Elon Musk - the place of women in his race to mars

I know it's all very hypothetical, but thinking on this some more, the ethics are very difficult.

A pp asked why transmen would want to go off to colonise Mars, with all the hardship and mandatory breeding that would involve. The same is true of all women I think - it would be a very difficult existence, with (probably) no return ticket, and the whole future of Martian humanity would depend on you successfully carrying, birthing, and raising children in this harsh alien environment.

However there would be women who would do this... the human capacity for exploration and curiosity is immense, and previous eras of exploration involved huge risk and one way journeys.
Adults can consent to that.

But would it be ethical to deliberately conceive children on Mars? To bring them into that existence, to condemn them to that life? The same expectations would be placed on the next generation. Would male children be valued more highly than female, or less? Would there even be any male children born, or would conception be controlled so that only females were born for a few generations of Martian colonisation? (Presuming sperm can be stored for a long time).
What would happen if children were born with or developed disabilities or health conditions? In a society with such scant resources, probably struggling to survive, would they take the same approach that certain historical civilisations took (no room for the "weak").

It's an interesting thought experiment, but unless humans were on the brink and this was the only way of ensuring our short term survival, or unless Mars was a lot more habitable, I don't think this experiment could be justified from an ethical perspective.

He will be making the Men are from Mars part come true at last.

We used to say "if you can send one man to the moon why can't you send them all?" :)

4)equal mix men and ciswomen
that's okay

We are lucky as a species that we have enough resources to "carry" individuals who are not contributing to the gene pool. In an emergency situation where lots of babies were needed, I think people would need to multitask, so engineers who could be mothers would be really useful.

I have enjoyed reading another thread about DNA and early human people, such a fascinating topic. I seem to also remember reading elsewhere than at some point (maybe ice age? not sure) the human population dropped dramatically, and then rebuilt itself. If you go back far enough we are all descended from one female, Mitochondrial Eve.

I can remember a few years ago I was on a writing forum (nanowrimo) and scrolling through random questions as procrastination from actually writing

Another would-be-writer had posted a question about their sci fi plot, which featured a huge spaceship populated only by women, decades into a generation spanning mission. It was crewed solely by women for the same reasons as in the op.

Of course there was a huge discussion about "how will you include trans women??" The flustered writer immediately apologised for the oversight and it was decided that of course there would be plenty of tw on board, because some women are infertile anyway, and how could you not include tw on a female only mission? Even in a thought experiment based on female reproduction, it is imperative to include tw at all times!
Not one person pointed out the obvious! It was when I was fairly new to the tensions around feminism and trans rights, and was one of my first "wtf?" Moments. (Not the last!)

'Ciswomen' but not 'cismen'. I see.

Stop trying to normalise this bullshit colonisation of our language. The word is women. If you need to distinguish, women and transwomen is fine.

If you were running a space program would you look for the most medically fit people you could find who are mentally stable and resilient. Or would you take people who need a life time of medication, which all needs to be lifted into space at vast cost, and which increases risk of medical complications and shortened life expectancy. People who bones are already low density before the effect of gravity. Who are much more likely to have mental health difficulties and consider a crew mate 'misgendering' actual violence?

You don't need a sci to thought experiment

You can ask the same sort of questions

Soldiers after winning a major victory throughout time have killed some of the overrun population and raped others

Which of your categories do you think would be killed? Raped?

I'd believe that people believed that MTF trans people were women if they could ever manage to define "woman" in a non-circular way.

Ooops. Lost the quote. That was in reference to not believing TWAW ^^

Nobody does. Especially the most fervant TRA.

Babies are a long way down the line there is no data on 0 4gee on pregnancy and reproduction . Would need studies in animals first.

While I doubt that it was sexism so much as oversight, you're right that specifying cis men would be handy.
A trans man could potentially get pregnant if he so desired, after all.

If you manage to find a trans man who'd love to be the reproduction factory of a take-over of Mars (with no way out for the next 20 years if he changes his mind and full of coerced pregnancy and likely sexual abuse, likewise for any and all cis women involved in the think piece), have... fun?

I can't even imagine entertaining the idea of stacking people on a planet like cattle with the implication that they have to or else they'll be the disappointment of Mars-humankind.

I thought it was going to be populated with his army of robots

I think Elon Musk knows the difference between males and females. I don't think he believes "twaw"...

To ask a question which is ultimately about reproduction we still need ‘labels’ to differentiate ‘sex’ no matter what people say.

Yes, so just say women.

You don't need to use the word. Women says all you need to know.

Well that's me told I thought we'd be talking more science and futurism here. We could see a Martian colony in our life time dammit!

I'll even have a part to play in it!

If we are to play this stupid 'cis' game then (1) you won't get any 'cis' women on a space program as that would go against gendered expectations.
(2) Your sexism shows in that you don't feel the need to label men 'cis'

A mixed crew. Men tend to suffer impaired vision more due to fluid shifting into the head more than women. Conversely, women are more vulnerable to cancer than men - more radiosensitive tissue than men plus it's a bit more buried (ovaries vs testes)