If Women Ruled the World: Welcome to the Age of Empathy Tyranny

“If women ruled the world, it would be a much better place.”

It’s a sentiment I’ve heard repeated often over the years, usually spoken with earnest conviction. In this imagined matriarchal utopia, war would end, poverty would be eradicated, and compassion would guide policy. A world led by women, the theory goes, would be a gentler, more equitable place.

Celebrations erupted when Finland appointed an all-female cabinet. Across the Tasman, Jacinda Ardern was held up as a model of empathetic leadership—governance with a heart. She was lionized as a Prime Minister beyond reproach.

To be clear: I am not denying that many brilliant, capable women lead organisations, political movements, and workplaces. But the idea that being a woman automatically confers moral superiority, empathy, or gentleness—traits supposedly absent in men—is a fallacy. Women can do harm. Women ‘do’ do harm. And they are just as likely to be ideologically captured or morally compromised as men.

Compassion Without Caution

Take, for example, two UK parliamentary amendments on abortion debated earlier this year. One proposed a measured change to shield women from prosecution when seeking to end pregnancies, while maintaining current gestational limits. But the counterproposal, led by Labour MP Stella Creasy, was a push to fully decriminalise abortion—removing legal safeguards for women and healthcare providers alike.

This wasn’t a measured pro-choice position. It was ideological zealotry. Its roots trace back to COVID-era policies when abortion pills were sent through the mail, without proper medical oversight. The tragic case of Carla Foster, who took abortion pills at 32–34 weeks pregnant and delivered a stillborn child at home, highlighted the dangers of this policy. She was prosecuted under existing laws, and her 28 month sentence was reduced following public outcry.

I am pro-choice. But let’s be honest about what this means. Terminating a viable fetus is not just a matter of bodily autonomy—it is a profound ethical issue. Some argue that if a woman is mentally unwell, ending a pregnancy is an act of mercy. But what happened to adoption? Have we become so cynical, or so ideologically rigid, that we’d rather terminate a baby than give it to someone who longs to be a parent?

Creasy’s position views any legal limit as patriarchal oppression. But full decriminalisation—particularly for late-term abortions—erodes protection not just for unborn children, but for women themselves, who deserve ethical guardrails in moments of crisis. Otherwise, we are surrendering to ideology in place of ethics.

And for those who argue, “late-term abortions are rare,” I say: so were paediatric gender transitions—until they weren’t. Which brings us to another ideology: gender identity theory.

The Cult of Gender Affirmation

The same dynamic plays out in the gender discourse. What began as a movement for tolerance and respect has morphed into something far more dogmatic—and dangerous. Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, steeped in postmodern theory, reframed gender as a performative construct. Foucault’s legacy of distrust in objective truth, power structures, and biological norms underpins much of this thinking. These ideas, once confined to academia, have infiltrated primary schools, hospitals, and public policy.

I have no issue with adults who identify as trans. I do, however, have grave concerns about the escalating trend of medicalising children—performing irreversible interventions on children whose identities are still forming.

Raising even tentative concerns about this can result in being labelled a transphobe. I’ve experienced it myself. But I kept asking: Why the explosion in teenage girls identifying as trans or queer? Some factors are social: social media, online communities, mental health struggles, and neurodivergence (many transitioning girls are also diagnosed with ADHD or autism). But perhaps the most dangerous driver has been ideological advocacy—from organisations like Mermaids in the UK.

Under CEO Susie Green, Mermaids aggressively promoted puberty blockers and gender-affirming care for minors. In an undercover Telegraph investigation, the charity was found supplying chest binders to children as young as 13—sometimes against parents’ wishes. One staff member offered a binder to someone they believed to be 14, despite knowing the child’s mother objected.

This is ideology overriding parental rights and medical caution. Green, whose own child transitioned, may have been acting out of deep personal conviction. But advocacy driven by personal redemption can quickly tip into zealotry, blinding people to harm.

We now know how much harm. The Cass Review into the Tavistock clinic’s practices laid bare the cost of this capture. Children were fast-tracked into medical transition without adequate evidence or oversight. Puberty blockers were handed out like candy. Cross-sex hormones followed. The long-term harm is now undeniable.

Take Avery Jackson, the 9-year-old trans girl who appeared on the cover of National Geographic, heralded as a beacon of the gender revolution. He was given puberty blockers to delay male puberty. Today, Avery is sterile. He does not ‘pass’ and likely never will. His growth and development were irreversibly stunted. He has said of his experience, “transitioning ruined my life.”

