses, the 2006 census confirms.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, released last week, show that female tertiary students outnumbered males by nearly 100,000.
There were 421,249 women to 324,209 men, making women about 57 per cent of the student population. The proportion of female students is higher than that in the general community of 100 women to 98 men.
Women's dominance of student numbers on campus has been growing since at least the early 1990s. In 1991 the proportion of female students was 52per cent; in 1996 it was 54 per cent; and in 2001, 55 per cent.
Demographer Ian Dobson said higher retention rates for girls to Year 12 would translate into a higher proportion at university.
Dr Dobson, honorary research fellow at Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research, also said that while women were under-represented in a limited number of programs (information technology and engineering, for example), they were over-represented in most other programs.
And male school-leavers were likelier to go to TAFE.
In the general population, university-age males (15 to 29) outnumber females by 45,275: 2,013,238 to 1,967,963.
Women's dominance is starker among the indigenous student body: more than twice as many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were at a tertiary institutions than men, 4725 to 2331.
Terry Mason, chairman of the National Tertiary Education Union's indigenous tertiary education policy committee, said courses that covered areas of need in Aboriginal communities were popular with indigenous students.
"Education, health and welfare are key areas," Mr Mason said. "People are looking at being proactive in those areas and traditionally they have a higher number of women employed in them."
The proportion of Aboriginal men in education courses was beginning to increase, he said, but the indigenous student body was shrinking overall.
Mr Mason, a senior lecturer in education and co-ordinator of the Aboriginal rural education program at the University of Western Sydney, said indigenous enrolments had been falling since means tests for Abstudy were introduced between 2000 and 2003.
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"Men Are Mars, Women Are Venus"
by Harvey Rachlin
Wall Street Journal
June 16, 2007
The 15th-century Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli may be best known for his "Birth of Venus," but it is his "Venus and Mars" that really speaks to us today, brilliant not only in its artistic virtuosity and beauty but in the way it ingeniously renders in a single frame a vital message. Using mythological figures, Botticelli's painting is a parable of the balance of power between the sexes.
Venus gazes at a sleeping Mars after a romantic interlude. She is draped in a flowing white gown, her curly locks cascading gently over her delicate bosom, her body resting casually against a soft apricot-colored pillow. The goddess of love reigns supreme; she has subdued the god of war. Grinning satyrs play impishly with the spoils of conquest. One has donned the war god's helmet, wrapping his arms around the handle of the god's mighty spear; another glances back at Venus to gauge her reaction to the sport; a third mischievously puffs a deafening blast through a large conch into the insensible god's ear; and the fourth, at the bottom, has crawled saucily into the warrior's discarded armor. Mars slumbers deeply in the sylvan glade -- surrendered of heart, depleted of strength, his magnificent masculinity subjugated by the power of love.
Botticelli's 'Venus and Mars' (c. 1485) is a lighthearted look at the tug of war between men and women. Botticelli's lighthearted scene evokes the perennial tug of war between men and women in a manner that brings to mind a modern sitcom. Mars, his physical needs gratified, wants simply to sleep; Venus, still wide awake, yearns for tender conversation, for some indication that his interest in her is more than sexual. Her ambivalent expression reflects a mixture of fulfillment and wistfulness -- along with just a touch, perhaps, of smug satisfaction that her charms have reduced the fearsome god of war to a lump of inert, snoring flesh.
The painter delivers a vivid and emphatic warning: No matter how great the passion, moments of blissful union are fleeting. In Botticelli's vision of the power struggle between the sexes, woman is stronger than man on the playing field of love. She has stamina and strength; the exhausted man slumbers. But emotionally, the woman's needs are greater -- so the man, oblivious to the finer feelings, has more leverage. The leering satyrs suggest the artist's sympathy for the woman involved with a man whose only interest is carnal.
When will Venus become bored with the war god's surfeit of testosterone? For how long will the delights of sexual congress be enough to sustain the relationship? Venus certainly doesn't seem to care if the prankish satyrs succeed in disturbing her lover's slumber.
To the right of the sleeping god's head, Botticelli has painted a wasps' nest, a poignant touch suggesting the potential for a painful outcome to this relationship. Ironically, in Roman mythology, among the offspring of Venus and Mars were a daughter, Harmonia, the goddess of concord; and two sons, Phobos and Deimos, the gods of fear and panic. And there is an even darker subtext: The liaison of the goddess of beauty and the god of war was an adulterous one. Vulcan, the ugly and misshapen god of the blacksmith's forge, maker of weapons of war, was Venus's husband -- and the brother of her paramour, Mars. The cuckolded deity would ultimately take his revenge, trapping the faithless pair in flagrante in a net and dragging them to the top of Mount Olympus to shame them before the other gods.
The Florentine painter's artistic jewel strikes a chord in us today because it is a candid, honest and witty reflection of the romantic aspirations, interactions, and realities that we all learn the hard way. A droll visualization of the vicissitudes of passion, it distills love's exaltations and nadirs, its accords and confrontations, its pleasures and fragility into a single engaging image. Aesthetically, Botticelli's genius is manifest not only in his elegant technical rendering of the delicate details of wispy garments and seminaked bodies, but in how he composed the intersecting legs, drooping arms and sloping bodies in languorous lines to convey the postcoital mood.
