In 2001, I published a novel set in the Minoan world of the Bronze Age (Voice of the Goddess). To promote the book I gave a talk entitled "If Women Ran the World, How Might Things Be Different." My point, drawn from my background in biology and anthropology, was that the Minoan's sophisticated, state-level society appears to have been remarkably lacking in violence—no violent acts are depicted on any of their numerous art artifacts or paintings. They probably ran their affairs much as the Norwegians, Icelanders, Costa Ricans, or Swiss do today: rejectors of war. 

Those same artifacts indicate that this was a culture where women were respected and powerful leaders. In talks I would say, "women, in general, are biologically different from men, in general, because women have an evolved suite of behavioral inclinations that strongly foster social stability and, that includes avoiding war."

I eventually went on to write Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace, my first attempt to explain, from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist, why women have evolved stability-fostering preferences. Other books and essays followed that include explorations of this same issue: Shift: The Beginning of War, The Ending of War; War and Sex and Human Destiny; and A Future Without War.  

This explanation for why women, in general, have some psychological traits that differ from men in ways relating to conflict resolution and caring for community DOES have to do with raising children, but not in the way most people think. Most people think that women are more nurturing…women are NOT by nature more nurturing than men: they can be bad mothers, and a lot of learning goes into being a good mother. Moreover, men who bond early with their offspring can be equally nurturing. It is an evolved deep-seated preference for social stability that guides many of women's social choices.

In Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace I also described: 

• some of the hard-wired traits women display that serve to foster social stability;
• compared conflict behavior and physiological and anatomical differences between humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos as these relate to resolving social conflict s;
• described, from a historical perspective, how frequently women in power launched wars of conquest compared to men;
• explored the phenomenon of "hidden females," in which women's needs and talents are consistently overlooked by lay people and experts;
• and outlined a variety of changes we would have to make in the way we run our lives and treat women if we want to abolish the practice of war.

It's been seven years since that first book on war and the relationship of women to war was published and I'm still at it, working to explain why we could end war if we choose to, and why empowering women is one of several necessary conditions required to suceeed in reaching that much desired goal.

If you'd like to read my take on current affairs, or get a sense of what amuses me or I find educational or beautiful, do a search and follow me, Judith Hand, on Facebook.

The full title of the book is A Future Without War. The Strategy of a Warfare Transition, 2nd Ed.  The phrase "warfare transition" refers to the idea that we could -- if the global community was adamantly resolved to do it -- we could end the barbarity and waste of wars within two generations or even less, much as the demographic transition reduced the world's rate of populaton growth in less than two generations! It presents a collection of short interrelated essays on the potential for us to build and then maintain a warless future. It's published in three user friendly formats: a paperback book and/or Kindel download from Amazon.com, and right on this website A Future Without War. 

Making war is not inevitable. My latest book "War and Sex and Human Destiny" takes a well-researched and comprehensive look at the many reasons why. War is not an inescapable result of human nature! In this book, I explore this fact from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist examining the subject of war from both a biological and anthropological perspective to explain why we can be sure that war is not something that is “in our genes.” I also use the biological phenomenon called sexual dimorphism to explain why any attempt to end war that will endure must including the empowerment of women.