​Masculine Malignancy

By Ed Raymond

Why do women make up only 2% of humans on death row?

In the 16th Century, when the Roman Catholic Pope refused to grant Henry VIII of England a divorce so he could marry the beautiful Anne Boleyn, he told the Pope and Vatican to go to Hell and formed the English Anglican Church. Then he took possession of most of the Catholic monasteries and properties. England was polarized. Supporters and dissenters quickly formed. As an example, Elizabeth Barton spread the word that if Henry married Anne Boleyn, he would die within six months. Her head was the only head of a woman to ever appear on a spike on London Bridge.

In 1662, two Quaker women ran to the altar in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and poured blood on the altar. A London man in a home with four adults said the four held four completely different religious opinions. His wife was an atheistic skeptic. The maidservant was a dissenter and a member of a sect that didn’t sing psalms or hymns or fast on fast days. A son insisted Parliament should select one state religion. Another man gained a radical reputation by traveling around the country and squatting in big hollow trees looking for Christ.

Another problem of the 17th Century: the country was split politically. King Charles I was supported by some and hated by them because they accused him of being a greedy tyrant. Women played the most important role in the religious fight.

A historian identified 300 women who wrote prophecies and published them. A few are identified in Naomi Baker’s book“Voices of Thunder: Radical Religious Women of the Seventeenth Century”reviewed by Erin Maglaque in a New York Review of Books article “God’s Impertinent Prophets,” a fascinating article about the strength of women.

I thought of British poet Rudyard Kipling’s famous poetry line about 19th Century women: “And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.” Rudyard spent so much time in India with native women he didn’t realize that women in western society “smoked” cigars like men.

I just finished reading an article about the “worst of the worst” and the fact that the use of the death penalty is increasing dramatically in the Divided States of America and decreasing dramatically in other countries. We still have 27 states where the federal government and military use the death penalty. But women don’t kill often. How many are on death row in our facilities?

Between 1608-2022: 576 women and 15,471 men have been EXED

Records since 1976 indicate only 2% of women are on death row and only 1% have been executed. That leaves 98% for the guys. The death row total population was 2,100 in January 2025. Since 1976, only 18 women have been executed compared to over 1,500 men. Only 3.6% of all executions since 1608 have been women.

We have another world record. As of 2020, the Divided States of America has had 3,613 documented serial killers with 84% being men and 16% being women.

Joe Kloc published 82 last sentences taken from 82 persons executed by the state of Texas since 1984. I picked a few that might be of interest to people fascinated by the death penalty: “Only the sky and the green grass goes on forever.” “Ain’t life a bitch?” “Yesterday was my birthday.” Í’m not going to use profanity or make idle threats.” “Can you hear me?” “They are fixing to pump my veins with a legal drug the American Veterinary Association won’t even be allowed to be used on dogs.” “Tell everyone I got full of chicken and pork chops.”

A few more facts about murder: Serial murders peaked between 1970 and 1990, with 1986 being the highest active year. Between 1900 and 2020 we had 3,600 serial incidents. By 2010, because of forensic advancements such as DNA, improved parole opportunities and increased public attention, serial killing declined, with fewer than 50 known serial killers.

The big question: Why do males kill more than females?

Is it because we are physically stronger and mentally weaker? Different hormones? Do females create less conflict? The experts — mostly men — say testosterone leads males to risk taking, evolutionary tendencies and violence, plus biological factors lead to more aggression and violent competition. Societal and cultural expectations and pressures tend to encourage males to be assertive, dominant and aggressive while females are discouraged from accepting those characteristics. Men have much lower self-control, thus creating more crimes.

We don’t know why yet. Maybe it’s the quantity of testosterone available on the internet and hawked by well-endowed professional male athletes. Maybe we should try females at all government leadership posts for half a century. Now we have dozens of countries led by male malignant narcissists who are killing more people and committing war crimes as defined by Geneva Conventions and international treaties. And the pace of executions is picking up in dictatorships.

Out of the 198 recognized countries, only 20 authorize death penalty executions. Among them are the Divided States of America, Afghanistan, China, Iran, and North Korea. With friends like that…

Let’s face it. Women make up 60% of college enrollment now and have outpaced men since 1982. In 2022, 44% of women had a BA compared to 35% for men. The gender gap is widening. This means one thing: women are more educated than men and therefore will make better leaders.

