Imagine A World Without Men

[Interested2024]

What would that world really look like? I'm toying with a piece I am writing on this subject and was asking friends and family, thought I'd ask you as well.

To be honest I am not thinking so much of a world without men, as we need men and women to carry on the human race. But rather I'm contemplating a city, or a state where women and men were segregated off.

As place where women lived by choice completely separate to men, with no interaction with men at all.

To be upfront, I have a husband and an adult son both of whom I love. I can't really imagine living away from them, or never seeing them.

But if they had never existed, if I had no close male relatives I cared about - then I would actually be ok with it, I think. Or would I?

I'd miss sex a fair bit, to be honest,and physical touch with my husband genreally. If anything happened to my husband though I would not be pursuing any more sexual relationships, this is my second and last marriage, cannot be bothered with the rigmarole of dating ever again.

And women have zero sexual appeal to me, but I suppose there's always vibrators!

But sex aside, what would living in a city filled with women really be like?

There'd be no ongoing threat of rape or of murder by men. There'd be far fewer murders, almost none I suppose.

I'd imagine it would be just generally a lot safer, as women are (whether misogynists and pickmes like to admit it or not) a lot less physically violent than men. They just are. Citation - all of human history.

Would there be more arts? More of what sort of jobs and industry and less of what? What would exist that just can't in our current world - or would it just be weird and unpleasant?

Women can be abusive, and even sometimes to their kids. Would they be more or less so without men around I wonder?

What would be find to compete about without being trained to compete for male attention all our lives?

Would it be nicer? More fun? Or more boring? Men seem to have a bit of drive that women miss, like the drive to change and conquer - or is that just my imagination?

I'm genuinely asking the question and I am interested to know the answers.

Women are also - observably and provably - less violent than men. They simply are.

I really have to read that book, I keep hearing about it.

PS sorry for the typos!

Yes the violence thing is interesting. You’d assume a female society would be much less violent, but as we know, nature abhors a vacuum. If women weren’t automatically in the physically weaker 50% of the population would a subset see greater personal benefit to being violent and then it would spiral? I don’t know.

OP you should read The Power by Naomi Alderman. It's not about a world without men but imagines what would happen if women were suddenly physically stronger and therefore able to be the dominant sex. It's an absolutely brilliant read and is really interesting on how women's freedom/power is liberating from male oppression but ultimately comes down to the same thing in reverse. But that makes it sound so much less good than it actually is! Just an easy to read, excellent, witty and clever story with loads to think about. And for a woman reading it, totally electrifying (almost literally, look it up and you'll see what I mean 😊)

Ok, I will look for it, thanks :)

So women wouldn't have children but if science allowed it they would have to abort male babies just because they are male?

There would still be arguments over who did how much of which jobs.

Some women would expect to swan around writing poetry about the goddess inside and some would be expected to wash pots and dig up potatoes.

It would be just as dreadful.

@Marchintospring. I get your point but I think we are far into modern society values to see those differences form a day to another. I think your point of view is more "romantic" looking in the feminine attributes and original nature and mine are more "practical" as the stablishmen is not going to give up easily regardless of the existence/non existence of men.

Maybe. You have a point. But I suspect even the oppression would look different. Women can certainly be horrible and abusive, but there would be no threat of rape, very little threat of murder and women are observable and provably less violent than men. I wonder even if those who oppressed would behave differently.

@LaPalmaLlama this is part of what The Power explores. Personally I'd agree that the violence vacuum would be filled in the end one way or another, the same but different. As long as there aren't enough resources to go round, or not equally accessible, humans will inevitably end up fighting over them.

I did smile at that, and yes you have a point.

But I think that removing the threat of rape and sexual assault, as most women are not predatory in that way, would change things dramatically. But I could be wrong.

Thanks to all who have contributed so far, I will check in again later, or tomorrow.

Good point about bodies @Marchintospring. I've just started reading Hags and am already loving it! And simultaneously enraged...

OP, you might enjoy the short story 'Consider her Ways' by John Wyndham, which is about a world without men.

I think, such is human nature, women would step in to fill the gap and we would sooner or later have the female equivalent of the dick-swinging tosser throwing his weight about.

During the world wars , men were conscripted, so there were only male children and elderly men left in some communities. You could research into that.

In terms of sex and attraction, I imagine the women would start being attracted to other . That happens in prison and boarding school if works of fiction are to be believed.

Who runs the world. Ive just ordered it 👍. Ty for recommending

Hags is by Victoria smith ..i have put in my list. Gonna cost me these recommendations lol

I think maybe the violence thing is a male myth of how “life” should look. I mean clearly nature is fairly gory when it comes to death but animals don’t start wars over things. Idon’t think if there were no wolves, sheep would become killers in their place.
Quite a sizeable promotion of male violence seems to be entitlement and the fact they can get away with it, as much of anything.

What an interesting thread - thanks OP!

If it was a city or state of women then would it be just older women and children? There's a possibility the young women will be responding to their hormones and leaving the city to find men to reproduce with, as the urge to have children takes over.

If a woman leaves the city temporarily to get pregnant, would she be refused re-entry if she was pregnant with/gave birth to a male child?

Would the city be exempt from the gender laws that allow men to identify as women and access our spaces?

Really interesting thought. But I think it's impossible to even imagine. Because there are too many variables- have we found a way to procreate in this female only society? Did men previously exist (so we have a hangover of male/ female interaction and social norms) or are we blissfully unaware of men and male behaviour?

Women would undoubtedly be very different if our existence wasn't influenced by men. But how we would manifest as a society is just impossible to predict. For all we know, a female only society might have evolved to worship the colour green and believe in executing women who are short. It's just impossible to know.

However, I do love the idea of a women only community. Men might not be banned from entering but would be banned from living there. I bet there would be no crime, a high level of civic responsibility, and happiness would be off the scale!

I went on to Amazon to look for this and see it's been made into a tv series available on Amazon Prime. Season one came out in 2023 and has 9 episodes.

I could easily imagine this being a society in which women’s capacity for violence becomes more obvious. You could consider scenarios like the role that women played in inflicting violence in the Cultural Revolution for example. With sufficient motivation, with a belief that a subset of society are somehow lesser, it could all come pouring out.

What if the women who manage to assert the power in this society are the type to stand outside abortion clinics with placards about god, screaming abuse at the women who dare to go near? Or women like the one I saw last week screaming racist abuse at a shop worker who was trying to help her?

I think power abhors a vacuum, and sadly power is often taken by those who show the most ruthlessness, which includes a willingness to oppress and capacity to use violence, fear and intimidation.

Hags is excellent. Distills what we middle aged women all instinctively know already into a series of 'yes!!', 'of course!!' and 'God that's so true!!' booms around why women are defined by their Femininity, Fertility and Fuckability.

E.g.

"The difference in male and female reproductive lifespans creates the illusion that only women age - men live then die."

"It is foreign to me, therefore it is irrelevant. So says the patriarch."

more even than those types of jobs I think it's the bin men, sewer repairers, road repairers, working on oil rigs and cargo ships, grave diggers, forestry workers, long distance lorry drivers etc that we would miss as I can't see many women being willing to do these jobs.