Responses

Fukuyamas Follies

So What if Women Ruled the World?

Men Hate War TooBARBARA E H R E N R E I C H

Francis Fukuyama marshals the familiar ev-"idence suggesting that males, in our speciesand others, are more prone to violencethan females ("Women and the Evolutionof World Politics," September/October1998). Despite the current academic biasagainst "essentialist" or genetic explana-tions of behavior, this evidence shows thatmales are indeed more Ukely to fight,murder, loot, pillage, and, of course, rapethan females. The question remains,however, whether this apparently innatemale predilection has much to do withthe subjects that concern Fukuyama—war, international relations, and politics.

If Fukuyama had read just a bit furtherin the anthropology of war, even in theworks of some scholars he cites approvingly,he would have discovered that there islittle basis for locating the wellspring ofwar in aggressive male instincts—or inany instincts, for that matter. Wars are notbarroom brawls writ large, but, as socialtheorist Robin Fox puts it, "complicated,orchestrated, highly organized" collective

undertakings that cannot be explainedby any individual impulse. No plausibleinstinct would impel a man to leave hishome, cut his hair short, and driU for hoursunder the hot sun. As anthropologistsClifton B. Kroeber and Bernard L. Fontanahave pointed out, "It is a large step fromwhat may be biologically innate leaningstoward individual aggression to ritualized,socially sanctioned, institutionalized groupwarfare." Or as a 1989 conference on theanthropology of war concluded, "Thehypothesis of a killer instinct i s . . . notso much irrelevant as wrong."

In fact, the male appetite for battle hasalways been far less voracious than eitherbiologically inclined theorists of waror army commanders might Hke. Intraditional societies, warriors often hadto be taunted, intoxicated, or ritually"transformed" into animal form beforebattle. Throughout Western history,individual men have gone to near*suicidallengths to avoid participating in wars—cutting off limbs or fingers or riskingexecution by deserting. Prior to theadvent of the nationalist armies of thenineteenth century, desertion rates in Euro-pean armies were so high that, according

[118]

Fukuyama's Folliesto historian Geoffrey Parker, "at certain world may be entirely bloodless, featuringtimes, almost an entire army would vanish the receipt of a diploma or admissioninto thin air." So unreliable was the rank into a guild. In others it may be violentand flle of the famed eighteenth-century in ways not related to war, involving cir-Prussian army that military manuals cumcision, homosexual rape, or nose-bleed-torbade camping near wooded areas. Even ing induced with sharp sticks—activitiesin the supposedly highly motivated armies few would claim are instinctually driven,of the twentieth-century democracies, few In fact, the very purpose of male initiationmen can bring themselves to shoot directly rites is to distinguish biological maleness,at indi\ddual enemies—a fact, as Lieutenant which undoubtedly includes a healthyColonel Dave Grossman writes in On desire for self-preservation, from culturalKilling: The Psychological Cost of Learning manhood, which requires a certain amountto Kill in War and Society, that has posed a of self-discipline and even self-sacriflce forpersistent challenge to the Pentagon. the group (as does cultural womanhood).

MALE RITES WOMEN WARRIORS

Fortunately, we need not resort to instinc- Nor can it be assumed that the maletual male aggressiveness to explain the male monopoly on warfare has been as eternalnear-monopoly on warfare. One reason and universal as Fukuyama imagines,is clearly biological, resting on men's Gravesites recently excavated in Russiaadvantage in upper body strength—an contain tbe remains of women warriorsundeniable plus when the weapons of war from the second millennium B.C.—femaleare heavy swords, spears, pikes, maces, or skeletons buried with weapons and bearingclubs. Another explanation is cultural, wounds inflicted by similar weapons. Theor at least as purely cultural as one can be: victims of the Neolithic massacre at JebelIn many, if not most, human societies, Sahaba, mentioned by Fukuyama, includedmale initiation rites feature acts of violence both women and men, and there is nocommitted by or on the initiates, and one evidence that the perpetrators wereof the most common of these rites has been exclusively male. Moving back into theparticipation in battle. Through "blooding Paleolithic Age, when hunting washis spear" a boy proved his manhood (or probably the principal form of humanthrough ordering the bombing of some violence, growing archaeological evidencesmaller nation, in the case of recent suggests that it was a communal enter-American presidents). For an activity to prise in which women and childrenbe a male initiatory rite, it cannot, of joined men in driving herds over cliffs orcourse, be open to women and girls. Hence into nets or culs-de-sac. Thus, Fukuyamathe widespread taboos on female handling overstates the case when he says thatof weapons and, in many cases, the tools "men [unlike women] have clearly evolvedof peaceable male-dominated crafts. as cooperative hunters and flghters." The

