Sugar and Spice? Tucker Carlson Says Female Leaders More Bloodthirsty Than Men

By Selwyn Duke

“Sugar and spice and everything nice; That’s what little girls are made of,” goes the old Romantic Period poem. Grown women are characterized differently, the work holds, and female leaders? Poem author Robert Southey didn’t say.

But pundit Tucker Carlson just did.

In fact, he stated while addressing the notion that “women in charge” would yield a more peaceful world that the exact “opposite” appears true.

No “Big Successes From Female Leaders”

Carlson made his comments on his X show Monday during a long conversation with commentator Jack Posobiec. While not the episode’s main topic, the subject arose when Posobiec mentioned that Kamala Harris’s apologists would use the “first female president” selling point to deter criticism of her.

We’re going to hear the “chronic propaganda that we’ve been surrounded by that that women are better than men, that women should be first, that women should have the all the power in society,” Posobiec stated. “Well, here is the first woman president. And how dare you run against the first woman president.”

Carlson then interjected, wondering if that point had become a little stale. We “haven’t seen big successes from female leaders,” he noted. “And I say that as a lover of women.”

“Where is the evidence” for superior female governance? the host later asked. There’s this idea that “female … political leaders will be more conciliatory. There’ll be more peace, less war.”

More Peace With Female Leaders?

In reality, Carlson said, “You’ve seen exactly the opposite. The Ukraine war was driven by a woman, actually, Victoria Nuland [the ex-U.S. undersecretary for political affairs]. Hillary Clinton is the most bloodthirsty person I’ve ever seen on the public stage.”

(Note here that during a CBS interview years ago, Clinton joked about the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and said “We came, we saw, he died” and then broke into laughter. Also remember that her administration’s Libyan intervention was disastrous.)

Madeleine Albright, the first female secretary of state, was mentioned as well. Carlson said he knew her and characterized her as a “total ghoul” and “nasty.”

He proceeded to say that not only is there no evidence of female-leader-born peace on Earth, but “the opposite appears to be true.”

Posobiec then chimed in, citing a 2019 Becker Friedman Institute study showing that, as the researchers put it, “polities led by queens participated in war more than polities led by kings.”

Predictably, Carlson’s comments evoked the usual criticisms, of being “bitter and fragile,” insecure, “misogynistic,” hateful, and mentally unwell and in need of “therapy.” The one thing not said, strikingly, is that he was wrong.

One might quip here that while a female leader may not get us into fewer wars, we might for the first time in history get into a war over something that happened 20 years ago and that everyone else has forgotten about.

Tucker Not the First to Say So

Of course, while the New Chivalry dictates woke double standards, one may wonder: If it’s okay discussing how men are supposedly more warlike, what’s wrong with examining this thesis and suggesting the opposite may be true? Goose and gander, right? (Note that The Chronicle of Higher Education published a 2015 article actually stating that “maleness” is a “birth defect.”)

Apropos here is that I actually just wrote about how females are more likely than males to initiate violence in marital and dating relationships. This said, it’s true that males are more given to using physical aggression as a tool. Yet that’s not the whole story.

For example, men are also less apt to hold grudges; hence the phrase “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Vindictiveness, the failure to forgive and a characteristic female fault, can beget great destruction.

There’s also a reason Rudyard Kipling wrote in a famous poem that “the female of the species is more deadly than the male,” and in it claimed that captives of American Indians feared the cruelty of the “squaws” more than the hand of the braves. As anthropologist Margaret Mead explained, the “evidence of history and comparative studies of other species suggest that women as a fighting body might be far less amenable to the rules that prevent warfare from becoming a massacre and, with the use of modern weapons, that protect the survival of all humanity.”

Different Reasons for Fighting

Put differently, males tend to be principle-oriented while females are feelings-oriented. This is evident even in children. Little boys are more likely than girls to get physical, but when they do they generally push and shove and wrestle and, maybe, throw some punches. They instinctively abide by rules. Girls aren’t as likely to fight, but when they do, there can be scratching and hair-pulling and beyond — it’s no-holds-barred. Hence the term “cat fight.”

The explanation may be that since males would fight (even if in a quasi-friendly way) to establish dominance and the pecking order (like two rams butting heads), it’s advantageous to survival if they can “settle matters” without hurting each other. In contrast, females might fight only as a last resort, when male protection is absent and perhaps to protect their offspring; in this case, the survival advantage lies in being as vicious as possible so that, hopefully, the children won’t be killed.

Women in Power

Yet another factor is that it isn’t the average woman who rises to the pinnacle of power. This brings us to Duke’s First Rule of Women in Politics. It’s a catch-22:

Insofar as women are in politics, they should be traditionalist women. The problem is that traditionalist women aren’t seeking a place in the House.

