What if men had never existed?

Can open, worms everywhere?

Wed, 2011-04-27 00:05

It's the George Bailey question, "What if I'd never been born?" but applied to an entire gender. I don't have an opinion one way or the other but I thought it was an interesting question, the kind of question that one should not be afraid to ask on a writer's forum.

JoHn

Wed, 2011-04-27 08:01

Mummy Penguin

I suspect that things might have evolved at a slightly slower pace but not in a very different way. In my experience women have many of the more aggressive feelings - they simply express them in a different way. That may be nurture rather than nature. What I don't have is any conclusive evidence one way or another.:-) MP

Wed, 2011-04-27 08:19

well we have men on the planet and I think it would be pretty drab without them. We know what they're like and it's hard to imagine a world without them. I like men- some of them and really they are very handy.Anyway , are we supposed to give birth to girls only? My god this is a silly question well-wisher. Do you really hate men that much? You need to meet some nicer of the gender then.

Wed, 2011-04-27 09:54

I don't think this is a silly question, just one that has millions of potential answers ranging from the mundane to the profound. Always worth asking questions like this though. I was hoping the men are bastards comment was a tad tongue in cheek - but now we have to wait for well-wisher to return to tell us...

Wed, 2011-04-27 11:55

breather

I'm afraid that being logical, which I appear to be being, it would mean that humans would not exist surely. The last I knew of it a sexual act has to take place between the male and the female and from this 'act' if it all goes well (nudge, nudge etc) then 9 months later out would pop a bambino, male or female. I am being rather too logical maybe. But even if I'm not it is a kind of 'chicken and egg' question in so much as you will have to wonder where all of the women came from in the first place, right? But then again the question 'what if men never existed 'is only saying that isn't it, it doesn't imply that anything else exists does it, so do we (from the perspective of this question) assume that women exist without men? I've decided that (as a Man)I I've got better things to do right now!

Wed, 2011-04-27 12:10

tcook

I suspect that there would be a group of 'dominant' females and a group of 'submissive' females - which is sometimes how it works out in lesbian communities. So I suspect we would have war, farting, rugby and beer just the same.

Wed, 2011-04-27 12:38

#10

Geoffrey

I'm a man and I definitely exist. So there!

Thu, 2011-04-28 09:26

#11

To be fair, well-wisher says in the very first sentence: "What if women had always had the ability to create children without the need for men?" So responding that we need men for procreation just shows you haven't read her post properly! Sorry, but that was really bugging me!

Thu, 2011-04-28 10:31

#12

It's completely hypothetical and really not an interesting question. It would be more realistic to ask what if women were to be in more powerful positions in the world?

Thu, 2011-04-28 13:13

#13

Ah Highhat I beg to differ - it's a very interesting question (as is yours). Surely writers need to ask and answer hypothetical questions - stretches the imagination! Some of the best ideas come from "What if" questions. Anyway we seem to have got some way off the point... What would the world be like without us bastard men in it?

Thu, 2011-04-28 15:15

#14

alex- you suffer from a minority complex.I don't think men are bastards at all and I am a female. They add to the complexity of human nature just like females- as equals by the way.

Thu, 2011-04-28 15:28

#15

prettypolly

I think that this is a ridiculous question, granted that many women are bitches and, even if they are less aggressive than men, they can be just as manipulative and domineering. There are goodies and baddies in both sexes.

Thu, 2011-04-28 17:17

#16

Mummy Penguin

May we agree that we are all humans? Do we need stereotypes? MP

Thu, 2011-04-28 19:54

#17

Thanks for the diagnosis Highhat - not sure what your basis was for it though. I was merely quoting well-wisher's original post about men being bastards. I wonder what she'll make of all this when she gets back from Portugal. Where the men are lovely, I hear. And how are men a minority?!

Thu, 2011-04-28 21:57

#18

rjnewlyn

I think there was a science fiction novella (Robert Silverberg possibly) about a future earth where women have wiped out the men - or at least very nearly. Cue a young lady pilot who crash lands in some remote place, finds one of the last male survivors and experiences the delight of an alternative relationship before her sister officers gun him down. I don't remember it as being much good though and it doesn't answer the question. Rob

