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You are totally right! Let’s just reduce everyone to a favorite gender stereotype. Judaism has lots of great women who were both leaders and fighters. There is no reason to limit a person’s personality due to their gender. Those types of ideas are just two dimentional.
Moira Rogow

Exactly, Moira.These are the same people who will turn around preach equality, while emphasizing on stereotypes when it suits their purpose. Also very evident in the opening of the article is thinly veiled hatred of all things man……..

I saw this woman on a Boston TV program about Iraq (before the war started). She didn’t really discuss the issues involved - she was more interested in gender roles than in WMD, military vs non-military options, etc. The other panelists tried to talk about whether it would be a good idea to go to war or not and she just kept bringing up ‘what women would do if they were involved’. I mean, Condaleeza Rice is a woman, and a pretty powerful one at that. Weird.

That’s what baffles me too, Madhu. Why all the man-hating? I thought mutual respect was supposed to be exactly that - mutual. Why would women demand a “special status” in the same breath as “equality”?

not related to the post, I just wanted to pass you the link

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,183278,00.html

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She hasn’t heard of Bhutto either who was instrumental in fanning the flames in Kashmir.

Or Golda Meir, who while not a warmonger was no peace hawk either.

Or the women of the peshmerga who fight the Turks and the Iraqis. I read a great article where one Peshmerga women claims that Kurdish women who were Zoorastrians before Islam have always fought in battles.

Whatever. She is probably a socilogist and into the whole post modern gender politics fantasy trip.

UncleDuke, right as ever!

Mehran, nice pics.

Great post. I used to think women were inherently peaceful and that I was a pacifist — until I had my first child and realized that if it were necessary, I would kill without a second thought anyone who threatened him.

Thanks, Beatrix - I totally agree with that - I mean, my mom is probably the most peaceful person I ever saw in my whole life - but you know what? she would strangle someone with her bare hands to save me or my sister :)

“if women were in charge, given all the violence and atrocities perpetrated by men and male-run governments in places like Bosnia, Rwanda, and Iraq?”

Yup, that’s pretty stupid.

Why would anybody to expect a female dictator be any be any better than a male dictator?

The problem is, the way to become a dictator is to be an asshole… murder and betray people, repress the population. Even when a nice person occasionally manages to become a “dictator”, they’re nearly always overthrown by somebody less nice. That’s because dictatorship, as a governmental structure, rewards nastiness. As Hayek observed, “the worst always get on top.”

There is, perhaps, a grain of truth in the article’s observation, though. As a whole, there are some differences in women’s behavior vis a vis that of men. Duh. Saying women are more “peaceful” isn’t exactly accurate, but perhaps women are more inclined to act out their aggressions through social machinations rather than physical retaliation. Not sure if I believe that, but it’s a thought to ponder.

Regardless, I think that democracy determines that democratic leaders will be those capable of some moral restraint, while totalitarianism determines that dictators will be those who practice the least moral restraint. Gender, in this context, has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Wow - excellent points. I get so tired of so-called “feminists” presuming to speak for all women. I think it’s interesting what you said about the view of women as soft and peaceful being a very Western point of view. I think that’s true, and it comes (IMO) via the classical (Greek and Roman) view of women filtered through Christianity. Non-classical pre-Christian European societies had very different views of women; Celtic society in particular, which was organized on lines very similar to Hindu society. Check out the old Irish Brehon laws sometime for some very eye-opening reading. The strong role of women in these societies is one of the reasons the Romans referred to them as “barbarians.”

Anyway, great stuff - I’m glad I found your blog!

In Celtic mythology wives took their slain husband’s place in battle. Strong willful warrior queens are part of Irish mythology.
The author has also failed to research or omitted that gun ownership has increased with women.

TO: Shanti
RE: And Let Us Not Forget…

Lucrecia Borgia. Or how about the wife of Ceasar Augustus, Livia.

Yes, women can be veeeeeerrrrryyyyy ‘dangerous’….one way or another.

RE: But…

…are women better warriors than men?

The debate goes on…and on….and on. Until we go to the mats.

I don’t care if you can fly a warthog and destroy tanks on a road. You get shot down behind enemy lines and you’re on your own. Can you lug 100+ lbs of combat equipment and ammo out the door of a C130 in flight? How long can you go without a bath in swamps? Months?

