WOMEN were less likely than men to support the Vietnam war, the Gulf war, or the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They commit far fewer murders. They are less likely to favour drone strikes. For scholars such as Steven Pinker, a psychologist, and Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, these are grounds for thinking that a world run by women would be more peaceful.

比起男性，女性很少对越南战争、海湾战争或者是对阿富汗和伊拉克的侵略战争表示支持。在谋杀事件当中，女性作案者也远少于男性。她们也更不可能发动无人机空袭。在心理学家史蒂芬·平克和政治科学家弗朗西斯·福山等学者看来，一个由女性统治的世界将会更加和平。

But European history suggests otherwise, according to a working paper by political scientists Oeindrila Dube, of the University of Chicago, and S. P. Harish, of McGill University. They studied how often European rulers went to war between 1480 and 1913. Over 193 reigns, they found that states ruled by queens were 27% more likely to wage war than those ruled by kings.

然而，芝加哥大学政治科学家杜布（Oeindrila Dube）和麦吉尔大学政治科学家哈里什（ S. P. Harish）的研究报告显示，欧洲历史上的女性统治者却并非如此。他们对1480年至1913年间欧洲统治者发动战争的频率进行了研究，发现在193名统治者中，女王发动战争的可能性要比国王高出27%。

This was not all the queens’ fault: men, seeing them as soft targets, tended to attack them. After Mary Tudor became queen of England in 1553, the Protestant reformer John Knox declared “the Monstrous Regiment of Women” unfit to rule: “nature...doth paint them forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish.” Echoing that sentiment, Frederick the Great of Prussia declared: “No woman should ever be allowed to govern anything.” Within months of reaching the throne in 1740, he fell upon the newly crowned Archduchess of Austria, Maria Theresa, and seized Silesia, her empire’s richest province. Despite years of war, she never recovered it. Indeed, unmarried queens were attacked more often than any other monarchs. Think of Elizabeth I, the historical figure with whom Theresa May most identifies, fending off the Spanish Armada.

这并不都是女王的错——男性总是将她们视为软目标，常常发动战争侵略女王统治的国家。1553年，玛丽·都铎继任英格兰女王后，新教改革者约翰·诺克斯宣称“女性统治极为荒谬”，认为女性不适合统治国家：“因为女性天性身心柔弱，意志不坚，毫无耐性，性格软弱，还愚蠢至极。”对这一评价，普鲁士国王腓特烈大帝也回应道：“不能允许女性进行任何统治。”1740年，登上国王宝座数月之后，他便对奥地利新登基的女大公玛丽亚·特雷西娅发动了侵略战争，夺走了奥地利最富饶的地区西里西亚。虽然进行了数年抗战，玛丽亚女大公一直没能收复本国领土。的确，比起其他统治者，未婚女王更易受到他国侵袭。想一想特蕾莎·梅最为认可的历史人物伊丽莎白一世，她成功阻挡了西班牙舰队对英国的侵略。

But perceived weakness is not the whole story. Queens, the researchers found, were more likely to gain new territory. After overthrowing her husband, Catherine the Great (pictured) expanded her empire by some 200,000 square miles (518,000 sq km), which is a lot of territory, even for Russia. (She was the first, though not the last, Russian ruler to annex Crimea.) And married queens were more aggressive than single queens or kings, whether single or married.

但这不能全归因于人们眼中女性软弱的形象。研究者发现，女王更有可能开拓新的领土。在推翻自己的丈夫之后，凯瑟琳大帝将本国领土扩张了大约20万平方英里（51.8万平方公里）。即便对于俄国而言，这也是一片辽阔的疆域（她是第一个吞并克里米亚的俄罗斯统治者，虽然不是最后一个）。 而已婚女王，不论是否还处于婚姻当中，都比未婚女王或国王更具侵略性。

The authors suggest several reasons for this. First, married queens may have been able to forge more military alliances, emboldening them to pick fights. While female martial leadership remained taboo, male spouses had often served in the army before they married, and were well placed to cement military ties between their homelands and their wives’ states.

对此，笔者列出了几点原因。第一，已婚女王可能有能力建立更多军事联盟，并鼓舞他们参与战争。虽然女性领导军队仍属禁忌，但她们的男性配偶在结婚前，通常都会在军队中服役，来巩固本国与妻子国家间的军事关系。

Second, unlike most kings, queens often gave their spouses a lot of power, sometimes putting them in charge of foreign policy or the economy. Ferdinand II, who ruled Aragon and Castile with Isabella I between 1479 and 1504, led the expulsion of the Moors from Granada. During the 1740s Maria Theresa’s husband, Francis I, overhauled the Austrian economy and raised money for the armed forces while his wife ruled much of central Europe. Prince Albert was Queen Victoria’s most trusted adviser, shaping her foreign policy until his death in 1861. This division of labour, the authors suggest, freed up time for queens to pursue more aggressive policies.

第二，不同于大部分国王，女王常给予自己的配偶极大的权力，有时还让他们掌管外交政策或国家经济。1479年至1504年期间，同伊莎贝拉一世一起统治卡斯提尔和阿拉贡的斐迪南二世，领导军队将摩尔人驱逐出格拉纳达。18世纪40年代，在玛丽亚·特雷西娅统治大半个欧洲期间，她的丈夫弗朗茨一世对奥地利经济进行了大刀阔斧的改革，还筹资发展军事力量。阿尔伯特亲王，直到1861年去世之前，也一直是维多利亚女王最信赖的顾问，指导了她的外交政策。笔者认为，这种分工合作，为女王腾出了时间来追寻更具挑战性的政策。

In the democratic era, too, female leaders have fought their share of wars: think of Indira Gandhi and Pakistan, Golda Meir and the Yom Kippur war, or Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands. The number of countries led by women has more than doubled since 2000, but there is plenty of room for improvement: the current level of 15 represents less than 10% of the total. A world in which more women wielded power might be more egalitarian. Whether it would be more peaceful is a different question.

同样，在民主时期，女性领导人在战争中也占有一席之地：比如英迪拉·甘地（巴基斯坦战争），果尔达·梅厄（赎罪日战争），还有玛格丽特·撒切尔夫人（福兰克群岛战争）。2000年以来，由女性领导的国家数量增加了一倍以上，但这还存在很大的上升空间：目前由女性领导的国家有15个，还不到总数的10%。一个由更多女性掌权的世界可能会更为平等。不过是否会更加和平就是另外一回事了。

编译：张笑

审校：张思莹

编辑：钦君

英文来源：经济学人