Whut.

[Content Note: Misogyny; gender essentialism; war.]

From the "I pander to women by asserting they're better than men, but still obviously think they're less than men, ha ha, what am I—a FEMINIST?!" files:

Morning Joe guest and advertising executive Donny Deutsch quickly found himself in the deep end of a discussion on Hillary Clinton and gender Wednesday morning, when he argued that while a female president would promote a more [pacifistic] foreign policy, she would be hamstrung by male opponents who would exploit her less aggressive agenda—a thesis the rest of the panel strongly rebuked.

Deutsch was responding to a piece by Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, which argued that a Clinton presidency would promote women’s constructive role in society, in turn encouraging internal reforms in hostile nations.

"There's only one challenge in it," Deutsch said. "Problem: we have a woman, but our enemies are still on the opposite side of the equation. I don't think the al Qaedas of the world are going to be headed by women, so it falls apart a little bit. Women plus women equals a win to me. Women and still men on the other side of the table? Theoretically the world would be a better place with women running it. It doesn't solve the problem."

..."If you have two women down to negotiate something, it's going to get done without bullets," Deutsch said. "On our side of the equation, we solve it, but there's a world that's still century behind in our evolutionary state or progressive state in how we feel about women."

"I'm trying to decide whether to ask you to explain yourself," Mika Brzezinski said.

"I'm talking in this idealistic utopian place of women getting together and making the world a better place, which I agree with," Deutsch explaind. "The problem is what we've learned throughout history is unanswered aggression breeds more aggression. So we're going to tack on this more maternal—"

"Be careful!" [Alex Wagner] warned.

I don't think the al Qaedas of the world are going to be headed by women. WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK. This guy.

There is so much wrong with this calculation that I hardly know where to begin, and I'll leave it to you to address ALL THE MANY WAYS IT IS WRONG in comments, but I will briefly note that the most objectionable thing about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a politician is her foreign policy positions. She, like every other Democratic candidate in my lifetime (and of course all the Republicans), is hell and gone more hawkish than I am. The thought that she would have a more pacifistic foreign policy than the men in her party is absurd.

In fact, if she were elected and were not aggressively militaristic to prove that women aren't weaker commanders-in-chief, it would probably only be because the country has such pervasive war exhaustion. In any other time, I would fully expect Clinton to be more hawkish in office than the rest of her party. And they're not exactly doves.