But there is no reason to think that such male-centered hunting strategy thatinitiatory activities derive from instinctual flgured so prominently in the writings ofmale proclivities. In some cultural settings, sociobiologists in the 1960s and 1970s—the young male's initiation to the adult in which a small band of men stalks an

FOREIGN AFFAIRS January/February 1999

TT

Don't call me honey: Chilean soldiers onparade, Santiago,AP/ WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

individual animal—may be a rather recentinnovation, necessitated by declininggame populations in the Mesolithic Age.

Myths of ancient civilizations alsothrow doubt on Fukuyama's assertions.Some of the earliest deities worshippedby humans were female, but they werehardly the nurturing earth mothersimagined by many scholars. The archaicgoddesses unearthed from Mediterraneanand Mesopotamian ruins or recalled inMesoamerican mythology were huntressesand avid consumers of blood sacrifices,often accompanied or represented bypredators such as lions and leopards. Onlylater were these terrifying deities "tamed"through marriage to patriarchal malegods and reassigned to agriculturalduties. Although the characteristics

of the archaic goddesses tell us nothingabout the roles of actual women, they dosuggest a time when the association ofmanhood with violence and femininitywith gentleness was not as self-evidentas it has seemed in the modern age.

MACHO MAN

Whatever our genetic and prehistoriccultural legacies, women in the past twocenturies have more than adequatelydemonstrated a capacity for collectiveviolence. They have played a leadingrole in nonmilitary violence such aseighteenth- and nineteenth-centurybread riots and revolutionary uprisings,in which they were often reputed to be"foremost in violence and ferocity." InWorld War II, the Soviet military deployed

[120] FOREIGN AFFAYRS Volumey8No. 1

WLiJK WOULD PHOTOS

I said, don t call me honey: Iranian soldiers on paradey Tehran,

them as fighter pilots and in groundcombat. Since then, women have served;is terrorists and guerrilla fighters inwars of national liberation. More to thepoint, women have proved themselvesno less susceptible than men to thepassions of militaristic nationalism:witness feminist leader Sylvia Pankhurst,who set aside the struggle for suffrageto mobilize English support for WorldWar I by, for example, publicly shamingmen into enlisting. Fukuyama concedesthat, among heads of government,Margaret Thatcher is an exception tohis gender dichotomy but ignores themany exceptions on the male side ofthe ledger—such as the antimihtaristic,social-democratic Olaf Palme and WillyBrandt. Nor does he mention the gender

of the greatest pacifist leaders of thetwentieth century, Martin Luther King,Jr., and Mohandas K. Gandhi.

But perhaps Fukuyama would concedeall of the above, for in the end he has littleuse for his own dubious claims about theinherent aggressiveness of men and nice-ness of women. Up until the last threepages of his essay, one might assumethat he was gearing up to demand solelymasculine leadership, if not participation,in the arenas of politics and war. But no.Women in the military? His only objectionhas to do with sex as an activity ratherthan a category, which leads him to themild suggestion that men and womenshould be segregated into separate combatunits. As for pohtical leadership, heworries a httle that the female, and hence

FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February 1999 [121]

Ehrenreichy Pollitt, etal.

over-kindly, heads of state who arise inthe northern democracies will be a poormatch for the macho young males whomhe expects to dominate the south. But evenhere he quickly backtracks, admitting,"Masculine policies will be still be required,though not necessarily masculine leaders."

