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I agree, but I want to present a different way of looking at it: Men and women are offended by different things.
Within the typically-male psyche, there is a revulsion against certain behaviours instilled by evolution. Someone downthread described how male animals (especially mammals) use competition rituals to battle for dominance without being injured. The idea is to work out the dominance hierarchy without wasting too much energy on infighting, and to emerge from that with a strong coalition that can be used to fight the next battle. Men feel revulsion at anything that deviates from this.
Key point: There is always a next battle. The need to balance victory in this battle with continued strength afterward. This gives rise to a beautiful tapestry of complex psychology. Forgiveness becomes a martial virtue, because sometimes the winning strategy is to ally with A against B and then B against A. Loyalty becomes a complex and many-faceted thing; loyalty to a state or a crown can adapt to the needs of a situation more effectively than loyalty to a person; for example, a patriotic Frenchman like Talleyrand managed to be loyal to the Bourbons, the Revolution, Emperor Napoleon, and then the restored Bourbons again in quick succession. Battles become more perfunctory and symbolic the more sophisticated the combatants become, as opposing sides are increasingly able to predict the outcome of a fight and skip to the end without killing each other.
Male psychology is the product of a literal evolutionary arms race, one that has given rise both to warfare and to most of politics.
A few images to think about: In medieval Italy, armies of mercenaries fought wars of maneuver on behalf of city-states. Opposing armies would compete for strategic positions and supply lines, then whichever side lost would often give up without fighting - both sides being mercenaries, they took a pragmatic view of war. In ancient Rome, Julius Caesar made a show of forgiving politicians who sided against him in the civil wars, which is a big part of how he was able to take so much power so quickly after winning just a few battles (but then the enemies he forgave assassinated him).
Men have a culturally mediated disgust reaction against dishonorable conduct. Executing prisoners, attacks that violate the local rules of warfare, assassinations, these things are regarded as unacceptable. They happen, of course (there would be no evolved reaction if they didn't) but note the common result: Instant and massive loss of legitimacy. I recall a certain Roman emperor who schemed against his brother; when the Praetorians found out what their leader was up to, they rose up and hacked him to pieces.
If your leader gets caught breaking the rules you and your fellow men fly into a rage and murder him on the spot. Think about how intense of a psychological reaction that is.
Women aren't programmed to work like that, generally. Female chimpanzees are much less active in coalitions to overthrow the alpha chimp, and likewise with female humans. They don't have as much of an evolutionary benefit in terms of number of expected offspring from rising up and overthrowing their leaders. They don't have a longstanding need to mediate dominance contests because they don't have the same need to fight an internal war followed in quick succession by a bunch of external wars. A male coalition that weakens itself by infighting will be displaced by rival males; a female coalition that weakens itself by infighting has no such risk because female coalitions don't invade and displace each other. The whole reason to evolve that pattern of behaviour doesn't exist.
The coming war against outsiders is equivalent to the mission of the organization. A male coalition battles for dominance and then organizes itself and conquers new territory. A female coalition battles for dominance within the existing territory and never tries to expand. In a business or a government where the 'conquest' means capturing market share or winning new voters, that kind of stagnation is poisonous.
Codes of honour differ in different societies, and those are male-run societies as well. There are very few universal rules that all cultures accept. Politics means friends today, enemies tomorrow. Spying may be disgusting and dishonourable, but you need a secret service. And that includes state assassinations of the bothersome:
Political advisers may recommend the role of virtue, but they always have a touch of Machiavelli about them, as see Chanakya (the so-called "Indian Machiavelli") and the popular legends that grew up around him:
Picking someone as future emperor on the basis of "ruthlessness in achieving objectives, including murder" is not really inclining towards "dishonour is the worst thing of all!"
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The same Praetorian Guard that was behind the assassinations of god knows how many emperors?
I know. I described just such an event. See: Emperor hacked to pieces by Praetorian Guard.
You'll forgive me for being skeptical that this particular assassination happened because the Guard suddenly developed a moral compass.
I didn't say they did. I said they exhibited an evolved primate behaviour that caused them to fly into a mass hysterical rage and commit regicide in response to perceived violations of the rules of their honor-based society. What part of that sounds like developing a moral compass?
Hmmm, rules of their society, a set of norms, we could almost call that a system of morality. And all this is moot because the Guard were far more concerned about naked power grabs than codes of honor. They literally auctioned off the throne after assassinating Pertinax.
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