Just something I can’t get out my head recently

[RightOrAMeringue]

Let me preface this by saying it’s really reductive and over-simplified and a bit daft. I get that. And also I have lots of men who I cherish in my life -
dad, bro, husband, friends, etc etc. But I just can’t stop thinking about it as a concept, so hear me out…

AIBU to suggest/ partially believe that society, as a whole, would function better in the absence of men? Say that we found a way to artificially create sperm, or just fertilise eggs….would people still go for the organic stuff and roll the dice on the person that comes along with it? And, if not, and if the option to select gender presumably came along with the artificial sperm revelation…why would anyone choose to have a male child, and risk never having grandkids? And therefore…would an all-female society emerge? If so, would it be better? I say yes.

Before anyone says we have that option right now in the form of sperm donors/ one-night-stands etc, it’s not quite the same. It’s never totally string-free, and society is woefully lacking when it comes to being a single parent. Sex selection also requires IVF, and it’s not exactly reliable. Im talking about a world where you can buy artificial…semen, DNA, whatever, and apply it like a medication. Boom, pregnant.

As for the emergent utopia, I feel like a world where a far greater proportion had the theoretical opportunity to grow a child would soon begin to look after their interests in terms of career and income protection, mental health, general gynaecological and obstetric healthcare. We might see more of the fabled “Village” form to support parents and, therefore, children. Children therefore may be more well-adjusted with better early years care….less neglect/ deprivation/ childhood trauma….less crime?! Social services/ prisons/ policing costs come down, get reinvested into….healthcare? A free holiday for everyone every year?! Who knows.

Going by the stats, and assuming the absence of men doesn’t increase/ decrease women’s likelihood of committing certain crimes, we could expect astonishing reductions in sexual and domestic violence, murder, drug dealing, people trafficking, drug addiction…the list goes on. And, I reckon, you could argue that even if there was an uptick in female offending, it still wouldn’t be enough to fill the void left by male offenders.

I don’t know. This isn’t a call-to-arms, not making a case for it, I don’t hate men. The idea came to me and I haven’t been able to get it out my head as a concept. Reached a point where I’m just really interested to know what others think 🤣 by all means, point out everything I’ve missed/ am
completely wrong about.

Again, just brilliant replies.

Thanks for the book recommendation TotHappy, I’ll defo look into that.

JMSA, chuckled at that, brings me right back to being an ideological teenager and being disgusted with catcalls and generally bad behaviour. Still am, tbf.

Heretobenosy, this is what I’m talking about!! It just snowballs, doesn’t it?! Suddenly you’re pondering the eradication of half the human species and it’s like…wait are things really this bad?!

DucksArse, you make a very, very good point. Woman can be really unpleasant in their own way. I read a book called I Who Have Never Known Men and that’s sort of a thing in it….although with some caveats that are hard to explain without describing the whole book. Would thoroughly recommend though, it’s by Jacqueline Harpman.

As the saying goes there is always room at the top, u get rid of the top dog always one waiting to take over.

No thank you. I have a variety of friends of both sexes and I like living in a mixed society.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Ok, I change my mind, let’s stick with the world we’ve got!

Right, I need to know what’s going on on livery yards 🤣 completely clueless about horses

I'd say, as objectively I can, that if the world was minus all men it would be much better place than if it was minus all women.

We actually have much more of a function in keeping society together. But at the same time a lot of what we do is holding up men and helping them be men. Not necessarily intentionally.

But how do they help us? Other than the fact that lots of them are lovely people and if you're hetero or bi then they can be nice to have sex with.

Also very good for carrying heavy things, lifting heavy things overhead, and generally providing muscle power, particularly upper body strength.
Well the fit ones are anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️
The ones who look like sacks of shit- not so much

blahblahblah at least for us heteronormative girlies... blahblah

'Girlies'? 🙄

Well, there are obviously evolutionary reasons (or more spiritual/religious ones...) for us being a sexually dimorphic species with two sexes.

Which leads me to wonder: If all males disappeared, what (or who) would take their place? Would certain women become more masculinised? Would the female sex undergo changes? I don't know... But I would expect someone to fill the vacuum left by the disappearing males.
It is certainly true that the vast majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by men. But (some) women certainly have the capacity to be dehumanising, cruel or violent.

More imporantly: Most women are heterosexual and have a fairly strong desire to be in sexual and romantic partnerships with men. I happen to have that strong desire myself (despite not being heterosexual). And I'm not too sure about the concept of synthetic sperm. I suspect it would cause more problems than we might imagine...

I also find the entire premise dehumanising, to be perfectly honest. If a better world meant eradicating half of humanity, I would want no part in it...

Edit: I do however suspect that it would be incredibly relaxing to go jogging and not worry about catcalls, harassment etc. But yet again: We do not know whether that would be temporary and what would happen next.

Great idea. Who's going to do all the shit dangerous and heavy jobs that are done mainly by men?

Ooooh, hadn't thought about the synthetic sperm thing. Eventually the majority of the human genome would be artificial/ possibly selected by people not very qualified to be selecting things....ooft. So would we even be human?! Then what? Sent me off on a totally different spiral now...

Chat GPT, apparently...

Ooooh, hadn't thought about the synthetic sperm thing. Eventually the majority of the human genome would be artificial/ possibly selected by people not very qualified to be selecting things....ooft. So would we even be human?! Then what? Sent me off on a totally different spiral now...