If, as Fukuyama concludes, either sexcan be "masculine" in both admirahleand execrable ways, what is the point ofhis essay, with its lengthy excursion intothe supposedly murderous habits of cave-men and chimps? Perhaps Fukuyama isright about one thing: Whatever the in-nate psychological differences betweenthe sexes, a certain male propensity forchest-thumping persists, and can befound among desk-dwelling Americanscholars as well as alpha apes.

BARBARA EHRENREICH isan authorand lecturer whose essays have appearedfrequently in Time, The Nation, and TheGuardian. Her most recent book is Blood Rites.

Father Knows BestKATHA P O L L I T T

In his 1989 essay "The End of History?"Fukuyama argued that liberal capitalistdemocracy was the final stage of politicalorganization toward which the wholeworld was tending. Today, it seems clearthat history will continue to occur, fueledby familiar energies—nationalism, religiousmania, the will to power of powerfulmen, drastic inequalities hetween andwithin nations, economic cycles of boomand bust. Undaunted, Fukuyama is backwith another idea. He prophesies thatthe increasing political power of womenin wealthy Western countries will incline

those countries against war because •evolution has made violence, aggression,and status competition hardwired com-ponents of male, but not female, nature.As with chimpanzees, so with humans:From rival male chimps tearing each otherto pieces it is but a step to the famouslyviolent Yanomamo of the Amazon, andhefore we know it we are on familiartwentieth-century killing grounds—theHolocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia.

But Fukuyama warns that this femalepeacefulness poses dangers to the West.Other parts of the world where femaleinfanticide and sex-selective ahortion resultin heavily male populations will becomemore pugnacious. Are Western women upto the challenge of a testosterone-saturatedAsia? And what about women in thearmy? If men are genetically destinedto bond only with other men and tocompete perpetually for females, willcoed army units degenerate intoPeyton Place in camouflage?

In arguing for his story of things tocome, Fukuyama strays all over the ideo-logical map. He draws on "evolutionarypsychologists" to portray men as the mainsource of human violence, but he ignoresthose theorists' other claim that maledominance and female acceptance thereofare permanent features of human nature.He mocks radical feminists for dreamingthat men can he socialized to be morehumane, but he simultaneously imaginesthat these same unreformahle men wiUsimply let women steer the ship of stateinto tranquil waters. He projects into thefuture current practices that fit his vision,without acknowledging the possibilitythat those practices may change. Is it soobvious that Asians will still be abortingfemale fetuses in 20 years after a generation

[122] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume78No. 1

I I

Fukuyama's Folliesof pampered sons has heen unahle to find stories that suggest feminists are harkingwives? Are we so sure that Europe and up the wrong tree and that gender equalityJapan, faced with rapidly aging populations, is a doomed project. But Fukuyama iswill just grow gray in a corner? Perhaps wrong to suggest that evolutionarythese wrinkled nations will hecome more psychology has won the day in science,immigration-friendly, like the United Fukuyama tends to name the people heStates. Indeed, France, Italy, and Spain are agrees with while referring only vaguelyalready experiencing enormous pressure and condescendingly to opponentsas illegal immigration from eastern ("radical feminists," "many feminists,"Europe and Africa increases. The new "postmodernists"). But Stephen JayGerman government has just loosened Gould, Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose,citizenship requirements, suggesting that and many other scientists make formidablexenophobia is not the only response to arguments, grounded not in ideology butdemographic change. in biology, against genetic determinism.

