Sorry, Sally

In her recent Emmy acceptance speech, Sally Field said if the world were run by mothers, there'd be no more war. Well, here are some mothers I'd just as soon not have in power, thank you very much.

--Beverley Allitt: Attentive pediatric nurse, suffering from bizarre Munchausen by Proxy syndrome, maims and murders many babies before the hospital understands the problem.

--Velma Barfield: This adoring mother and pious Christian grandmother had a secret habit -- she poisoned her husbands, boyfriends, elderly people in her care and even her mother. The amazing thing is how long this Black Widow serial poisoner got away with it.

--Diane Downs: "Somebody just shot my kids!" The blond woman yelled to the emergency room nurses. The two nurses teetered when they looked through the windows of the Nissan. Side panels were soaked in blood and amidst the blood lay three small children, one in the front passenger seat, two in the back. First glance told the nurses the children had been shot at very close range. Two of the children still breathed, although strenuously; the boy gasped for air. The child found slumped in the front seat appeared beyond help; despite frantic efforts by the doctors at the operating table, the damage had been lethal. She was pronounced dead moments after being wheeled to emergency. Someone without a heart had deliberately attempted to murder three kids in cold blood, and, despite the odds, despite a fate that looked gloomy, the caretakers hastened to keep that fate at bay and beat it at its own game: with deliberate intention. Who in the name of God could have aimed a pistol at three small children and pulled the trigger?" The facts came to light in a most suspicious manner and unlike those explained by the mother, Diane Downs.

--Kathleen Folbigg: Tragic crib deaths appear to be the reason that Kathleen Folbigg's babies died, but then her husband finds her terrifying diaries.

--Genene Jones: Texas pediatric nurse takes over the care of babies and murders them by injecting one after another. Almost as criminal is how the hospitals and staff ignored the problem until Genene's shift became known as the Death Shift.

--Katherine Knight: Katherine Mary Knight, though not the first person to skin and eat her lover, was arguably the most depraved monster in Australia's grizzly homicidal history.

--Sylvia Likens: Sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens was found murdered with "I'm a prostitute and proud of it" burned onto her stomach. The perpetrators of her slow, tortured death turned out to be the family that was caring for her and several neighborhood children. A new attempt to bring the story of this 1965 murder to the screen is underway for 2007, but does it give us any insight into how mother and group of children could commit such a horrible crime?

--Dorothea Puente: The stench hovered over the Sacramento neighborhood like a putrid fog, sickly sweet and pungent. Everyone knew where it came from - the yard of the pale blue Victorian at 1426 F Street, where Dorothea Puente rented out rooms to elderly and infirm boarders. No one suspected that the sweet-faced, grandmotherly lady was systematically drugging and killing her frail boarders and burying their remains in the yard she so lovingly tended. She got away with murder for years.

--Marybeth Tinning: Marybeth Tinning was a familiar sight in Schenectady's trauma centers. She usually came running into one of the city's emergency rooms, confused and hysterical, typically with one of her eight children cradled in her arms, either dead or near dead. The medical staff knew Marybeth well. Some hated her. Others felt great sorrow and pity for her. That's because from January 3, 1972, the day her daughter Jennifer died, until December 20, 1985, when Tami Lynne was found dead in her home, all eight of Marybeth Tinning's children died suddenly and usually without any rational explanation.

--Andrea Yates: Woman drowns her five children -- one at a time after her husband goes to work. Is she psychotic or a monster? Incorrect expert testimony causes murder convictions to be overturned.

Many more.

It's fashionable and politically correct to assume that females are nicer folks than males in our species. So much for equality. But, in fact, I think the evidence shows a propensity for depravity does not respect gender. That's why Russia's Catherine the Great wasn't a peacenik. Sorry, Sally.