Fri, 2011-04-29 00:13

#19

h jenkins

There is also a short story by John Wyndham called "Consider Her Ways". As I recall, some scientist had worked on a virus which mutated and killed all males and all male children subsequently born. The heroine of the story has 'dreamed' the consequences and tries to assassinate the scientist -or it's something very like that anyway. Like others have said, I'm not sure how good a question it is - as it is posed. Women would, logically, have to be hermaphrodites and if they were, they would not be women, by definition, in which case the question doesn't arise. If they remain women (ie, the female of the species), then the sperm which fertilises their ova would still be needed. Even if it was produced by some artificial means, the said condition would only exist for one generation as presumably about 50% of the offspring would be male. So, if the condition of a society without males were to be maintained, all male children would have to be killed at birth. That means that a society of all women would be required to have mass murder as a raison d'etre! Is that the answer? OK, I'm being deliberately controversial here but that seems to be in keeping with the original question. Incidentally, I do find that 'herstory' thing to be a bit tedious. History, as a word, is derived from the Latin, historia, and that from the Greek equivalent, meaning 'learning from enquiry'. The 'his', is purely a coincidence of letter construction. Anyway, it would be 'his tory', perhaps a reference to Nick Clegg's partner; so cleverly prescient. Helvigo Jenkins

Helvigo Jenkins

Fri, 2011-04-29 07:47

#20

Alex- You are quite right- men are not a minority so I phrased it wrongly I suppose I meant inferior not minority.

Fri, 2011-04-29 18:44

#21

prettyrose

Hi All, Firstly Well-Wisher, I hope you have a good holiday and I am jelous lol. Secondly I could be wrong but I believe Well-wisher did not mean the question to be taken so serious as 'Hates Men' but Well-Wisher can put me right on that' I would say that speaking for myself ofcourse I am glad that men are here or else I would be taking about 50 cold showers a day lol. On the other point of history, It is hard to say what it would of been like, But I would say that we need both men and women.

Keep Smiling

Keep Writing xxx

Wed, 2011-05-04 15:11

(Reply to #21) #22

Thanks, Pretty Rose. I was in Albufeira in The Algarve. It was sunny when I arrived then it rained for three days, then the sun came out again fortunately. Albufeira's really bad if you're worried about your weight. There's literally a dozen restaurants and cafe's round every corner and nothing much else to see or do besides eat or sunbathe. However, I did go on a speedboat to see bottle nosed dolphins which are really magical creatures. The Royal Wedding was on every TV in every cafe and Pub but unfortunately I couldn't get the BBC and had to make do with crappy Sky News commentary which reduced the whole event to a fashion show.

JoHn

Wed, 2011-05-04 14:34

#23

Hello all. I think there have been some really interesting comments. The post was partly inspired by reading a short story by the Feminist Science Fiction writer Joanna Russ in which she envisaged a planet without men (An earth colony where all the men and male children had died in a plague) I am a man by the way but I have often heard women use the phrase "All men are bastards" and another popular phrase I often hear is "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle". So it made me wonder, if men are so bad and so unecessary, what history would have been like if there had never been any men. Would there have been no wars? No exploitation? No slavery? Did the negative aspects of male psychology help to speed up human progress or hold it back? BTW, I didn't realize that you were a woman, Highhat. I'll have to create a new imagined mental image/voice.

JoHn

Wed, 2011-05-04 15:50

#24

That's really funny Well-wisher. I imagined you as a girl. So there you see! Anyway it is pretty impossible to imagine there being no men on the planet. How was the science fiction book? I hope it doesn't come true anyway. Sounds horrible if it were to be.

Wed, 2011-05-04 16:17

#25

The story is called "When It Changed". In the story women reproduce by "Parthenogenesis" (taking the dna from one woman and implanting it into the egg of another) all the women on the planet have become lesbians and have really forgotten about men and gotten along fine without them but then some male cosmonauts arrive from Earth and the story describes the encounter between representatives of the all female planet and the cosmonauts. http://www.scribd.com/doc/20608939/When-It-Changed-Russ-Joanna

JoHn

Wed, 2011-05-04 16:49

#26

Thanks, Highhat. I take it as a compliment that you thought I was a woman because I've always found it difficult to write female characters and usually resort to stereotypes.

JoHn

Thu, 2011-05-05 08:19

#27

Hourhouse

In actuality, there is a range of abilities and attitudes in men and women and a world of women may be a bit softer, but still very similar. Let's go along with the stereotypes anyway, for fun. Some women can be incredibly bitchy, so wars would still be fought, but instead of something as trivial as oil, it would be over the country's fashion houses or sewing machine factories. There would be a lot more service industries; hairdressers, nail artists, style advisers and glossy magazines, and a booming elitist industry in property refurbishment. Elitist because of the shortage of builders, plumbers, joiners - and property! Most of the population would be living in colourful tents, rather inefficient thermally, but easy to run up on the treasured communal sewing machine. There is serious upset if anyone breaks it, though, because sewing machines are in very short supply - only a handful of factories in Russia can produce them and service technicians are very thin on the ground. There used to be more manufactured locally, of course, but a Prime Minister, nicknamed the Lady of Steel actually closed many of the industrial sites, preferring a service based economy. Her elite guard of Amazons were armed with sub-machine guns and sniper rifles rather than bows and arrows. They were recruited from headmistresses and office managers with the appropriate efficiency and ruthlessness and they put down any opposition very effectively... OK, just a bit of fun. Don't get upset ladies! (Takes to his heels and heads for the hills.)