It is not encouraging that FukuyamaEVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY IS BUNK seems unfamiliar with their work.So what is wrong with Fukuyama's He argues that men are more violentargument? Just about everything. First, than women. Someday he may providehe argues that science has discovered the actual evidence that this is a biologicalgenetic roots of human behavior. This is rather than social tendency. But even ifquite untrue; "evolutionary psychology" is women are innately less violent, they arejust a theory. It is certainly not the case plenty violent enough to call into questionthat "hardly a week goes by without the Fukuyama's claim that more female politicaldiscovery of a gene linked to a disease, power would mean more peace. Womencondition, or behavior," although it is commit infanticide, abuse and kiJl children,indeed true that hardly a week goes mutilate the genitals of little girls, andby without someone claiming to have cruelly tyrannize daughters, daughters-in-discovered such a gene. No one would law, servants, and slaves. They have alsodispute that diseases can have genetic been known to encourage and defendcomponents, but behaviors? The much- male violence—egging on personal,publicized "alcoholism gene" turned out family, or gang vendettas, blaming thenot to exist, which should make Fukuyama victims of rape and wife-beating, andcautious about such sweeping statements. so on. Historically, cultures organizedIn fact, no single gene has ever been dis- around war and displays of cruelty havecovered that by itself determines a human had women's full cooperation: Spartansocial behavior; it is a long way from cystic and Roman women were famed for theirfibrosis to marital infidelity. And it has "manly" valor. Did Viking women standnot even begun to be demonstrated that a on Scandinavian beaches begging theircomplex piece of human behavior like husbands not to pillage France? Didviolence or competition could boil down premodern European women shunto X or Y chromosomes. public executions and witch burnings?

Evolutionary psychologists' theories As these examples suggest, even definingare popular with the media, which love violence raises questions: The same act

FOREIGN AFFAIRS January/February 1999 [123]

Ehrenreich, Pollitt, et al

can be regarded as wrong, psychopathic, was not fought because a lot of hotheadedglorious, or routine, depending on its young men got together and decided tosocial context. invade Poland. Nor did the Holocaust

When it comes to organized state take place because groups of young menviolence—^war, executions, slavery, con- were competing for status over who couldcentration camps, and so on—^women's murder the most Jews. War and its atrocitiespacifism is a distinctly modern phenome- are organized politically, from the top, bynon. So how can it be genetic? You might leaders who are—^yes—usually men. Butas well say that today's women explorers, they are generally old men who are notworld travelers, athletes, and foreign cor- necessarily personally violent. In modernrespondents prove that women have belat- times they rarely fight—Lyndon B. Johnsonedly acquired that supposedly male gene for never personally threw prisoners of war out"adventurousness." (Fukuyama has clearly of helicopters. It is young men who fight,never tried to get a middle-class American but how willingly? If war is so appealing toman to see a foreign movie or try a new male genes, why has every major moderncuisine.) As for his claim that group-status war required a draft? Why does today'scompetition is a male characteristic—didn't army recruit by touting its vocationalFukuyama go to high school? Girls and fringe benefits?women do not beat each other up as much,but they certainly do compete for status— VOTERS DON'T MAKE FOREIGN POLICY

through clothes, money, boyfriends, Fukuyama argues that war and foreignpopularity, sexuality, cliques, and sororities, policy are determined by voters, who"Keeping up with the Joneses" is a form will be disproportionately female andof female competition; so is getting your therefore antiwar. True, women are morechild into a fancy private school; so is likely than men to oppose war—thoughbeing a groupie or marrying a famous the difference is hardly as large as aman. Fukuyama concedes that for his genetic explanation suggests it shouldsupposedly sex-linked traits, each gender be—but wars are not decided at the ballotfalls along a bell curve and that these box. If they were, the United Statescurves mostly overlap. This contradicts would not have entered World War I.his argument that men are violent and After all, the mostly male electoratecompetitive and women are not. If chose Woodrow Wilson, whose sloganmost men and most women fall in the was "He kept us out of war." In 1964,middle range, it is hard to see how voters picked Johnson ("I seek no widergender difference can carry the burden war") over the saber-rattling BarryFukuyama assigns it. Goldwater. Nor have subsequent military

actions in Panama, Somalia, the PersianWHY THE DRAFT? G\M, and Sudan or secret adventuresFukuyama's essay's second fiaw is arguing such as supporting the Contras been thethat individual qualities determine state subjects of popular votes,behavior. For him, war is personal violence Political power is not merely or evenmultiplied by the number of participants. primarily a matter of ballots or publicBut this is the wrong model. World War II opinion. Most Americans favor handgun

