TAKE A VOW OF CHASTITY. Asparagirl's send-up of the Lysistrata Project (motto: Women Say Yes to Men Who Say No) has not convinced everybody. As certainly as March brings out the brackets and the office pools, it brings out the International Womens' Day essays about how much more peaceful the world would be if run on "female" principles. Never mind that the findings in John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus have been taken apart by communications theorists in just about as many ways as there are coherent arguments. I attended a particularly lurid demolition of Gray presented by a visiting scholar some years ago, it was a clinic in distinguishing the professional researcher from the amateur. That doesn't stop Leah C. Wells, recently freed from duties as a target designator, from trotting out the old standards: "Two great principles govern all interaction on earth: the male principle of competition and the female principle of cooperation. The judicious balance between these opposing forces functions both as a means of perceiving the world as well as guidance for getting along in it." Huh? Since when did these principles develop gonads? Anyway, "War and peace are often interchangeably substituted for what we identify as the male and female principles." Put another way, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Don't bring that research 'round here. Or if you're going to, have a look at The Odd Girl Out. Perhaps there are sex differences in methods of competition.

Tightly Wound continues the punishment. Go read her work. Perhaps she'll also be set off by Noeleen Heyzer's venture onto similar turf. "If women allocated the world's resources, would they invest in more weapons, or would they choose to invest in the much broader notion of human security -- through development, environmental protection and social services -- which could be provided with a sliver of current military spending?"

Development, environmental protection, and social services all require rules of trading and rights of access, which just might have to be backed up by force.

"Prioritizing human security would see HIV/AIDS as the real threat faced by millions and would provide money for drugs instead of fighter jets."

Here's a classic non-sequitur. Isn't the incidence of AIDS greater in places with relatively little money for drugs or for fighter jets? And what are the implications of referring to HIV infection as a sexually transmitted disease?