We need to talk about Poe Dameron in The Last Jedi, and to do so, we need to talk about some major spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, run away!
In The Force Awakens, Poe was a super cool pilot guy who was an excellent leader. But in The Last Jedi, it turns out that Poe is actually the fucking worst.
At the beginning of the movie, Poe is responsible for the plan to blow up the Dreadnought...a plan that costs dozens if not hundreds of lives and every single bomber in the Resistance fleet.
For that royal fuck-up — not to mention deliberately disobeying the orders of the highest-ranking member of the Resistance, GENERAL FREAKING LEIA ORGANA — Poe gets a slap on the wrist (and the face) and a demotion.
Cut to later, when Admiral Holdo takes over the fleet and asks only that everyone remain calm and trust her leadership...
What does Poe do? LITERALLY NONE OF THAT.
Instead, he pitches a fit, undermines his commanding officer, and sends these two on a sabotage mission with incredibly terrible odds of success.
And when Finn and Rose come back with some sketchy rando, does he say "never mind, it's too risky, we should listen to Leia's most trusted admiral?"
OF COURSE NOT. Flyboy McDickswinger stages a mutiny and sends Finn and Rose to their probable deaths, directly leading to thousands more Resistance deaths and the loss of about 80% of the fleet.
Now, you might be saying, "Well, Laura Holdo Dern should've been more transparent with her plan." But the thing is, she's the fucking grand admiral and doesn't need to explain herself to anyone, much less a low-ranking captain who's kicking over chairs.
Of course, by the end of the movie, Poe learns his lesson that maybe he shouldn't sacrifice lives for glory, and Leia, in her INFINITE patience and grace, pretty much gives him command of the Resistance.
So the moral is, all you need to do in order to get men to actually listen to (experienced, higher-ranking) women is let them fuck up repeatedly and be responsible for thousands of deaths first.