[124] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume78No. 1

Fukuyama's Follies

control, but the National Rifle Association citizenship, he suggests no means byspends millions to make sure it never which to move them along. He does not,happens. In the case of war, what matters for example, urge political parties to putis not what the voters want but campaign forward gender-balanced lists of candidates,contributions from defense manufacturers as happens in some European countries,and others, the short-term public relations Indeed, the only concrete proposalneeds of presidents, or the nation's Fukuyama makes is to restrict women'sgeopolitical interests as interpreted by a citizenship by limiting their militaryHenry Kissinger or a McGeorge Bundy role. Women make up only 12 percent(or a Jeane Kirkpatrick or a Madeleine of Congress and hold only three gover-Albright). Once the powers that be have norships, the first two female Supremedecided, public opinion can always be Court justices are stiU on the bench, but

Fukuyama is worried that the girls areabout to seize power and turn the UnitedStates into an international wimp.

Forget feminism, genetics, or evolution.What we have here is basically a convo-luted variation on two old conservativethemes: When it comes to the military,too much is not enough, and when itcomes to foreign policy, father—not

manipulated to fall into line. Before theGulf War, Americans were split overwhether to send troops. Antiwar voiceswere prominently featured in the news.Once the troops were dispatched, however,the media cut off debate and soon it wasyellow ribbons all around.

American women have had the votefor nearly 80 years. So far, they have noteven won paid maternity leave or affordabledaycare, things taken for granted inother industrialized countries. In light ofthese failures, the assertion that womenwill be transforming American foreignpolicy anytime soon, against the will ofthose now in control, strikes me as a fantasysecond only to the notion that geneticswill bring it about. It is more likely thatas women become more enmeshed inpolitics and business, with all their com-promises and rewards, whatever modestinclination they may now possess towardnonviolent conflict resolution will be

mother—knows best.KATHA POLLITT is Associate Editor of

The Nation. Her essays bave appeared inThe New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's,andTh.e. New York Times. She is the authorof Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Womenand Feminism.

Perilous PositionsR. B R I A N F E R G U S O N

In his desire to prove that world conflictsswamped by other factors: vanity, greed, have a basis in biology, Fukuyama makesfear, perceptions of national interest, lust a number of outright errors.for cheap oil.

Fukuyama's article is so confused andcontradictory, so lacking in real evidenceand logic, that one wonders what it isreally aU about. Despite his professed

First, chimpanzees do not "routinely"murder their peers. The famous incidentat Gombe that Fukuyama refers tooccurred only after major human-inducedchanges, most important of which was

sympathy for women's claims to fliUer the researchers' artificial provisioning of

FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February 1999

Ehrenreich, Pollitt, etal.

bananas. Other reported instances of possibility of escalation of violence is"chimp wars" also took place in stressful eliminated, there is little difference in thesituations. Primatologist Margaret frequency of aggression in males andPower offers a contrasting view: "Virtually females." The evolutionary psychologyeverywhere that they were studied by Fukuyama follows claims that mostnaturalistic methods, undisturbed wild violence is done by young men. The studychimpanzees live peacefully in nonaggres- cited to support this human universal issive, nonhierarchical groups." Fukuyama based on contemporary homicide statistics,fails to note that the lesser-known primarily from Detroit. Crime patterns inbonobos are as closely related to humans modern industrial cities tell us no moreas chimpanzees and display no tenden- about our distant past than do statisticscies to collective violence. on automobile fatalities. Ethnographic

A debate rages within the anthropology data on war in tribal societies provides anof war about the relationship between the entirely different picture. War leadershiphigh rates of violence observed in tribal and killing are usually tasks of middle-agedsocieties and the behavior of our distant (by local standards) family men, whileancestors. Fukuyama takes one side. On young men go along as apprentices,the other, copious evidence documents Men make war. There are importantdramatically increasing violence after exceptions, but they are rare. Yet womenWestern contact. Disruptive factors—new are often among the most vocal advocatesweapons, trade rivalries, demand for of war, making a gendered disposition toslaves, and forced migrations—transformed peace hard to support empirically. Whyand intensified indigenous warfare. This not more women warriors? Because warhigher-level carnage has been incorporated is work, and all tribal societies have pro-into our theories and images of "primitive nounced, gender-specific divisions ofwar." War leaves many recoverable archaeo- labor. Women get tasks compatible withlogical signs, and global findings are pregnancy and child-rearing; men getstraightforward and consistent: Evidence those that put a premium on strengthof war is rare until long after a shift to and endurance. Tribal men also get theagriculture and the development of hier- job of long-distance trade, but no onearchical social systems. War emerges late claims men have a gene for shopping,in human history because it is difficult to Fukuyama asserts that having viewedorganize without authority. Fukuyama's "international relations through the lensconclusion that "the line [of collective of sex and biology... it is very difficultviolence] from chimp to modern man is to watch Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia,continuous" is a breathtaking leap over a Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, or militiasmountain of contrary evidence. from Liberia and Sierra Leone to Georgia