Fri, 2011-05-06 10:48

#28

Hi Hourhouse Don't be afraid of me. I thought your comment was rather funny. Well it would take a lot of hard work to keep the machines running in an all female society. Not that I am against hard work (for others , not myself! ;D). Anyway I suppose if I was a lesbian then I could envisage a purely female planet, otherwise it is inconceivable and unfeesible. N'est pas possible! Blighters I thought the revoke was a bit too aggressive to be an honest remark by a female but I hadn't imagined it came from a male. I should have guessed there was a hitch to it but we were both blind. I wonder how many who have read this thread, guessed at the same? Well-wisher I love the way you just smacked this on the plate and served it for us mean time you just hiked off to Portugal. Did you get any of the reactions you had expected? I read the novel and thought it was a bit stereo of sci-fi litterature and would have liked it to describe the actual actions behind the surface of society. It needed a lot of elaborating but it did have potiental. Thanks for the link. I would have liked to know about their industrial revoltuon so as they were able to produce all their hardware. For me that seems pretty impossible to do without males in the community. (Sorry about my poor english- I am a foreigner and it is dwindling with every day that passes. i.e no excuse for my daft remark- ;D) ;)Pia

Sun, 2011-05-08 00:53

(Reply to #28) #29

Highhat "Did you get any of the reactions you had expected?" I was most surprised by the reticence of some posters to comment. I hadn't really thought of it as a touchy subject. "I read the novel and thought it was a bit stereo of sci-fi litterature and would have liked it to describe the actual actions behind the surface of society." I think it was inverting or subverting some literary conventions. For example, by portraying the Men as "The Other"/the alien but I do think that it makes the assumption that all the heterosexual women on the planet will happily become Lesbians and that women would feel any less sad about the extinction of men than they would about the extinction of a race,colour ethnic group, sexual persuasion or any other mass extinction. The men in the story also seem strangely unconcerned about the death of women. Wouldn't these Cosmonauts, like all men, have mothers or sisters, wives or daughters who they care about? I've never met a man who thought that the death of men was a greater tragedy than the death of women. To be honest, the men in the story sound more like Nazi's than socialists. "I would have liked to know about their industrial revoltuon so as they were able to produce all their hardware. For me that seems pretty impossible to do without males in the community" I'm a bit surprised to hear this coming from a woman and I'm not sure if I agree with it or not. There are enough women engineers,scientists and inventors in the world to suggest that women would be capable of inventing a steam loco-motive. BTW Blighter's Rock/ Writer's Block! I just got it. It's a spoonerism. Just shows how slow I am.

JoHn

Tue, 2011-05-17 16:22

#30

beaste

well, you get eveil men and you get evil women and thats a fact.So I think that because in the past (not now!!) men have always convinced women that they are second best, so women never got a chance to be evil dictators. Thats just my thoery, you dont have to agree with it.

Bea :-)

Mon, 2011-05-30 17:30

#31

TheShyAssassin

Well wisher, your original commenting is utterly insulting and completely unacceptable. What makes you the judge that announces me to be "violent, selfish, greedy and power hungry". You've never met me. You're the fucking bastard round here. Shy

Tue, 2011-05-31 00:24

(Reply to #31) #32

I'm afraid you've misunderstood my post completely, Shy. I AM a man. If my question was intended seriously, then I would be calling myself a bastard. But I've heard it said by many women that men are bastards,evil,unimportant,etcetera. But I thought. There must be a reason for having men. Having two genders. Otherwise all creatures would be hermaphrodites,right? But then I thought, a good way to assess the usefulness of a part in a machine is to remove it and see if the machine works just aswell. So then I wondered what human history and progress would have been like if there had been no men. Essentially, I was asking the question "What does masculinity contribute to the world?" or "What is the value of masculinity?" or "Would the world be worse or better off without it?" As I said, I am a man and I've never liked the idea of being considered worthless or unimportant so I wished to assess how important Men really are. Anyway, I meant no offence and I take no offence.