This is what happens when men lead and control women

The Soviet Union probably has the highest rate of deaths of Homo sapiens in the 20th and 21st Centuries because an estimated 60 million Russians were killed in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, and World War II. I still remember the news (I was just turning 11) when 1.1 million Russian soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing from the battle of Stalingrad that lasted from July 1942 to February 1943. Nazi Germany lost the battle along with 900,000 troops. Daily battles were fought in the streets, factories, sewer systems and urban housing. Germany also bombarded the city with artillery almost daily. An estimated 40,000 civilians were killed in their homes and thousands more died in the surrounding area.

If Joe Stalin had lost Stalingrad, Russia might have lost the “Rat War” and the country. Nazi Germany lost 20 million in World War II, including 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Russian crime and punishment was covered by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I have read most of the Russian classics about the history of an “active” country. There’s never a dull moment or century in Russian history whether it’s Rasputin, the gulag archipelago, or when Joe Stalin was applauded for 10 minutes because no Russian officer wanted to be the first to quit. (The man who quit first was fired the next morning.)

Fyodor Dostoevsky (FD) wrote the novel “Crime and Punishment” in 1866, a psychological fiction thriller which explores the guilt and redemption of a student named Raskolnikov. It is ranked as one of the most influential in all literature.

FD was a criminal in 1849 when he was given a death sentence for political activity against the state. He was led out of his cell with other prisoners to be shot by a firing squad. The entire scene outside was staged. Coffins were lined up. At the last possible moment, with all the rifles aimed at the first group to die, the execution was cancelled. It was a psychological scene and trial. One of the prisoners next to FD went insane in an instant and was sent to an asylum for life.

From his experience that day, FD wrote about crime and punishment. He suffered from epilepsy all his life. In his novel “The Idiot,” FD wrote about epileptic seizures suffered by the main character Myskin. In his personal life FD lost his wife and brother while writing about the psychological impact of crime on humans.

If women were U.S. leaders, how would they vote on issues?

In 2026, the 119th Congress had 385 men and 155 women, the Trump cabinet had 16 men and 8 women, and the White House had two men in the most prominent positions. Congress had four men in leadership roles.

There are 198 countries in the world. What if we had 139 women and 59 men as ambassadors? Would our relationships be the same? There have been important issues voted on in the United Nations and other international agencies that have tremendous effects on American lives. Would women vote and lead the same way?

Delegates at the United Nations 70th annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) overwhelmingly voted against considering a proposal by the U.S. to adopt an anti-trans definition of gender. Only Pakistan and Chile voted with the U.S. The 23 nations who recognize transgender folks as people voted against the anti-trans motion. When will men and Trumplicans accept the LBGTQUIA+ community, 10% of the population, as real people who belong to the Homo sapiens species? Politicians have to quit being stupid or need to quit playing stupid for political reasons.

The International Olympic Committee voted to ban transgender women athletes from participating in women’s activities. Over 100 human rights organizations have criticized the IOC’s new eligibility guidelines as “a blunt and discriminatory response that is not supported by science and violates international human rights law.”

Endocrinology experts state that the best available data show that transgender women who receive gender-affirming hormone therapy aren’t meaningfully different from cisgender women in athletic performance-related measures like strength, muscle mass, body composition and or cardiorespiratory fitness. In some aspects, transgender women athletes have a disadvantage.

Fact: Of the tens of thousands of athletes who have participated in Olympic events since 1999, just one has identified as a transgender woman, Laurel Hubbard of New Zealand. She did not place in her event.

I’m a news junkie, but I may have missed the news. Has a transgender woman or man ever been charged and convicted of rape of the “opposite” sex in a bathroom? Of sexual harassment anywhere? Of “touching?”

Idaho lawmakers (how many males?) are pushing a bill that would make it a crime for transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, even inside privately owned businesses. If it is passed, if you enter a public bathroom or restroom or locker room designated for the opposite sex, the first offense will cost you a year in jail or five years in prison for a second offense. At least 19 Republican states have similar laws, and Idaho has copied Florida, Kansas, and Utah.

“Private spaces such as restrooms, changing areas and showers are sex-separated for a reason,” said Republican Senator Ben Toews.“Individuals in these vulnerable settings have a reasonable expectation of privacy and security.”

P.S. In my last column, I wrote about the longest poem in English. One of the shortest is “Fleas” by Strickland Gillilan. It reads, Adam / Had’m.

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