On the connection between violence, and Afghanistan . . . and not think of thegender, and age, Fukuyama's position is chimps at Gombe." This is ridiculous andagain perilous. A1993 review of aggression misleading. Recent world conflicts haveliterature concludes, "In laboratory studies occurred in an intricate political fieldof human aggression, where the use of complicated by the intersection of localphysical aggression is controlled and the structures and global forces. Fukuyama

[126] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume78No. 1

Fukuyama's Follies

replaces this understanding with a crude political analysis—even when describeddiscussion of chimp behavior, aggressive as "human behavior"—has been aboutyoung men, and.biological tendencies. the behavior of males.

FERGUSON is Associate Feminism has produced two contradic-tory assertions: first, that men and womenare the same and that any important behav-ioral differences result from discrimination,sexism, and patriarchy; second, that womenare different and morally better than men.The first assertion is employed most oftenby lawyers, who conclude that there shouldbe as many women in any job, sport, club,party, or cabinet as there are in the relevantpopulation. The second assertion is madeby Carol GiUigan, whose In a DifferentVoice proposes that girls pursue moralbehavior and social harmony better thanboys because, weU, because they are girls.The fact that sexual differentiation innegotiating strategies also emerges inother primates does not affect the femininesentimentality that propeUed Gilligan's

Professor of Anthropology at RutgersUniversity.

Prehistory ReturnsLIONEL TIGER

A remarkably valuable feature ofFukuyama's essay is that he admits he waswrong—not by acknowledging that theearlier approaches to macropolitics withwhich he made his reputation wereincorrect but by emphasizing the bizarredistinction made between natural andsocial sciences. This has let social scientistsbelieve they can conduct research quar-antined from neurophysiology, paleoan-thropology, genetics, endocrinology, and work to prominence. Other writers,the comparative study of animal behavior, including feminists such as Katha PoUittIt is now overwhelmingly clear that,however complex, humans are subjectto the same rules as other species andthus that human studies should notwork in isolation. It was recently revealed

and Christina Hoff Sommers, criticizedthe GiUigan approach. Nevertheless, itstimulated efforts to restrict male behavior,stigmatize males as generally brash andinsensitive, and claim that girls suffer from

that only 50 genes distinguish us from low self-esteem because they conform tochimpanzees—^with whom we otherwise male wishes. That women generally doshare some 100,000.

Fukuyama has moved from the "endof history" to the beginning of prehis-tory, a study that will soon be requiredfor contemporary political history. Heunderstands that much of feministtheory entails profound disruptionsin how human beings have alwaysbalanced production, reproduction, andcivil society. Fukuyama's appropriationof prehistory lets him recognize thatthe overwhelming mass of traditional

better than men in the educational systemand now compose 55 percent of the collegepopulation does nothing to discouragesuch zealous misinterpretation.

Fukuyama acknowledges the geneticmale propensity to competition andviolence. In our 1971 The Imperial Animal,Robin Fox and I proposed that the centralquestion of any social system is "Whatdo we do with the young males?" Thequestion remains central today, especiallyin economies unable to generate jobs

FOREIGN AFFAIRS-January/February 1999 [127]

Ehrenreich, Pollitt, et al

for them. Fukuyama suggests that theintroduction of more women into thecontroUing systems of society, especiaUyin politics, will give a pacific tone tonational and international action. For thisview, he cites some opinion-poU data aboutthe support for military adventure, exam-ines the behavior of the few female leadersinvolved in miUtary decision-making, andcould have noted the preference of manyfemales in contemporary militaries for"operations other than warfare."

