Battle of the Amazons by Peter Paul Rubens.

What if the countries committing war crimes today had been led by women?

The world is in a mess again. Wars, climate change and greed are at the top of the list. I’m going to slightly edit a short paragraph written years ago about Homo sapiens by Richard Dawkins: “Evolution has delivered a billion species over a period of four billion years. Only one of these species knows where it exists. Only one species knows what it is made of (atoms). Only one species knows why it exists (to propagate the species). Only one species knows how to discover such things. It is the scientific method which belongs to all humanity.”

What if women had been leaders in the countries that are warring with each other around the globe? Would we be dealing with death, disease and destruction in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Gaza,and African countries? I think the entire world would be quite different.

There is a cartoon in the latest New Yorker that serves as my theme for this column. Humpty Dumpty is high on a high wall and his mother is a large chicken looking up at him: “I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face – keep sitting on walls, and something bad’s about to happen. But what do I know? I’m just your mother!”

As a Little Falls High School sophomore 78 years ago, I read about fierce warrior women of ancient Greece called Amazons in a World Literature class. They lived in matriarchal tribes and cut off a breast so they would be more accurate with bows and arrows. The Greek writer Homer “mytholodged” them in his Iliad and 2,500 years later they starred in the comic books as Wonder Women. But now we know the Amazon “lesbians” are no longer a myth like Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox. Archaeologists have dug up bodies in southern Russia, proving that Amazons were really nomadic women who trained, hunted and battled alongside husbands and mates on Eurasian steppes.  

Does Pelosi have a larger brain than Cruz, Hawley or McConnell? You betcha!

Burial sites in Russia have revealed women in their teens to age 50 with battle scars, arrowheads buried in bones, and bones and muscle structures which indicated long hours in the saddle. The Russian Academy of Science has plenty of evidence Amazons were not fascinating and glorifying myths.

Other researchers studying 63 hunter-gathering societies have found that women proved to be more efficient hunters than men, and where hunting was crucial to survival of the tribe, women were part of the hunt 100% of the time. Women had their favorite weapons and grandmas were considered to be the best hunters in the village.

Researchers today are on the cusp of proving that women have a larger, more efficient brain than men. Some female animals have larger brains than males that impregnate them. The multispecies study has found 400 species of hooved animals where females have larger brains. Soon they will examine the brains of male and female Homo sapiens. Want to place any bets?

Would that be why women are now living six years longer than American men?

The Roman philosopher Tertullian more than 1,800 years ago discussed the subjugation of women by religions, and particularly Christianity, in his work The Grooming of Women: “You give birth, Woman, in suffering and anguish. You are under your husband’s spell, and he is your master. And do you know that you are Eve? She still lives in this world as God’s judgment on your sex. Live then, as an accused. The devil is in you. You broke the seal of the Tree. You were the first to abandon God’s law. You were the one that deceived man, who the devil knew not how to vanquish.”

The times are slowly changing but they are riding on the back of a 200-year-old turtle. Trumplican Senators Cruz and Hawley have both been described by sponsors as being the smartest guys in the room. I think they both were in small closets when so described. Trumplicans have a big advantage in the Divided States of America. They don’t give a damn about other people. They are people whose major interest is in business and finance, not the humanities where you learn to like a broad stream of people.

What do the Ivy League universities do wrong to graduate such bright idiots without an ounce of empathy or humility? They may display a high Intelligence Quotient but they cannot be a leader of a society if their Emotional Intelligence registers on a low scale.  

A Catholic university president who believes in science and sex

I was completely shocked about two weeks ago when Fordham University in New York, a Roman Catholic University with Jesuit beliefs, named Tania Tetlow to replace priests who had been presidents for its 182-year history. A woman leader of a major Catholic university who can’t say mass or “man” a confessional! She replaced the Rev. Joseph McShane, a priest who retired from the presidency after 19 years. Tania had an outstanding record of putting murderers, drug lords and business CEOs who committed fraud behind bars in New Orleans as a federal prosecutor.

The Fordham Board of Trustees decided she was uniquely suited to Fordham, especially after they learned she had sung the national anthem at Yankee Stadium. They also like the idea she closes statements with “the research shows-------.”

