We need help naming this hen. You can post ideas on my Facebook Page, and thank you. I love having readers name things on the farm and in my books.

Winston has been gone a day, and the atmosphere around the farm has changed also. It’s quieter,and the three hens are calmer, not getting pecked at, seem easier. It’s a marked difference. There are no animals we fear or have to worry about, which is really the ethos of the place.

In fact, there are only three males on the farm, me, Simon and Izzy. And both of us know better than to push any women around. Both of us gave up strutting. My theory is that the men I like were either tortured as children or humiliated as adults. Otherwise, they seem to have trouble opening up or listening.  I can’t help as I soak in the quiet and see the hens softly clucking and walking around, that there’s a larger lesson here . Not to generalize, I think the Rooster Syndrome is causing the world some headaches. I was reading Michael Lewis’s great new book “Boomerang,” and he pointed out that few, if any, women were involved in the macho trading and credit swapping that caused the financial crisis in 2008. In fact, the few investment firms run by women avoided the mortgage catastrophe, finding it too risky and poorly conceived, instinctively avoiding the reckless end of trading, and they were and remain profitable.

He said across the spectrum of the “global financial crisis” as people like to call it, women were not involved the excessive lending, borrowing and profiteering. I am not surprised.

In Washington, the Rooster Syndrome seems to be threatening the countrys’s ability to resolve political issues, resorting instead to posturing, name-calling and nearly continuous verbal assaults and rigidity. I have this sense that women would have come to some common ground by now, because that’s what they do. It’s dangerous to generalize. Some of the new political candidates are women, and they seem to be embracing the Rooster Syndrome, angry wing-flapping and strutting, lots of name calling. They don’t seem to be going anywhere. If we want angry and uselessly self-destructive conflict, we can keep the people we have.

There are very few CEO’s in America, and the Corporate Nation is rife with the Rooster Syndrome – callous workplaces, plundering and profiteering, hostile takeovers and the view of workers as disposable garbage. If there was ever a male model of doing things, it would be Corporate America’s Attila-The-Hun take-no-prisoners- ideals and utter disregard for the welfare of people who work for them.

Winston’s brief time here is, for me, an interesting metaphor. I believe women do build community, rather than tear it apart. They are listeners. They are intuitive negotiators. They better understand the emotional side of human beings. They  are creative risk-takers, but moderately so.  They appreciate the animal world, and, I think, the need to take care of Mother Earth. They don’t go over the cliff with risk and machismo.  I cannot imagine women arguing over flood relief while people are sleeping in tents and trailers after a hurricane.

I enjoyed Winston’s time and regret having to kill him. But I see this Rooster Syndrome a lot, and I’ve never liked it, and I can’t  help wondering if the world wouldn’t do a lot better if women brought a different model to problem solving, and if more of them were given a chance. I am not very political, but a friend sent me an Elizabeth Warren (She’s  the banking critic running for the Senate in Massachusetts) video and I was struck by the fact that even though she was taking a strong position, she didn’t seem the least bit angry.

Bedlam Farm is an overwhelmingly female environment now, with some very strong women. Maria, who has made the Studio Barn the creative focal point of the farm. Rose, who has spawned several books with her strength and intelligence and determination, Frieda, who protects the farm with great authority and courage, and Lenore, whose work is love and who infuses the place with love and affection.

Mother the Barn Cat is a ferociously strong and independent presence (tough too) and Lulu and Fanny smack Simon around all day. The animals on the farm do not bluster and bother people. They don’t bite or peck or kick people. They don’t war on one another.  Or go on cable news channels and yell at each other.  The don’t sue each other. They work out their issues peacefully and quietly. They seem to care for and watch out for each other. Perhaps that new female paradigm I was thinking about.

So what about the men here? Well, we all qualify in different ways. All the people I work for in my life now are women – my agent, my editors, my publicist, my wife. They are all strong, and I have learned to listen to them and things usually work out. I’m not looking for trouble. I was definitely tortured as a child, and so was Izzy, who was abandoned on a farm. And we know Simon’s story.

The men here have been opened up by life, battered into thinking differently, and we have no interest in strutting around, angrily posturing. We are all pretty mellow. Besides, as I confided to Simon this morning, if I tried strutting around here – or my publisher –  like a rooster, the same thing that happened to Winston would happen to me. And quickly. The Rooster Syndrome doesn’t work anymore, not on my farm, not in Washington, not in the world. Good riddance.