RE: The Question

The question is what motivates people to rise up and kill. Is it different for the average man verses the average woman?

I’ll wager it is. Anyone here familiar with the works of Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox? Try reading a book titled The Imperial Animal. Might help getting a handle on ‘the question’.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[One never really knows a woman until you have met her in court.]

It is certainly not a Western point of view that men are more violent than women. Men have higher levels of testosterone than women, so are much more likely to fight.

Pierre, good points. I think that women can be as aggreesive as men in any given setting.

Thanks, Ann and Penny.

Chuck and Mark, I agree that there are definitely different motivations for men and women to kill. I also agree that a woman is not as likely to get up and fight physically as a man. But you don’t need to go and fight in the battlefield to be a warrior these days. A woman-President or -Prime Minister can be as brutal and violent using her army as any man in her position.

I just don’t like people reducing everything into cliches and stereotypes.

“Would U.S. troops be in Iraq today if, say, Hillary Clinton were President, and not George W. Bush?”
Probably not. But U.S. troops would be in Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea (and China too, if we had enough of them) were I president. Its a dumb idea to think of women as conciliatory creatures. Shakespeare had it right when he said “hell hath no fury..” but he shouldn’t have limited it to scorned women. Just as there are plenty of passive, appeasing, nuturing males (the UN is full of them) there are plenty of bellicose, belligerent, violent, aggressive women.

I wear pink. And I’m willing to shoot to kill. I don’t think the two are incompatible.

You go, Celeste! That is what I have been trying to say. And then, who knows, if Hillary were President, we might not be in Iraq, but we might be battling in some other country, if it fit her then agenda.

Come on - let’s not forget that men and women are biologically different, as Mark said. They have different internal organs, and they have different hormones, and they have different chemicals in their bloodstream, and they have different behaviors. The sort of “know-nothingness” on display here is what leads to the stupidity of making women frontline soldiers or firemen or the like.

Furthermore, the political gender gap has existed since women were given suffrage. Women - as a group - have always been statistically more likely to be liberal/antiwar/pro-government/etc. There’s a reason that the Dems are the Mommy party and the Republicans are the Daddy party.

Now - before I’m pilloried as a retrograde reactionary…I think that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes wars aren’t just, and sometimes the Dems are right, and sometimes the supposed victim really is a victim.

But it is true that women are less likely to resort to violence to settle disputes…even when necessary.

Ok, now you are putting words in my mouth. I didn’t say that men and women are not different. I am not taking about women physically walking into the battlefield and fighting wars, if you notice my reply to Mark above. That is a whole another issue. We are talking about women being as aggressive and war-mongering as men. Indira Gandhi didn’t need to personally walk into the battlefield with a gun, when she fought at least two wars with Pakistan.

In the US, it is probable that there is a political gender gap - that again somehow doesn’t necessitate that women cannot be as aggressive as men. The main point in the article was if women wouldn’t be all anti-war and reconciliatory as opposed to blood-thirsty men. In my opinion, women are as capable of being blood-thirsty as men. The motivations may be different, the machinations and the methodologies may be different, but fundamentally, a woman is capable of causing as much violence as any man.

Oh, and there is also a big difference between how people interact on a personal level and how they do as heads of state.

Balaji, I agree that there are biological differences between the aggressiveness of men and women and that men are more likely to commit personal violence on other people than women are. I’m raising three kids, two sons and a daughter. I can see the differences between them and I don’t kid myself that they were culturally learned—they were plainly inborn. BUT I think it’s a huge mistake to extrapolate from that to the myth that women are therefore nice and peaceful and warm and fuzzy and that if they were in charge of countries, there would be less war. Just look around the world and find me any evidence that those with women leaders have been less warlike than those without. Margaret Thatcher and all the other female leaders cited on this page show that this is not the case. A man may be more willing to punch or shoot the guy right next to him than a woman is— but there’s no evidence that I know of that the tendency of many women to fight verbally rather than physically carries over to decision-making on a national level. It isn’t, after all, the president or the prime minister who actually picks up the gun and shoots.

If women are not inherently less violent,why are prisons filled so overwhelmingly with men?

