Well, yes and no really, yes and no

Should women be involved in politics, should the political decisions about pandemics be made at least partially, or even equally, across genders? Sure, those who hold up half the sky should be part of what to do when the heavens open and tribulations fall like rain. However.

The however being not about the concept itself but the evidence being used to support the contention here:

That male drivers are much more dangerous to other road users than female ones is a proposition still considered extraordinary enough for an academic study confirming this widely observed phenomenon to have made headlines last week.

Discussing the difference, the authors note, in the journal Injury Prevention, the major gender imbalance in driving jobs and advise policymakers that “reduced risk to others could be a co-benefit from increasing gender equity”.

Possibly, but:

He took special exception to the idea, debated after the 2008 banking collapse, that such catastrophes might be less likely under the Lehman Sisters. Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, for example, said that, were it up to him, “I would take steps to have 50% of women in risk positions in banks.” Christine Lagarde, the former head of the IMF, has likewise argued for increased female representation: “This very diversity also leads to more prudence and less of the reckless decision-making that provoked the crisis.”But guided, as ever, by the science, Raab dismissed such arguments as “playing on stereotypes that paint men as innately gung-ho and women as more risk-averse”.

All men are not more risk loving than all women, the original statement is that on average men are less risk averse - or, if you prefer, more risk loving - than women are on average. In a sexually dimorphic species with such extremely different investments in child production this won’t come as a surprise either.

However, it’s vital to understand the interplay between gender and risk attitudes. An all male environment is, generally and on average, more risk loving, less risk averse, than an all female one.

But mixed gender environments are more risk loving than either.

It is true that Lehman Sisters would have been likely to be less risky than Lehman Brothers. But the actual Lehman we had was a mixed gender environment which turned out to be really rather risky, didn’t it?

Again, this is not to even comment upon our having mixed gender groups in politics or decision making about pandemics or anything else. It is only to point at how the actual findings of science about risk are being missed. If the mitigation of risk taking is our aim then we need single gender groups. We ourselves say that the each half of the sky argument outweighs any extra risks that might be taken. But risk reduction cannot be used as an argument in favour of that gender equality in the decision making simply because it’s not the actual outcome of having the gender equal groupings. Quite the opposite in fact.