Letters to the Editor
leftychris
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 4
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Disaster?
[Read the article: Fear of a female planet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Although this is obviously a disaster for Inuit communities...
Uhm, it is? Why, precisely? Not to be glib, but males have not disappeared entirely from the Inuit populations of the Arctic, right? They are much reduced in number, but still around and still being born. So the obvious solution to the problem is for Inuit social mores to change to allow each male to impregnate more than one female--monogamous marriage will be a thing of the past. Each fertile adult male can impregnate many, many females so a huge sex ratio disparity in favor of females hardly sounds the death knell of any particular society. The society just needs to adapt to its changed circumstances, its new reality. And this is NOT an argument in favor of the traditional view of patriarchal polygamy (as practiced by the fundie Mormons, for instance) at all. Just because the male Inuit may be impregnating multiple women doesn't mean they'll be granted additional or exceptional power, influence, and social control. They'll be normal males assuming a subordinate, minority role in society and acting essentially as walking sperm banks. If handled properly, the Inuit populations will actually be able to evolve into strongly MATRIARCHAL societies, given the greatly reduced male numbers among them. This is most decidedly NOT a bad thing, let alone a disaster!
In addition, due to the surplus of females and shortage of males, many females will have to partner with each other to raise children and for intimate and sexual needs. Big deal. Many women will also have to assume roles previously filled by men, such as hunting and fishing. Again, this is obviously well within their capabilities, so what's the problem?
Ladies in favor of an all-female planet, be careful what you wish for.
It may sound odd, but you can count me as a MALE who's encouraged by the apparent natural evolution toward female-dominated, even all-female societies. Such a planet won't be free of problems, but it will be far saner and safer and happier than the one we currently inhabit. It can't get here soon enough!
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oops, forgot
[Read the article: Fear of a female planet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A few other quick points I forgot to make in my last post:
1) If the drop-off in male numbers among the Inuit is severe enough, and/or those males who are born suffer from greatly disproportionate birth defects, sexual deformities, infertility, etc. then I'm sure that the world will step in with a technological fix if necessary. Some sort of fertility assistance managed by a UN agency and subsidized by wealthy countries. The world, heartless as it can be, won't stand idly by and watch the Inuit disappear if technology can help to rescue them.
2) When I mentioned my pleasure at the apparent evolution toward an all-female planet at the end of my last post, I was looking ahead to a future society with widespread, affordable technology available to help females conceive and bear children without needing males at all--i.e. fusing two eggs from different women into a viable zygote, or the technological manufacture of artificial sperm, etc. These things are already being worked on and great progress is being made. These capabilities will be here sooner than we think. Once in place, and diffused widely, there will actually be no reason to continue to produce males at all, anywhere. Women who wish to conceive will be able to have all girls, and obviously that would be most desirable.
3) A greater concern is the effect that these environmental chemicals are having on many other species, up and down the food chain. the effects have been most noticeable among aquatic and amphibious species but studies have detected deleterious effects in many others as well (most pronounced among the males of those species). These include dangerously imbalanced sex ratios among newborns, males changing sex AFTER birth (particularly evident in fish species), infertile males, many of which mimic female behaviors, and early death of many males. I read recently that the drop in the male population of killer whales, for example, has been alarming and some scientists are already foreseeing the potential extinction of the species because of it. And that's just one example. These problems will clearly have a terrible impact on the human food chain, but aside from that the problem is so large and becoming more widespread and it may reach the point where it's beyond human management or correction. We're an adaptable species and can evolve to manage the effects on ourselves, but I think bringing technological fixes to the problem among dozens or hundreds or even more other species will be beyond our capabilities.
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Splendide, I couldn't disagree more!
[Read the article: Fear of a female planet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And to the anonymous who wanted an majority female world; I think you'd find that women would simply behave much as people do today, we aren't that different from men.
Is that why men comprise some 93% or more of our nation's correctional population at any one time, let alone the overwhelming majority who fight and die in wars and conflicts?
Face it, ideology aside, women and men are quite different in many ways, and in almost all of them women are clearly superior or more desirable. They are far less aggressive and violent, suffer from less mental illness and pathology, are less competitive, are more caring and nurturing, etc. I could go on. I count myself as a male feminist, and I don't for the life of me understand why some feminists insist (against much evidence to the contrary) that males and females are essentially the same. Maybe because they assume that arguments that acknowledge sex/gender differences will always tend to bolster patriarchal arguments of male superiority. I respectfully disagree and wish feminists would move away from such rigid orthodoxy.