Eric

Apples and oranges here. The title of the article is “What if woman ran the world?” The main idea behind the article is that war would be less likely if women ran the world - is there any historical justification for that particular assertion? Yes, men in our society are more physically violent, on a personal level. But does that mean that if the heads of state of most nations are women, there will be less war? I just don’t know if we can say that. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. It just seems that many historical examples contradict that.

I wear pink. And I’m willing to shoot to kill. I don’t think the two are incompatible.

Man, I think that’s the greatest quote I’ve read all month. :)

TO: Madhu
RE: Fruits & Nuts

“Apples and oranges here. The title of the article is “What if woman ran the world?”” — Madhu

Well, yes, but still and all, there’s more to being a bellicose belle than just having one fingers on the proverbial ‘button’; ready to blow the world into the second sequel to Planet of the Apes.

Whether we’re talking about Elizabeth I or GI Jane, what makes women willing to kill? Or even capable?

As I said earlier, women bear close watching [wink-wink, nudge-nudge].

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[No woman ever took a man to hell…unless he had a ticket in his pocket.]

Glad to see this kind of nonsense rebuffed by Shanti et al. The sophomoric concept that all women are “nice” and all men are rabid testosterone-drunk murderers is an idea that only the most fuzzy-headed and clueless of graduate students would give any credence to. I too think that this is a Western sort of meme. My wife is from Shanghai, and is a very tough, particular, and determined person. Her conformance with the bogus sterotype of a submissive Asian woman has zero intersection with reality. In fact, she is far more tough-minded than almost all American women I know, and had to be so to survive the Cultural Revolution. I think this kind of lazy and illogical thinking, if you can call it that, has subtle but pernicious effects, and should be challenged as the mind-numbing drivel it is whenever an occasion to do so presents itself.

I’m with Balaji here. There is a biological difference between men and women that causes differences in resorting to physical aggression, which partly explains why males predominate in prison.

BUT I think it’s a huge mistake to extrapolate from that to the myth that women are therefore nice and peaceful and warm and fuzzy and that if they were in charge of countries, there would be less war.

Well you know, if you want to bat down a stupid stereotype like women are “nice and peaceful and warm and fuzzy” then it is easy too.

But the real question here is, why ARE women not in charge of countries? I suggest that the reason why women aren’t in charge of countries is the same as why women don’t predominate in any field requiring large amounts of aggression—because women really are less aggressive.

Regarding Shanti’s point about female protectiveness of young, I wouldn’t say that a woman protecting her child is aggression. That’s defense.

Aggression I would define as the threat of, or use of, physical force to advance an interest which is done at the choice of the actor, not as a response to the situation.

Looking at it this way, you’ll find that the most aggressive man usually ends up ruling. Even if it’s just a bluff.

Women can be very effective at getting their way too, but not by means of aggression. Women get their way by means of seduction. The highest status women have seduced the highest status men.

Dreams of organizing armies of amazons are just that—dreams.

Regarding Indira Gandhi, she’d never have become PM of India if she hadn’t been Nehru’s daughter. Her success was due not to aggression but to nepotism.

Diana, trust me - Indira Gandhi became the PM because of the nepotism - she stayed in power after that for 17 years, on her aggressive and ruthless nature alone. There was a popular saying in India during her rule that she was the only man in her party at that time.

“what you said about the view of women as soft and peaceful being a very Western point of view…”

Well, no, it seems to be a stage of civilisation or some such, as common to Japan and China as to Germany and the US…

I cannot claim to have researched it, but it seems that when defending yourself depended upon upper-body strength men [mistakenly] took that to mean that women and children were inherently “soft”. This kept getting more and more out of hand as tribes became nations, with thousands or millions of soldiers rather than a dozen or maybe fifty fighters.

When people hear “Isabella of Spain” they think of a gentle creature selling her jewels to finance Columbus, not the warlord[ess] who ended a four hundred year occupation by an invader which for all that time refused to integrate politically or socially with the locals.

And when Parliament decided women should not have the vote because they were “incapable”, I do wish someone had pointed out that they were spouting treason against Victoria.

It is a mindset which grew over thousands of years, and only for about a century has been changing. I do not think it will take that long to alter for the better.

Good points, John. Go war-lordesses! :)