Michelle Obama didn’t show up to Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Her spokesperson said she couldn’t attend because she was on an extended vacation. But the real reason was obvious. Because of protocol, she would have been seated next to Trump and there was no way she was going to put up with that.

As I watched the video of the funeral of President Carter, Obama’s absence and many other things that happened reminded me of a study where researchers observed how elementary schoolchildren resolved disagreements while playing in the school playground. What they found was that from an early age, boys and girls tend to react to and settle disputes in very different ways.

Boys would often stop whatever game they were playing because of a dispute about something that happened and end up arguing about the rules of the game. Once they agreed on the rules and how they would be enforced, the boys almost always resumed playing.

When a dispute arose among girls something very different generally happened. The argument wouldn’t be about rules, it would be about who was ‘right’ and who supported whom. The girls would take sides, reject the girls on the other side, and then the two groups would go their separate ways, which ended the game or activity.

I saw the same sort of thing happen as President Biden, the four former Presidents, Vice-President Harris, three former Vice-Presidents and all of their spouses took their seats. Most of the men greeted each other in spite of their political differences while few of the women did.

Al Gore and Mike Pence stood up and shook hands with Trump in spite of their past conflicts with him. They did the same with Barack Obama when he took his seat. The one thing that most people found remarkable was the way Barack Obama was later seen chatting and laughing with Trump as they sat next to each other.

But during the seating, most of the women sat stone-faced and didn’t acknowledge Trump or each other. This included Hillary Clinton, Karen Pence, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and Melania Trump. Laura Bush was the exception as she greeted everyone except the Trumps. The way she walked right past them with no greeting or acknowledgement showed pure contempt.

Karen Pence also ignored the Trumps as they passed by. She stayed seated and stared straight ahead with an icy look. However she did later greet and talk with Obama when he turned to talk to her husband.

When Kamala Harris took her seat, she didn’t greet anyone and was not acknowledged by anyone. When the Biden’s were seated, no one acknowledged them or spoke with them either. The most awkward moment came when Jill Biden had to take a seat next to Harris, again because of protocol. Their intense dislike for each other was obvious. You could have put a frozen pizza between them and that thing wouldn’t have thawed at all.

All of the women at the funeral were acting the same way the schoolgirls in the study did - if you aren’t on my side, you are the enemy and don’t deserve any courtesy or acknowledgement.

The men, with the exception of Bush who is the ultimate gamma and Bill Clinton who is rightly terrified by Hillary, responded very differently to each other. Trump and Obama even had a Magic Johnson/Larry Bird kind of vibe going on. Guys can hammer each other during the game but still respect each other after the game is over. Gore and Bush were also civil to each other in spite of the hot dispute over the 2000 election when it took the Supreme Court to decide what the rules of the game were.

This is the main reason men can govern a nation and women can’t. Women are too tribal. The intense emotional attachments women form are vital in keeping families and communities together where the maintenance of personal relationships is crucial. But in larger more impersonal groupings such as corporations, cities, states and nations, the feminine way of forming groups and resolving disputes is destructive.

If you want to dispute that, recall the bizarre sight of Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of Trump’s speech in front of Congress and the whole world. That was feminine rage in action, and it led to two impeachments and all of the divisive lawfare that is threatening to destroy our judicial system.

Women are tribal by nature. That is why the noted feminist Camille Paglia said this:

“If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.”

In the 2024 election, men of all ethnicities and ages moved toward Trump. The most ardent and unmoving supporters of the Democratic Party were Black women, Hispanic women and younger college educated women. It’s rules versus relationships, and the United States is turning into one big elementary school playground.