Women weren’t bystanders in this story. Many were leaders. Women like Green genuinely believed they were saving lives. But belief doesn’t excuse recklessness. It is not compassion. This is empathy tyranny—where emotional narratives trump clinical caution, parental rights, and child welfare.

When the Personal Becomes Political

What happens when a mother’s identity becomes entwined with her child’s trans status? In today’s climate, the ‘affirming’ mother is celebrated—progressive, brave, enlightened. But some of this begins to look disturbingly like Munchausen’s by Proxy, where caregivers—usually mothers—fabricate or exaggerate illness in their children for attention or praise. The child becomes the vehicle through which the parent derives purpose, praise, or even celebrity. Which begs the question, who is really being affirmed? In a culture that rewards ideological conformity and punishes dissent, it is entirely conceivable that the child’s confusion or distress is being validated not primarily for their benefit, but to meet the emotional or social needs of the parent.

And if we’re not allowed to ask, who is this really serving?

Silence in the Face of Sexual Violence

But perhaps nothing illustrates this moral collapse more clearly than the global response to the atrocities of October 7th. When hundreds of women were raped, mutilated, and murdered at the Nova Music Festival by Hamas terrorists. The violence was filmed—by the perpetrators themselves—and shared gleefully online.

Given the impact of the #MeToo movement, I expected a chorus of condemnation from the world’s leading feminists. But that outcry never came. Not from Michelle Obama. Not from UN Women. Not from most human rights organisations.

The silence was deafening.

Eventually, testimonies from survivors surfaced. Reports of mass rape so violent it shattered pelvic bones. Children forced to watch their mothers tortured. Women brutalised, then executed. And still, many prominent feminists—like Clementine Ford—dismissed the evidence. When confronted, Ford called the accounts “wildly unverified,” then turned on Jewish women who raised concerns, calling them “pathetic” and “disgusting.” She showed more anger toward those who demanded her moral clarity than toward the perpetrators of mass rape.

These were not allegations. The evidence was there: filmed, documented, undeniable.

Meanwhile, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese questioned even the UN’s own fact-finding mission, downplaying its conclusion that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe mass rape occurred. Albanese claimed the victims were not targeted because they were Jewish, but because of “Israeli oppression.”

This is not compassion, it’s complicity. This is moral perversion dressed in political language. When rape is excused, minimised, or politicised, it is no longer about justice. It is about ideology.

Why Women Can Be Just as Dangerous

In the United States, young women are now 30 points more liberal than their male peers. Psychologically, women score higher in Agreeableness and Neuroticism—traits that can make them nurturing, empathetic, emotionally attuned. But these same traits, when untempered, make them vulnerable to ideological capture.

Highly agreeable people struggle to challenge authority or defy groupthink. Empathy, when decoupled from logic and proportion, leads to inverted moral reasoning: “If I feel oppressed, I must be oppressed”. This paves the way for victimhood culture, cancel campaigns, and emotional coercion.

Unchecked, this becomes a tyranny of feeling—where truth is sacrificed on the altar of affirmation, and anyone who questions the prevailing narrative is shamed, silenced, or slandered.

Not All Women

Thankfully, there are women who have resisted this drift into ideological capture. Natasha Hausdorff, Melanie Phillips, Dr Hilary Cass, Eve Barlow, Rawan Osman, Claire Lehmann, Einat Wilf—these are women who stand for truth, not just sentiment. They speak hard truths with integrity, even when it’s unpopular.

And yes, they remind us that women can be wise, principled leaders. But only when they’re willing to challenge conformity, rather than uphold it in the name of compassion.

Progressivism has long been marketed as humane and inclusive—and often it is. But when progressivism becomes a substitute for moral clarity, when it’s driven more by emotional optics than ethical substance, it can mutate into something punitive, divisive, even dangerous.

Women are not inherently more moral, more compassionate, or more just than men. Power doesn't discriminate—and neither does ideology. If anything, we should be wary of any system, movement, or narrative that exempts an entire group from accountability based on identity.

A world ruled by women is not automatically better. It could, in fact, be worse—if it's governed by empathy unmoored from truth, policy rooted in sentimentality, and activism fueled by emotional spectacle.

Empathy matters. But without wisdom, boundaries, and courage—it becomes tyranny.

(The views here are my own and expressed in a personal capacity. They do not represent professional or clinical advice).