Letters to the Editor
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Flannery O'Connor said it best way back in the early 1960s...
"On the subject of the feminist business, I just never think, that is I never think of certain qualities as masculine or feminine. I tend to divide people into two categories: the Irksome and the Non-Irksome without regard to sex. Yes, and there are also the Medium Irksome and Rare Irksome."
On the whole "males are optional" thing--he's right, they're more "optional" than females in a nuclear family. The biggest difference between men and women is that women can physically bear children and men can't. Of course, women can't bear children entirely without men, but men willing to be sperm donors will probably always be easier to come by than women willing to be surrogate mothers.
That said (and despite what Brightstar, Parson Jim, etc. say), MOST women would prefer to have and raise children with a husband than have some other family arrangement.