But though Fukuyama's forecast thatpolitical change wiU accompany changesin the sexual composition of leadership isplausible, the picture remains conjectural.There is no empirical evidence of large-scale, long-term social structures that havebeen created and maintained exclusively oreven largely by females. The overworkedmyth of matriarchy notwithstanding, wedo not have good examples of groups ofwomen engaged over generations in cre-ating and sustaining public organizationssuch as armies, religions, police forces, oreven international businesses. It remainsan open question if there is a female equiv-alent to the omnipresent male bondingthat encourages the aUoy of assertion andself-sacrifice at the heart of a community'scentral power structure. The political gen-der gaps emerging in Uberal democraciescertainly suggest the beginnings ofsuch edifices.

It is possible, even if unlikely, thatone response to greater female influencewiU be greater male belligerence andeven violence against them. At the sametime that the TaUban restricts womenfrom kindergarten, radical activists restrictwomen from abortion in the UnitedStates. In the contemporary world, thereis nowhere for women and children to

go. We receive daUy buUetins about thebewilderingly lethal intransigence ofmale leaders committed to some programof desperate importance to them. Thestruggle for social control may be onethat women choose not to take up.

ONEL TIGER isDarwinProfessorofAnthropology at Rutgers University. His nextbook is The Decline of Males.

States Make WarJ A N E S. J A Q . U E T T E

Fukuyama gives insufficient weight tothe dynamics of the nation-state systemin explaining both war and peace. Warsstart not in biology—instinctual maleaggression—but in realpolitik—a state'sneed to defend itself from outside threats.War does not come naturally to humans.Men must be trained to fight and kiUothers, and all people must be taughtpatriotism. States go to great lengths todemonize their enemies.

State power explains the brutality ofinternal ethnic conflicts such as thosein Bosnia and Rwanda. Fukuyama mis-takenly cites these examples to hammerhome his equation of humans withmurderous chimps. But control of thestate involves high stakes, with winnersdeciding how laws are made, taxes applied,and access provided to economic andeducational opportunities. Unsurprisingly,competition is fierce when the incentivesare so large.

Fukuyama suggests that women aremore pacifistic than men. Severaldecades of research shows that womendo differ from men regarding war.Women are markedly less interested in

[128] FOREIGN AFFAIRS Volume78No. 1

Fukuyamas Follies

and knowledgeable about it. Women would spotlight social issues andprefer lower military expenditures in organizations in which women alreadytimes of peace and negotiations instead play important roles. As women's tradi-of force. But this does not mean thatwomen are unaggressive; they cansometimes be more aggressive thanmen. When women are allowed tocarry arms, they are often fiercefighters, as was true of many Centraland South American guerrillas. Oncewar commences, there is little evidencethat women withhold support from themale-dominated state. Today manywomen receive military training andpress to go into combat—not to satisfytheir hardwired desire to kill but tosucceed in military careers that requireproving oneself on the battlefield.

If women are more inclined tonegotiation, what difference does itmake? The cliche Fukuyama cites isthat more women leaders would meanmore peace. But female leaders face thesame pressures as men. For every MaryRobinson or Gro Harlem Brundtlandwho has made peacemaking a focus ofher leadership (and who probably rep-resents a small European state that canafford to promote peace because it relieson the protection of larger powers),there is an Indira Gandhi or MargaretThatcher leading a major power thatuses force to achieve its foreign policyand domestic goals.

But these women may have beenforced into male posturing becausethere are so few female leaders. If therewere a critical mass of women leadersor if nation-state sovereignty gaveway to international law, the argumentgoes, international relations wouldinclude less interstate competitionand more global cooperation. This

tional concerns become top priority issues,women's say in foreign policy debateswill rise.

JANE S. JAQUETTE tSProfeSSOTof

Politics and Chair ofDiplomatic and WorldAffairs at Occidental College.®

F O R E I G N AFFAIRS-January/Februarylggp [129]