“Motherhood has a very humanizing effect!” said Meryl Streep.

Maybe mothers should make up all the parliaments, congresses, presidents, kings, dictators, peerless leaders, imams, tribal chieftains and the like!

Maybe then we wouldn’t have all this ongoing meanness. (Kate Gosselin notwithstanding.)

North Korea seems out of its tiny mind with a new leader described as a prodigious drinker, a faultless competitor and strongman at the helm. Iran is convulsing with all that oil-rich masculine cultist Islamic religious fervor. (One can almost see these Iranian clerics vying for who will be calling all the shots, including first and foremost to dictate how women are to dress and act.)

If it weren’t for the men of the world, we would probably now be reading a spate of stories about that evil woman, Madonna, and how she whisked, kidnapped or simply bought herself an impoverished child, bringing the little girl Mercy out of a Malawian orphanage.

Some people find it odd that Madonna wants to add to her brood which, before Mercy, stood at three; two her natural children —Lourdes and Rocco, and one adopted—David Banda. But this is an Italian-American girl who was born in Bay City, Mich., with seven siblings and she simply wants to have a big family.

So Mercy, we wish you a great new life with your generous new mother, Madonna.

I was amazed the other day reading Jennifer Wright in the New York Post where she wrote: “If you run in the right circles you already know Dominick Dunne— and there’s a good chance you hate his guts.”

Received wisdom is just the opposite. In my book, Dominick is one of the most popular men in America. He’s the one everybody tells me they want to meet. People bid big figures when I offer an auction lunch with Dominick as a guest.

The people who hate Dominick are a select crowd. Some of them are in jail, or about to go to prison, or remain there because of important things he has written or discovered about them. He is the victim’s ultimate advocate.

If you want to have some fun with Dominick, grab his new DVD “After the Party.” I especially love the end of this documentary where Dominick and I are laughing and living it up in the Four Seasons’ Grill Room.

If you threw a big birthday party and invited Sophia Loren, Ursula Andress, Jerry Hall, Joan Collins, Faye Dunaway, Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, what are the odds they’d show up at a posh hotel called Stapleford Park in Leicestershire, England?

Well, if you are fourth in line to the throne of Brunei, one Prince Azim, age 26, you might be surprised because it looks like they did show up, even though all the women named are friends of the Prince’s mother.

A robust Chaka Khan sang and a British band named Incognito performed for 230 guests. Flowers delivered for this event were said to be the largest order ever given in the vicinity, calling for 6,000 white, red, and pink roses with added peonies, delphiniums and hydrangeas.

I thought the Sultan of Brunei (Azim’s uncle) went bankrupt some years ago. He was threatened with jail last year in a $6 billion dollar family feud.

But I see that Forbes magazine calls his nephew Prince Azim number eight in its list of “hottest young royals.” When you are worth $22 billion, I guess you can give any kind of party you like, although some of the stars who attended are outraged at the suggestion that they were given free air fares to attend.