Amazons in Charge

Feminists argue that men are responsible for all war; and they claim that, if women were in charge, such violence would be a thing of the past. Men are naturally violent; women are peaceful.

The obvious problem with this claim is that, without examples of women in power, it is purely speculative.

So let’s see: Margaret Thatcher. Oops; Falklands War. Indira Gandhi. Oops. War with Pakistan, twice. Golda Meir. Oops. Yom Kippur War. Elizabeth I? Spanish Armada. Catherine the Great? Best not go there. Even Eugenia Charles of little Martinique managed, with help, to wage war against neighbouring Grenada.

I submit to you that, from the historical record, women are in fact far more likely than men to go to war. All else is chauvinistic humbug. This could be a good reason why they are traditionally excluded from the highest civil leadership. Remember the Greek legend of the Amazons: a tribe constantly at war. And note Aristotle’s claim that warlike polises are invariably dominated by their women.

This, I further submit, is because women are more partisan by nature than men. Hitler’s mom, one imagines, probably loved and supported him to the end. I feel less confident this would be true of Hitler’s dad.

In Sri Lanka, where I recently vacationed, Sirimavo Bandaranaike holds the distinction of being the first female prime minister anywhere in the world—although she succeeded her husband in the post.

And, significantly, it is from her time in office that the current civil strife between Sinhalese and Tamils began.

To be fair, the seeds were planted by her husband. He made Sinhalese the official language, replacing English, but ignoring Tamil, spoken by 18% of the population. From the Sinhala perspective, the Tamil were, no less than the English, foreign colonizers. But Mr. Bandaranaike also moved fairly quickly to negotiate a federation, which would have allowed Tamils considerable freedom on linguistic and cultural affairs in their own territories.

This initiative, his widow quashed. She then passed a law setting a quota on the number of Tamils permitted in universities, and another making Buddhism the state religion. (The Tamils are Hindu.) She imposed a state of emergency on the Tamil areas. Highly partisan in supporting the interests of her own ethnic group.

Her successors in power in Colombo have tried to make amends; Tamil is now an official language, and the quota system is gone. But Tamil confidence in the central government has never recovered.

Should be interesting for everyone if Mrs. Clinton makes it to the White House.