Women at the Helm

This book is a road map for human survival from a scientific perspective. A sense of responsibility for future generations is essential and our aim should be to avoid unnecessary war, human suffering, and further harm to the environment. Male aggression and arrogance have been allowed to hold women in subjection for too long and this has led to untold disasters in history. The first culprit is to be found in the Y gene for masculinity and male hormones responsible for the more regrettable gender characteristics. Over a long period, selection pressure seems to have favoured a deranged form of evolution, which has been responsible for male brutality and encourages confrontational situations to mutate into armed conflict with tragic consequences for us all. In contrast, crucial genetic, hormonal and brain differences, with the added factors of pregnancy, lactation and child rearing, have made women not superior to men but quite different. Hence the civilizing influence of women may be our only hope in the future. In 2-3 decades, with more women in top jobs in politics and business, we may be able to divert successfully resources from war to peace and global security. The beating of "swords into ploughshares" has always been the ideal of humanity, but now at last, science and the transformation of social values may achieve what has eluded us in the past. The aim of this book is therefore to identify the root causes of war. Irrespective of gender, age, colour or nationality death is the ultimate and worst event to affect any human being. During the past 6,000 years, humans have been involved in numberless bloody conflicts arising from revolution, social and economic problems, excessive population, differing political ideologies, religious differences and dictatorial madness, in every corner of the earth. The manifold misery of death, pestilence, and famine which accompanies war has always been a reminder of its uncompromising evil, albeit to little avail in changing human attitudes. Why do intelligent humans behave so stupidly? This book not only seeks to answer that question but to present a panacea for the future.