Mirko Bagaric: Give the chicks the ticks to make life run smoothly

Equal opportunity is fine but not when it means that our flourishing continues to be impaired by the fact that the people who make all the important decisions come mainly from the wrong gene pool, with the obvious exception of Helen Clark.

Brace yourselves fellas, it's time we delegated up and required all political parties to introduce minimum 50 per cent quotas for the number of female candidates.

This isn't reverse discrimination, designed to make it up to women who have been repressed throughout much of history. Rather it is blatant self-interest. We should let chicks have a bigger role in running the country because research shows they are likely to do it better.

While us blokes might not be that smart when it comes to the important things, hopefully we're bright enough to know when we should call in the big guns for expert advice.

Studies show that women have more of what it takes when it comes to nation and community building qualities. For men, politics is typically about themselves, whereas for women it's about others.

It probably won't come as much of a shock to you but, yes, blokes are self-centred. A good illustration of this comes from a study that looks at lying. Men and women both lie during approximately a quarter of their social interactions.

But they lie for different reasons. Women are likely to fib to protect someone's feelings. Men are more prone to lying about themselves - the typical conversation between two blokes contains about eight times as many self-oriented lies as it does falsehoods about other people.

We also have confirmation that women are more compassionate. A study published in Nature revealed that while women showed signs of empathy with people they both liked and disliked, men appeared to enjoy pain being inflicted on their foes.

In explaining these results, one of the researchers, Dr Colin Wilson, stated it might be that women tend to have more reflective, thoughtful responses, and are less likely to make quick, punitive judgments.

Now, if you have a choice between a compassionate, thoughtful and considered leader or one that was reflexive, self-focused and punitive, who would you want making the decisions? Even us blokes should be able to get that one right.

And there's no need to fear that chicks are a bit flaky when it comes to the mundane stuff such as balancing the books. Although blokes have bigger brains, studies show that men and women have the same average IQ.

If the chicks are so switched on, then why are they so grossly under-represented in politics and senior jobs? That's because they're smart enough to know that often the price to be paid for securing a high-flying position is too high.

There's lots of competition for such gigs. That means lots of people putting in seemingly endless time and resources into acquiring them. Many women, however, opt out of the running early in the competition for high-status positions. A London School of Economics study showed that men are three times as likely as women to regard themselves as work-centred. Women want opportunities, but not a life dominated by work. Again, the chicks are right on this score.

Studies into human well-being show that there is only a modest link between wealth and status and happiness. Far more important to happiness are fit and healthy bodies, realistic goals, self-esteem, optimism, an outgoing personality, a sense of control and a tight-knit family.

Thus, paradoxically, the people in our community who are best served to lead us are discouraged from doing so because they realise that the path to getting there is so burdensome that it is best not travelled. We need to clear the path for them.

Those of you who have had a hard-nosed female boss or have failed to detect a compassion injection into the community since Helen Clark took over the reins might still not be convinced that more chicks at the top is the way to go. The explanation for this is that a lot of women who make it to the top understandably feel the need to work within the dysfunctional hierarchical system and therefore adopt and implement strategies identical to those of their male counterparts.

So the key to securing a better-run country is to have more women at the top and ensuring that, en route there, they are not required to kick and scratch against the blokes. This will make sure that they don't adopt our misguided motivations and strategies. That's why we should set aside at least 50 per cent of the positions in all political parties for women.

This will even make us blokes better off. That's not to say we are the lesser sex. We still have it all over the chicks when it comes to bragging, lifting heavy things and drinking lots of beer. What's more, if we let them get on with running the show, we will have lots more time to do all these important things.

Until the quotas get introduced, whenever it comes to voting, unless you're confident that the male candidate is an absolute star, back the odds and give the tick to the chick and hope she hasn't felt the need to think like a bloke along the way.

* Professor Mirko Bagaric is head of Deakin Law School and author of How to Live: Being Happy and Dealing with Moral Dilemmas.