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Women--Not the Peaceful Creatures You Think
"I am a man who will fight for your honor
I'll be the hero you are dreaming of."
from a pop song sung by Peter Cetera
Males play the greatest role in stirring up bloodbaths. They do
most of the killing, and they also do most of the dying. This makes
men sound pretty atrocious. And, indeed, they are. Males by far
outdo females in aggression. Remove the testicles from a rooster and it
becomes a peace-loving bird. Sew the testes back into its stomach and
the masculine hormones once again flood the fowl's bloodstream.
Now the recently mild-mannered chicken struts off to start a fight.
It's not surprising when folks declare that if only we had female
leaders, war and international aggression would rapidly disappear19.
Many people are convinced that females are inherently peaceful. OK,
so Margaret Thatcher, the female Prime Minister of Britain, won the
Falklands war, supplied the British military with nuclear submarines,
and packed those subs with atomically-tipped ballistic missiles. Indira
Gandhi led a military campaign against Pakistan, jailed her opponents
and suspended civil liberties. And Peru's Shining Path guerrilla
assassination squads were headed almost entirely by women.20 But
surely these are just aberrations. Or are they?
The evidence from the world of our closest relatives in the
primate family indicates that the cheerfully idealistic picture of women
is a bit of self-delusion. Females, too, are victims of the Lucifer
Principle.
Diane Fossey, the chronicler of the Central African mountain
gorillas, had been following a gorilla band for nine years when she
suddenly noticed that one of the tribe's babies had disappeared. This
<< < GO > >>
9
9
9
Women--Not the Peaceful Creatures You Think
"I am a man who will fight for your honor
I'll be the hero you are dreaming of."
from a pop song sung by Peter Cetera
Males play the greatest role in stirring up bloodbaths. They do
most of the killing, and they also do most of the dying. This makes
men sound pretty atrocious. And, indeed, they are. Males by far
outdo females in aggression. Remove the testicles from a rooster and it
becomes a peace-loving bird. Sew the testes back into its stomach and
the masculine hormones once again flood the fowl's bloodstream.
Now the recently mild-mannered chicken struts off to start a fight.
It's not surprising when folks declare that if only we had female
leaders, war and international aggression would rapidly disappear19.
Many people are convinced that females are inherently peaceful. OK,
so Margaret Thatcher, the female Prime Minister of Britain, won the
Falklands war, supplied the British military with nuclear submarines,
and packed those subs with atomically-tipped ballistic missiles. Indira
Gandhi led a military campaign against Pakistan, jailed her opponents
and suspended civil liberties. And Peru's Shining Path guerrilla
assassination squads were headed almost entirely by women.20 But
surely these are just aberrations. Or are they?
The evidence from the world of our closest relatives in the
primate family indicates that the cheerfully idealistic picture of women
is a bit of self-delusion. Females, too, are victims of the Lucifer
Principle.
Diane Fossey, the chronicler of the Central African mountain
gorillas, had been following a gorilla band for nine years when she
suddenly noticed that one of the tribe's babies had disappeared. This
<< < GO > >>