Yep. There are already ongoing discussions about the possibility of so-called "designer babies" and the associated ethical problems. I suspect that synethic - aka entirely "human-free" - sperm would put us into an entirely new sphere of ethic problems.

And even fairly basic practicalities seem to open entirely new cans of worms. As in: Would somebody own the "male" genes? Who? How would we decide "distribution" etc? And what if the vast majority of women prefer the same genetic materials / marker? Would we end up with a genetic bottle neck? Would we force certain women to accept sperm variations they or society considers to be less desirable (on average)?

Ah, there'd be no more men like Keanu Reeves though 😢

Perhaps he could be cloned 🤔

I agree. Wouldn't want to spend any time with man haters. Too many of these. It's not really any wonder our men of today are confused and sometimes hopeless in feeling a purpose. We should be celebrating all that boys/men can bring to society and supporting our sons and husbands etc. I know some wonderfully brave and respectful men in my life and I believe us women will need them- so ,I'm cheering them on x

I agree. My late DM always used to say she loved seeing a man working. I think the same as I get older. I have worked in all female environments and would much rather have a mix of the sexes. If pushed to make a choice I preferred working with mainly men. It was much more straight forward. I also liked sex with lots of men when I was younger so I am glad they were around then 😂.

I can second the recommendation for 'herland' it's a really good dive into this question.

The premise is that men turn up, and what happens after this.

Women… that’s the point of the thread right?

I'd suggest if we could lots of us already would be.

First insurmountable hurdle to op's ridiculous premise.

All while being raised by women, kept alive by women while they are young and elderly, having their healthcare needs taken care of by women, having their food grown and prepared by women and being taught by women. Then when they want to reproduce having a woman risk her life and health to give life to their child. All while belittling, hurting and killing them, ignoring and dismissing their achievements while they are effectively wiped from the history books.

But yeah…roads and buildings…

Didn’t say it wasn’t ridiculous…in fact I actually said that it was daft. But that doesn’t mean you can’t discuss hypotheticals, or derive interesting points from it. Also, if we only ever discussed serious, real-world things I don’t think the world would be anywhere near as interesting or creative. So simmer down….it isn’t a proposition or even an endorsement of an idea….its just one that occurred to me, and I know I don’t have all the answers/ perspectives in the world, so opened it up on a forum.

Your job thing is, however, logically unsound. Lots of women do “manly” jobs, if you want to call them that. Additionally, this has been believed about the majority of jobs over history, and over time women have proved a patriarchal society to just be wrong. Medicine, for example, was a traditionally male profession until relatively recently. There was also the influx of women into the roles previously occupied by men while they went off and fought wars. Wars - before you point out how the defence of the country depended on them - which were started by men.

as I said before, really want to thank everyone for their thoughts on this…it’s sort of calmed me down because, contrary to what some people seem to think on this, I’m not a man-hater at all. I’m very fortunate in that I’ve never been treated differently or limited by my family because of my gender, (societally…not so sure), im not a victim of domestic violence or rape and I much prefer workplaces with a mixture of genders. I’ve really got no beef with men. NOT that you’d need to have gone through these experiences in order to hate men, or that you automatically hate men if you have. Just describing my own personal feelings and experiences.

But when you read or watch the news and keep having all this depressing stuff thrown at you, and there’s generally one common thread running through it all….i don’t think it’s a stretch for the brain to wonder “what if that section of society didn’t exist?”. What IF. Not that it shouldn’t.

so yeah. Thanks for all the replies, especially the ones that looked a bit past the literal and met me in the mad place I was in, and understood I wasn’t trying to start a movement. Also really liked the ones pointing out that sex is a thing…I can only blame the pregnancy hormones for overlooking this bit 🤣 Really interesting discussion, and I’ve got a new book recommendation out of it!

Also v interested to see what the poll
turns out as. TBH, as it stands, and considering that we’re talking about the absence of 50% of humans in the world….not as unanimous as one would think 🤣🤣🤣

Well not really, history has a huge impact on the make up of our society. Women are still catching up in many industries not just physical ones.

Most women if they live alone will have to crack on with jobs that might be ‘men’ jobs in other households. I live with my wife, she does all the heavy lifting as she’s ridiculously strong. I do all the DIY and plumbing (unless it needs a professional) because I have more patience and better hand dexterity. But we learn what we need to do and crack on. We don’t just not do things that need doing because it’s would be easier for men with their physical strength. You adapt.

I hate the idea that people think just because men are more likely to have physical strength that women have to rely on men for ‘tough’ jobs. It’s ridiculous. Working class women have been doing tough jobs for centuries.

And if there were any jobs where there were no women who had the physical strength to do a certain job then we would come up with different solutions to problems, but I doubt theres many jobs like that as there are plenty of women who are physically fit and strong.

Roads and building? They have fought wars, navigated and mapped the world, and actually ensured women are kept alive, men are awesome!

They started those wars, and while mapping and exploring they spread disease and colonised and enslaved indigenous people, and if they were keeping women alive they were likely only protecting them from the threat of other men

I was going to make this exact same point - a large proportion of female offenders have been abused by men, and coerced into crime e.g to steal to feed the man's drug habit. And many female offenders have suffered from traumatic brain injuries from attacks by men and there is increasing evidence that this is associated with cognitive and behavioural issues that increase the likelihood of those women offending and reoffending.