They’re at home — taking care of kids.

Lamenting this problem in 2018, commentator Megan Fox quoted a nobleman, Viscount Helmsley, speaking in a 1912 parliamentary debate. The females “who will take the greatest part in politics will not be the quiet, retiring, constitutional women,” he observed, “but those very militant women who have brought so much disgrace and discredit upon their sex.”

History since then has certainly borne this out. And it could make you wonder: How well will a cat-fight mentality and nuclear capability mix?

                   This article was originally published at The New American. 

Comments

[tj]

Yeah, no, on the car fights. Only gypsy women fight to the death over a potential mate. Cat fights generally end with going into your corner of the ring alternately seething and crying. How often have you heard of girls killing each other in a slap fight? Never, Selwyn. Who's the drama queen now? You are! I do have a movie in which two gypsy women holding knives in their teeth are fighting over Tony Curtis, Taras Bulba, but I think this was limited to the steppe no later than the 19th century.

I was in two, count em, cat fights as a child. The first stopped after a necklace broke though it wasn't mine and I didn't break it. (Ok. Maybe I was an observer; it's all kinda hazy.) The other stopped after my cousin stabbed me in the shin with her newly long fingernails. It was a shocker! Females may be unprincipled but we have mastered the art of changing the subject on a matter we no longer wish to pursue. Guys usually just wear themselves out.

As far as running a country or being foreign minister, I think it is possible female leaders exhibit callous disregard for the lives of mostly male soldiers. This is perhaps because so few women serve in the military. Having guys in uniform slaughter each other is perhaps more like them ripping the stuffing out of toys than eviscerating each other. I dunno. Gotta go sharpen my nails now in case of a cat fight.

[Selwyn Duke]

Dear Tj,

Thank you for responding. You misunderstood the point. I never wrote that women fought to the "death"; rather, the point is that, as Margaret Mead herself said, they're not characteristically rules-oriented. This can be a problem in various situations, and managing warfare is one of them.

"Females may be unprincipled but we have mastered the art of changing the subject on a matter we no longer wish to pursue."

LOL, this isn't about subjects one "no longer wishes to pursue." Women find it harder to let go of a subject as a rule and, in fact, to let go of anger. This is why it's well known that while a husband will often try to walk away when an argument seems futile, his wife will often pursue him and not let it go, thus escalating the situation.

The real test of the matter is how a person reacts with a subject he DOES wish to pursue in a situation in which there is an impasse. Letting go of a subject you don't wish to pursue is like giving away an object you don't want. It may or may not make the other person happy, but it's nothing about which to boast.

God bless,

Selwyn Duke

[tj]

I still don't see your female psychology. Women will insist on conformity but so will many men. Women do more nagging which could be particularly rancorous. As for not letting go of a matter, I've known men to hold grudges for over two decades while seeking the opportunity for revenge. I have seen little difference between men and women in getting revenge and have even observed them working together going after a third party.

My theory is that upbringing and education play a large part in the thinking of people who are able to resolve conflicts in order to move forward. This does require putting rules before feelings. Anyone or any community can hold a grudge that causes them to want the offending party destroyed. This happens in personal relationships as well as between countries. Maybe men are more capable of using negotiation to resolve conflicts essentially commodifying hurt feelings. I think Trump is an example of both tendencies;in business and in politics he makes deals like the Abraham Accords but is also known for taking offense and exacting disproportionate revenge when interacting with individuals.

In short, I see no difference between men and women who will not be satisfied over a slight. Women have less practice with physical aggression so may well engage in overkill when responding to a physical threat. On the other hand, women have a long history of giving subtle insults to those who aren't complying with social norms or to those they simply don't like. Such remarks are often called "catty". I just don't see the difference, Selwyn. If a woman pursues a matter to the point a man is angry enough to strike her, it probably just means the woman has successfully caused the man to be as upset as she is. Here you see the woman is actually more civilized when overwhelmed by emotion.

[NvEric]

In the upbringing I've had and the general way boys and girls in school were educated with the need to control males, men learned the rules given, disciplines enforced, and the consequences afterward to set the way they are to behave. With the female those methods were absent so that observing the methods was not reinforced by practice. Those were the standards in the 60s and 70s. The girls were not regimented as the boys were. How that translates afterwards in life is not for me to draw conclusions.

When examining how elected persons behave in office, as in Congressional committees, there is a marked difference between men and women. It's not rock solid, but the behaviors, for the most part, do follow different paths. But, neither men nor women in government can be predicted to be 'better' than the other.