But that kind of proves the point…these are female leaders who had to adopt male characteristics in order to preserve their power in a male dominated society.
I don't think we've had egalitarian leadership long enough (or reached a point of true egalitarianism) to make a strong case about this. That being said, I'm a little leery of gender essentialism, and I could also point to plenty of male rulers who were as averse to war as Tomyris or Wu Zetian were bloodthirsty--e.g., Esarhaddon waged war but seems to have had an aversion to violence, generally avoided the brutality the Assyrians were known for (in sharp contrast to the excessive brutality, even by Assyrian standards, of his son Ashurbanipal), and according to some historians may have even suffered from PTSD.
You don't mean cultural Alexander the Great who spread Hellenistic culture everywhere?
I think we are at least guaranteed probably one more with Catherine the Great. Elizabeth or Victoria will also show up eventually though it could be DLC.
Given that Alexander's cultural accomplishments were as much the spread of Persian culture as Greek, I'd actually be down for warmonger Hellenistic Alexander and cultural Alexander Shah as a sort of reverse Xerxes.You don't mean cultural Alexander the Great who spread Hellenistic culture everywhere?
I suggest another factor is Information availability. The great majority of contemporary commentators having been male until the (late) 20th century, many potential political or non-political female leaders have either no details or very suspect details about their personality and achievements recorded, making an in-game personality based on them another exercise in game designer decisions/interpretations rather than actual historicalish evidence.
Right, we've had millions of male political leaders throughout history, and essentially all of history's warmongers have been men, but we still don't have enough evidence.
This fruit is hanging so low that it's on the ground.
Alexander could wear a number of hats.Given that Alexander's cultural accomplishments were as much the spread of Persian culture as Greek, I'd actually be down for warmonger Hellenistic Alexander and cultural Alexander Shah as a sort of reverse Xerxes.
No, my point was the other way: we haven't had enough female rulers ruling in a society where they don't have to emulate male rulers being commented on by historians from a cultural context in which female rulers are not disadvantaged to judge whether women would rule differently from men. If you want to talk about strictly the evidence we have...the evidence is that women are either ineffectual rulers like Joanna of Castille or bloodthirsty tyrants like Wu Zetian.Right, we've had millions of male political leaders throughout history, and essentially all of history's warmongers have been men, but we still don't have enough evidence.
But, again, in context, that evidence is weighted down with kilotons of baggage that makes it unhelpful for drawing any actual conclusion. By the standard you just offered, essentially all of history's peaceful rulers have also been men. 
tl;dr: The majority of the world's rulers have been men; the majority of the world's female rulers have ruled in a masculine context and have been evaluated accordingly. The notion that women divorced of masculine social norms would lead differently therefore remains to be demonstrated.Literally.
Well, I only mentioned the probable because they are just that. That doesn't mean there won't be any more female surprises. I didn't mention them because who knows who they might be?
No, my point was the other way: we haven't had enough female rulers ruling in a society where they don't have to emulate male rulers being commented on by historians from a cultural context in which female rulers are not disadvantaged to judge whether women would rule differently from men. If you want to talk about strictly the evidence we have...the evidence is that women are either ineffectual rulers like Joanna of Castille or bloodthirsty tyrants like Wu Zetian.
Literally.
That's not what I was trying to do at all, but if that's how you feel I'll leave you free to talk to yourself.
No no, my friend, I was saying that I understand the fun of a spirited debate. However, I didn't mean to open a can of worms about gender roles throughout thousands of years of history. Just pointing out the male, warmongering lean of the leaders in Civ.
Oh, got it; sorry for the misunderstanding.
(And sorry for the unnecessarily sharp reply; I'm having a bad day.)
No hard feelings. I’m sorry to hear you’re having a bad day, and I hope it improves!Oh, got it; sorry for the misunderstanding.
Not feeling like defending male gender passionately in some general way, but one could say that since almost everything was historically the realm of men, war would be among those. In other words, as I believe Zaarin alluded to, since there isn't comparable enough women, nothing guarantees that such alternate history would be history of peace. Maybe realm of warmaking is more emblematic to tribalism and empires more so than to any gender.
A Modern Era Norway could be about a lot of things. I'll quote something I wrote a couple of months back:
On top of that, you could draw inspiration from WWII resistance against German occupation (much like VI's Wilhelmina did), traditional transhumance pastoralism practiced at a type of mountain farm known as a seter (recently inducted into UNESCO's list of intangible heritage), shipbuilding and shipping, whaling, or the 19th-20th century polar explorations undertaken by Amundsen, Nansen and many others. (if there is still anything to explore in the Modern Age)
Yes, the future is not yet female, and no all female utopia has ever existed to prove its moral superiority and its innate serenity.
