Women and World War

Women and World War

Kathleen Parker writes this week about why women should take advantage of their special strengths rather than try to become men -- nothing very new there. She did get my attention with the following two assertions:

Research shows that companies with more female employees make more money. And recent history makes clear that nations that oppress women are dangerous nations.

I'm not sure what "research" it is that shows that companies with more women make more money; that would be interesting to find out more about. (Unfortunately Ms. Parker provides no sources.)

The other claim is one I've heard before, but as attractive as it is to my own sensibilities, I have to wonder about it, too. Is it really true that a culture that oppresses women is necessarily more dangerous to its neighbors? Why would that be? Certainly we have some glaring examples of oppressive cultures that recently have been giving the whole world a hard time, but I'm not sure we can show causation and not mere correlation there. No doubt a fundamentalist Moslem would argue that the U.S., with its perverted sexual mores, is the worst offender among the nations of the world. Admittedly, it's easier for countries with gender-equality traditions to get along with each other than with countries who loathe this kind of thing. What do you think?