PLANET - X

One of my professors asked us to submit a paper on a world without men, and this is what I came up with. It is based on generalization and stereotypes, so bear with me please

The first thing that is necessary for such a world is that the women must figure out how to reproduce. Although research says that synthesizing semen in laboratories is a reality, such a thing on large scale is still quite far away. But, for the sake of this paper, let us assume that it was perfected and that all the males were wiped out in some freak accident. What would happen? Apart from an ecological disaster, of course.

The first thing that most women would say is that there would be lesser number of disasters in the kitchen and more number of accidents on the road. But jokes apart, the first thing that strikes me is that there would a definite reduction in the number of crimes of sexual violence. Of course, such crimes are to be made gender-neutral, but one cannot ignore the fact that most of the crimes of such nature are perpetrated by men.

The next thing which comes to my mind is that the number of commercial activities which show a particular sex in bad, like the advertisements of a certain brand of deodorant, would be greatly reduced.

There also those who argue that a society in which women are the dominant force tends to be a more egalitarian society, so one would hope for lesser discrimination.

Most people would agree when I say that men are generally more violent than women, something which is apparent in childhood itself, where one can see young boys preferring to smash things up whereas girls like to play with dolls. Nature provides testimony to this fact too, in the closest relative of the humans in the animal world – the chimpanzees. The Bonobo is a species of chimpanzee in which the female are the dominant sex, unlike the regular chimpanzees. It is observed that the Bonobos are much less violent than the regular kind. Therefore, one can safely say that a world filled with women would have lesser wars, a definite plus point, one would say.

But some, like yours truly, would beg to differ. Although it is unquestionable that wars must be condemned because of the death and destruction they bring about, they are not without their merits as well. War is something which brings a change in ideology to a country, albeit in a violent manner. A war is sometimes the only solution to a dictatorial regime which is putting the welfare of the people at stake. Sometimes, a war has to be waged to protect the interests of the people, however twisted those interests may be. Let’s try to put things into perspective. The small group of islands off the north-west shore of Europe wouldn’t have become Great Britain, where the sun never sets, if it had not been for their military campaigns. Christianity wouldn’t be the most popular religion in the world if it had not been for all those wars waged for it. All the roads wouldn’t have led to Rome if they hadn’t had the best warriors of the time. For all we know, I wouldn’t be writing this in English if the East India Company hadn’t taken this nation by force. So, maybe a world without violence isn’t the ideal world everyone fantasizes about.

Another generally accepted conception is that men are more adventurous than women. Had it not been for this death wish, half of Africa would still be unexplored and America wouldn’t be the most powerful powerful country right now. Infact, I would wager that humans would still be shivering in caves if it were not for the men who ventured out to find out what that hot thing burning up all the trees was. And, I remember reading somewhere that some scientist actually managed to prove that men are brainier than women (Google it, I’m not going to cite any sources here), the reason for there being more male scientists than among the females, although I can already hear the feminists shouting for my head right now. So, effectively, this means that the industrial revolution wouldn’t have taken place yet, and the small-pox vaccine would still be a fantasy if it had not been for the “rougher” sex.

What I’m trying to say is that killing off all the men in the world is not going to solve any problems. The relationship between the two sexes should be symbiotic, where one cannot survive without the other. After all, everything in the world comes in twos, like light and dark, war and peace, yin and yang etc (I know, they’re not the world’s best examples). So, we really must try to appreciate each other more instead of just pointing fingers and claiming that our own sex is superior.