Painted about 1485, Botticelli's romantic masterpiece, which now hangs at the National Gallery in London, uncannily prefigures modern psychobabble concerning the differences between the sexes. John Gray, in his best-selling "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus," codified as symbols of the idiosyncratic behavior of male and female humans the two planets that bear the deities' names. Today, countless books and articles echo the painting's themes, as well as its rich nuances. It is a Dear Abby column on canvas, enlightening us about the tensions inherent in the union of opposites, as current now as it was half a millennium earlier when Botticelli created it.Little is known about Botticelli's love life. What experiences or impulses drove him to depict this scene on canvas?
Did he, like Mars, ever shed his armor and shield and helplessly succumb to the overpowering enticements of love? Did the fate of the god of war ever befall him? The artist, who painted religious subjects, allegories and mythologies, was about 40 years old when he portrayed the Roman deities. The circumstances for which Botticelli painted "Venus and Mars" are not known, although it may have been as an adornment for the bedroom of a patron.But if Botticelli's fable of rapture and its aftermath was a commissioned work, who was the patron? A man who was psychologically secure enough to enjoy the reminder of women's power over men?
A woman who wanted to warn her lovers that she was not to be treated as a plaything, to be used and tossed aside? Or did Botticelli, in a puckish mood, present his unsuspecting benefactor with a subtle commentary on the patron's own skirmishes with the opposite sex?
One thing is for sure: As long as humans get caught up in affairs of the heart, Botticelli's "Venus and Mars" will resonate with romantics and art lovers alike.
Mr. Rachlin is the author of "Scandals, Vandals, and da Vincis: A Gallery of Remarkable Art Tales."
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Fox announces new 'When Women Rule the World' reality series
By Steve Rogers
Reality TV World
Three years after its last attempt at a Temptation Island revival, Fox has announced plans to wade back into the reality television genre's more sensationalist waters with When Women Rule the World, the working title of a new reality series that will establish a matriarchal society and revive slavery.
Produced by Rocket Science Laboratories, the reality TV production company behind previous Fox train-wreck series like Temptation Island, Married By America, Joe Millionaire, and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, When Women Rule the World will feature 12 men unsuspecting chauvinistic men becoming slaves in a new primitive Survivor-like "society" ruled by 12 "strong, educated and independent" women who are "tired of living in a man's world" and each have "a personal axe to grind."
"You take 12 attractive women who feel like it's still a man's world and who think they've hit a glass ceiling, and you give them their own society to run," Mike Darnell, the Fox alternative programming executive who also previously tried to bring Seriously, Dude, I'm Gay and Who's Your Daddy? to the network's airwaves, told Daily Variety. "Then you take 12 macho, chauvinistic guys who also think men rule the world and see how they survive in a world where they're literally manservants... They'll have to obey every command from the women."
According to Variety, When Women Rule the World, which Rocket Science just began filming at an undisclosed "remote, primitive location," will begin with the men and women arriving on an island that features only partially-completed living accommodations. Similar to Survivor, the group will have to complete their shelters and find their own water and heat, however unlike the long-running CBS reality show, only the male contestants -- who will have to "accede to the women's every command, 24/7" -- will be doing any of the work. One "manservant" will "traded for supplies" and eliminated during each episode of the 11-episode series, with the last man standing winning $250,000.
Other than getting the chance to boss a man around, the 12 women -- who were reportedly each assigned their own "manservant" when the competition started and will still remain in the game after their man is "traded" away -- weren't, barring an undisclosed twist, given much of a financial incentive to participate in the series, however given their "scorned" personal histories, that was apparently more than enough. "Payback can be a bitch," Darnell gushed to Variety.
According to Darnell, how the women, who will elect a queen who will be in charge of making several "key decisions," respond to the declining pool of "manservants" will potentially be just as interesting as the men's reactions to their situation. "The other part of the show becomes, what will the women do," Darnell told Variety. "Will they be able to create a great society or will they fight with each other?"
Fox Broadcasting president Peter Liguori -- who only joined the broadcast network in March 2005 and was still running the company's FX Networks cable network when Darnell was previously seemingly given free reign to bring other sensationalistic projects like The Littlest Groom to the over-the-air network's airwaves several years ago -- defended When Women Rule the World's concept to Variety.
"What it's doing, in a very Fox-like fashion, is testing social mores," Liguori told the trade paper. "This is a social experiment and not a sexual experiment. We decided, why not create this Petri dish of a society and see what happens."
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When Women Rule The World
Fox Fall Preview 2007
What if it was “a woman’s world”? What if women made ALL the decisions? If men were their obedient subjects?
These questions and more will be explored when a group of strong, educated, independent women, tired of living in a man’s world and each with a personal axe to grind, rule over a group of unsuspecting men used to calling the shots on WHEN WOMEN RULE THE WORLD.
The unscripted series will reveal how women and men react in a world where women are in charge and men are subservient, and each gender’s ability to adapt to a new social order will be put to the test.
The participants will be brought to a remote, primitive location where the women will have the opportunity to “rule” as they build a newly formed society – one where there is no glass ceiling and no dressing to impress. For the men, their worlds of power and prestige are turned inside-out and upside-down. And for these women, turnabout is fair play!
In order to win, the men must accede to the women’s every demand, 24/7. Here, women command and men obey. Over the series’ duration, the men will be eliminated by the women until one last man is standing.
How will the men react? How will the women treat the men? Can women effectively rule society? Will the men learn what life is like for some women in today’s world? Will this new society be a Utopia or a hell on earth? And in the end, who will be man enough to succeed in the new social order?