Perhaps under the leadership of Pope Francis, the Vatican, after 2,000 years of bungling, bundling, frustration, lust and fumbling about women and sex, will finally recognize Eve’s contributions and importance in a society.

At a general audience in St. Peter’s Square about a month ago, Pope Francis uttered words never spoken by another of the 265 popes who have served the church: “Sexual pleasure is a gift from God and is something to be cherished. We must defend love but winning the battle against lust can be a lifelong undertaking.”

Lust has cost the Vatican billions of dollars and thousands of empty pews in paying off sexual abuse by priests, bishops, cardinals and popes in its 20 centuries. Francis has been warming to the subject of sex for about a decade. Two years ago he warned seminarians about pornography: “It is a vice that so many people have, so many laymen, so many laywomen, and also priests and nuns. The devil enters from there.”  

Men may soon be shouting: “Women will not replace us in science!”

It has come to pass that girls and women are not only dreaming of careers in science, they are convincing the various committees of the Nobel Prize they can produce at top levels of many sciences. In the last four years, six women have collected Nobel prizes in the science fields of physiology, medicine, physics and chemistry. One helped development the MRNA vaccines that help to control the spread of COVID-19. Another assisted in the discovery of a supermassive black hole near the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

In 2020 two women received the Nobel for revolutionizing the study of genetics in the development of Crispr genome editing, a treatment that will be used to treat many diseases. There are still barriers to women seeking positions in fields of science. Men still dominate high school and university science departments. It is still difficult for women to make a career in a science field. To correct the imbalance, the United Nations sponsors an International Day of Women and Girls in Science. As of 2023, women were just 35% in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (called STEM).

Only 12% of the members in national science academies are women. The number of females in science education depends upon their health. More than 500 million women and girls lack access to menstrual care, which often cause them to miss many days of school. Classes in STEM fields demand attendance every day so important segments are not missed. In all of academia, women make up 45% of professors on tenure track and 33% of full professors. However, enrollment of young men has steadily gone down since the 1980s. Women now outnumber men roughly 60-40 in undergraduate programs. In recent years women have earned more than half of the doctorates. Is this going to end up being Big Brain vs. Small Brain?  

Venus women and Mars men may finally share leadership on Planet Earth

The Minnesota legislature went into session on Feb. 12 with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor members at 57 women and 47 men and Republicans at 19 women and 78 men. So, 5.7 million Minnesotans will be governed by 76 women and 125 men. Fascinating. Will it be the 20th century against the 21st century? Could it end up being men against women? It could end up being 19th century vs. 22nd century. It will be worth a “Take a look.”

Another question. Will churches with bishops stuck in the 13th through 17th centuries play a big role in the legislation? Mental health, government, and business management experts have concluded that leadership demands something more than intelligence and a high IQ. They have decided that an emotional quotient (EQ) is just as important as intelligence quotient (IQ) for all leaders in a society or country. Leaders must have the support of the thousands or millions or billions of people at the bottom of the human pyramid. Hard-driving leaders, whether in government, business, religion or finance, in the end, must have wide emotional support among the peons, or ultimately, may end up very rich, but in the end be regarded as a failure.

When Putin announced he needed many thousands of young men to go to the Ukraine and win the war he initially screwed up – border stations to surrounding countries were overrun with young Russians getting out of Dodge. They were not going to get their ass shot off protecting a murderous dictator. On the other hand, when Ukraine’s Zelenskyy called for more men to save the homeland, recruitment centers were immediately filled. One leader had EQ and the other had none.  

Here’s how the experts describe men and women I

n general, men are more interested in objects and things rather than people and feelings. Women are more intuitive, holistic, creative and integrative. Men are more logical, analytical and rational. A woman’s sense of self is defined through their feelings and the quality of their relationships. They spend much time supporting, nurturing and helping each other. They experience fulfillment through sharing and relating.

Men rarely talk about their problems unless they are seeking “expert” advice, asking for help when you can do something yourself is a sign of weakness. For women, offering help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength; it is a sign of caring to give support.

In conclusion, when analyzing the qualities of great leadership, I think Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor together formed perhaps the best leadership the United States of America has ever had-so far. Because of his bout with polio, he depended upon her to tell him what the world out there was really like, and she depended upon him to listen and act. We were well-served by a dynamic duo who believed in each other regardless of other problems in the relationship.