Throughout history, we have seen fierce and powerful male leaders.  Men that have taken armies across lands far and wide, conquering everything in their path.  There have also been men that have led their country towards progressive improvements or even just in the right direction.  Every country on the planet has a handful of people it looks to as a source of light among the darkness we know as global conflict.

Usually, these leaders are men.  This is probably due to the evolution of humanity.  The men, the more testosterone-fueled gender, probably dominated the women and then the leadership roles just came out of coincidence.  Everyone on the planet realizes that men need women, and vice versa.  Without each the other would fall prey to lack of varying ideas and contrasting mannerisms resulting in a boredom so intense that even the most eccentric man would cry out in pain.

However, the question is not whether or not we could exist without the opposite gender; the question is which gender would be best for leadership.  I believe that this is the basic question being asked in this prompt.  Lady MacBeth handles herself well, but then pulls out of the murderous plot after the death of Duncan.  MacBeth ends up having to finish off what they started.  This leaves a varying view because a strong woman exhibits a startling choice to walk away.  Still, I am not sure that any gender would be well suited for leadership then another at all.

When discussing that, a person must talk about the reasons that a woman would fall short of a man's ability to lead.  Firstly, i will discuss the reasons that women could lead as well as men.  One argument could be that they get too emotionally involved.  I do not believe that women get any more emotionally involved then men; just differently involved.  A man will become enraged and make horrible, costly decisions because of it.  A woman may get hurt and also make bad decisions; however, those decisions would be no worse then the man's in that same case.  Secondly, women also have many tools to their disposal that would be helpful.  Let's be honest, the human mind in most cases would allow women more leeway then most men.  Probably about 90% of people that walked up to a murder scene would envision a large, domineering man bludgeoning the victim to death before anything else.  This man that many would envision is also what is necessary to be a leader.  You have to have an imposing, and slightly scary presence to gain respect.  Another quality that helps women is that they could, quite possibly, have a finer tuned mind for politics.  Men usually use their bodies more when in conflict; however, in most cases, all women usually meet conflict with their mind.  This "extra practice"  could potentially lead to the one key decision that saves a country from destruction.

Now to get to the other end of the spectrum.  Some may say that women have certain biological shortcomings that set them back from men.  If this was true, then the best man would be a better leader then the best woman could ever hope to be.  Let us examine the possibilities.  A man (generally) has several characteristics that could contribute to potentially better leadership, including:  a loud voice, bulky figure, height, domineering personality, and decades of upbringing as a "man".  I am not saying that all women are inferior to all men in these regards, but this is generally the case.  I do believe that women would have a much harder time because of these problems; however, as i said before, they also possess unique abilities because of their gender.

In conclusion, i do not believe that there is a "better" gender for leadership.  The strongest woman could be more powerful than the strongest man.  Everyone is unique and has their own talents.  If they effectively use those talents to their advantage, help their country, and eventually come out as a great leader i do not think that it matters whether they are a man or a woman.

This prompt is very hard to answer for the sole reason that no one has never been in the situation.  It is easy for an onlooker to say what any objective person would do in any situation; however, when a person’s life is on the line, the decisions they would have made are most likely different then the decisions they will make under the dire circumstances.  Hitler rose to basically absolute power.  He had his entire country stomping through Europe and committing ruthless atrocities everywhere they stepped foot.  We also see this happening in Macbeth.  He rises to power with the death of the king and the success of his scheme.  He begins to kill people and the people under his rule carry out his orders.  These two are extremely similar.  The people under the rule of these people carry out their orders because it is hard to combat the extreme, insane viciousness that is evident in both of these examples.  As Kirsch discusses in the article, you would need an equal amount of radically insane people doing positive work to counteract the vicious negativity already present. 

Honestly, it is impossible to gage anyone’s reaction to the evil that is possible to find in the world.  I personally believe that when you see evil rise up there are three potential options.  Firstly, a person can fight with all of their heart and soul against the evil and try to make a big enough sacrifice to eventually cause a chain reaction in the minds of the people around them.  The hope being that enough people begin to fight against the evil that the fiery resistance becomes enough to burn away the extreme darkness.  Secondly, a person could slowly work at the infrastructure of the organization.  A person could achieve success by forming a group, or a resistance, and slowly conjuring up enough people to eventually be able to fight the faction in control and to be able to destroy it all together.  Thirdly, as most people tend to do, you can do nothing.  Many people in this situation seem to observe, probably thinking that their own personal thoughts of disgust and hatred suffice to absolve their souls.  However, I believe that doing nothing, even when no option seems safe, is still worse then doing something and failing.

Because of all of this, I conclude that the onlookers should act as much as they can.  Casualties would be hard to avoid, and I do not think that the abrupt attack approach would work at all.  However, I do believe that the people in these examples, like the onlookers in Macbeth or the SS pharmacist (with his ignorance and desensitization) and Russian camp leader (Although he had good motives), should have done something.  Any lack of action would end up in at least some guilt even if they are not totally at fault, they assisted by not working against the problem that they were aware was a problem.  The people in Macbeth could have made an impact because of the smaller numbers involved while the people in World War two times would have had a harder time, but it was possible.  If it is possible, it can be made probable, and can turn into reality with determination and will.