Study: Blame men for political gridlock; women may be better at compromise

Let me MANSPLAIN something to the author: Gridlock is exactly what the Founding FATHERS of the US hoped would dominate Congressional politics. The presumption is that gov't is a necessary evil, and so to keep it from becoming a Leviathan, it ought to be set up deliberately to slow progress of any kind unless that progress is well-supported by the reps, who would lose the support of their states if they colored outside the lines. That's the whole idea.

Congress is divided and gridlocked because the American ppl are divided and gridlocked. Thus Congress reflects the nature of the ppl.

Non-gridlocked legislatures are typically found in rubber-stamp dictatorships (eg: Nazi Germany, the old USSR, etc.) and monarchies where the monarch can appoint or de-seat a rep at will, or have same arrested for any reason. Suddenly, the legislatures seem to become very cooperative and efficient. And those were all made up of men, with rare exception.

So, still want a cooperative, efficient Congress, even when it doesn't really reflect the nature of the electorate? Careful what you wish for.

When men get together, they spend the time insulting each other -- and don't mean a word of it.

When women get together, they spend the time complimenting each other -- and don't mean a word of it.

So is it not possible that the only reason these women knew they could politically risk the appearance of compromise was that they also knew the majority men would not allow it. The question really is: IF there were equal numbers of men and women, would the women still risk compromise?

And one more thing...

If we can say that if women ran the show, there would be compromise....
Can we also say that if men ran the HHS department, there would not have been a catastrophic roll out? Remember, two WOMEN ran HHS when that debacle happened. So can we say that?

(And at the end of the day, I believe it was the men who reached a compromise.)

I am more likely to attribute the roll-out debacle to corruption and a lack of supervision from the top. The corruption was in the form of the company that got the contract had a sr. exec. who was one of Michelle O's classmates. The contract was, despite its cost, awarded on a no-bid basis. As a taxpayer, I find this to be outrageous. But alas, typical of DC politics where cronyism and nepotism are SOP. The next thing, negligence, came in the form of our former HHS sec'y just plain not paying much attn to the effort. These two things make for guaranteed disaster. The contracted company felt secure since the had Michelle O's direct patronage. Then, the head of the agency they were at wasn't even phoning it in, much less attending mtgs. This is an Rx for ppl just not bothering to try to plan, set deadlines, or try to meet same.

But in general, compromising on the perception of the quality of results from IT projects is a terrible idea. IT project results either do as they ought to or don't. Saying they're "OK" just to save feelings is yet another way to write an Rx for disaster. While using compromise when determining the scope of a project is a practical necessity, using compromise to assess the output is a really bad idea. I'd hate the engineers and QA ppl who design cars and assess the prod'n line output of same to be compromising in those matters, esp. where the brakes are concerned.