The Female of the Species

Bill589 got me thinking about women in politics. Looking back on history, some woman always seems to find herself at the front of the charge when all the menfolk have lost their courage (which is exactly where the Republican Party is today).

I love Thomas Paine in the American Crisis:

"In the Fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc.

Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment!"

And who can forget Deborah, the female judge in the Old Testament, and Jael, the woman who put a tent stake through the enemy commander's head.

And I love this article, published in the Alaska Report of all places, on August 21 of 2006 while Sarah was running for Governor. It's called, "Frank Murkowski: King Often Taken by Queenship":

The GOP side of the governor's race reminds one of a chess game, where right up until losing its King, the trailing team plunges forward - despite having been beaten far earlier. This one's a classic case of forgetting how powerful be the Queen.

Tuesday's the primary, so how about some political gamesmanship, regarding why you should elect someone outside the crony system - Sarah Palin. She alone can and will sweep the crony boards and help restore the People's rights....

Like a sure-footed hoofer Metcalfe, Sarah Palin already stood firm and helped scuttle the diagonal dealings of another GOP dark bishop (Randy Reudrich) earlier. We trust that Palin will also conquer the obvious moves of the big money-backed GOP rook (Mr. Binkley)....

Throughout the centuries, people have yearned for leaders in whom they could place their trust. And it is time to end Alaska's rule by dynstay-seekers too. We believe Palin will take the primary and that if elected Sarah will change the face of Alaska for the better.

As you probably know, the Alaska Report has since turned into a hotbed of Palin Derangement Syndrome. I strongly suggest you stay away from the website that is now home to the likes of Jessie Griffen, a Trig Truther. But the '06 article includes a poem that was not written about Sarah Palin, but is used to draw some parallels.

It describes a king who is going out to grace his realm with his presence. He has everything; the land, the money, the power, the knowledge that his people would be nothing without him....but there is one thing he does not possess: their loyalty. In his travels he sees the Queen conversing with the people. She has this quality that the King is sorely lacking:

Beautiful and calm, as on foot she strolls,
Amidst her maidens-in-attendance: giggling at paupers,
As if not these peasants she by marriage controls,
For, at fruit stands whence she abides, she barters....

Respected stands this lady, as all confer to her,
Most respected loyalty, so earnest loyalty;
Such, through identity, and as no king could confer.
Heralding "Long live this Queen," shouted jubilantly....

She arrived from afar, in a not so awkward way,
Now here amongst these people for her willing to serve.
And showered with their gifts of love her every day.
Loyalty - regal and revered - such as a King should deserve.

Such as a King should deserve. But he doesn't anymore.

Love and loyalty aside, the Party Boys should watch out, for we all know that the female of the species is more deadly than the male:

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking Cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away; but when
Hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other's tale-
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations - worm and savage otherwise -
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger - Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of the Sex!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions - not in these her honour dwells -
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and men are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! -
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons - even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, than the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern - shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and her instincts never fail,
That the female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

- Rudyard Kipling