Normally Masopher will not specifically comment on scientific developments outside of psychology, however the latest headline on spermatozoa creation and the lack thereof elicited some attention. This scientific fantasy of a world where women can impregnate each other is disturbing. Not mentally regarding women’s superiority in the areas of reproduction among man others, which Masopher acknowledges, but that scientists have exerted a considerable time working towards an ultimate geeks girl on girl fantasy instead of something a little more constructive. Masopher now traces some developments in sexual reproduction.
In the 1960’s it was noted that effective and non-degrading birth control became a right and privaledge for all women to employ. While local conditions may have been different for some, it is usually accepted that this period marked the women finally started becoming modern equals.
The progress aspect at this point is that mankind developed the ability to have reproduction free intercourse. With the pill or prophylactic in place men and women could indulge in their most intimate activities without concern for repercussions nine month later. Bear in mind however that previous civilizations enjoyed this as well by means of eunuchs, inter gender sexuality and the like. Masopher considers this an epoch in modern human progress because here we differentiate ourselves from animals still further. We have sex without offspring, delaying fertility and suspending life’s cycle as it were. This is done by changing our chemical and physical selves. This development increased social productivity and reproductively for without children, women and men turn more to industry, creativity and academia to recreate themselves. Here man show nature who is boss. Sex becomes man’s tool and not visa versa.
The years after this shows a marked decline in the male genders academic achievement. Statisticians and showing marked decline in the percentages of boys in school when compared to girls. It is Masopher’s position that this is an unfair observation on two counts. The first being that mentally boys were never meant to compete with girls and secondly, the education system in place does not take into consideration that some boys are not meant to be educated in that way. While women are riding a wave of feminism, to achieve academic and economic success they wholly ignore the gender that created the world in which they now live. Now that the back breaking work of hunting food, constructing edifices fighting wars and writing history has been completed, the future does now belong to the brains of the outfit, a title that man can never seek to claim. Masopher specifies the role of the reptilian and insect worlds where males were given the working roles in matriarchal societies, especially hive societies. Humans too had adopted this in many instances from African tribes to Beowulf and Macbeth.
The second epoch is the creation of offspring without sex. For women, in particular, homosexual women this meant that intercourse for all its inconvenience did not have to be a prerequisite for answering the “call of nature”. For individuals that found themselves unable to conceive this meant that they too could fulfil their organic destiny. The doctors helped crippled sperm along the way or softened up unyielding ova and made sure the womb was just right for life to continue. While a direct opposite of the first epoch, this progress meant that again it is man and not nature that defines the progress of man. Here again this enabled man to still further delay genetic reproduction and increase mental and creative reproduction. By this I hope you grasp, is the creation and spreading of ideas and objects that enhance the human race.
Masopher now observes what he considers the third epoch approaching; the ability for conception without male gamete. Masopher is disappointed that Herculean, “Y, The last man” scenario of facing a world of Amazons may not come to pass. The so called ability for female couples to have children, has been reported having dire warnings for all the studs out there dreaming of being called upon to repopulate the earth. While creation of children from male only unions is possible, artificial wombs have not been perfected yet and a surrogate seems to me to spoil the symmetry desired. Females will have, as expected, beaten males to self-sufficiency. Or have they?
I have not read the equally possible eventuality of giving birth to ones self. If sperm can become eggs and visa versa then it is possible for your egg to be fertilized by our sperm hence creating a near clone without the age deteriorating side effects of previous clone experiments.
Aphids have been doing it without the need for the accoutrements of scientists and test tubes. As mentioned before bees spiders and most reptiles have been getting on just fine without the guys, needing them only for the genetic breeding. Mentionable too is a particular breed of angler fish and black widow arachnids, which require the gonads alone, dispensing with the rest of the hapless mate. Again the homosapien has revealed that not only does it defy the concept of nature but also that “man” the specie does not even need man the gender. As mentioned here however, even nature herself defies the principles we attribute to her; quite independent of what dusty old men have claimed her to be.
Where do we progress from here? It will take several millennia before men could be “phased out” completely. Perfecting the technology to get and egg to become a sperm and then impregnate another egg will take some time. Even more time will be spent making it a process sans labs and scientist. Even once we get past the technological blocks we still have more physical barriers to cross even before we approach the social and traditional resistance to becoming a race of hermaphrodites. The human body changes more slowly than the mind, which evolves only at a fraction faster. The sexes would have to equalize both physically and mentally in order for man’s lack of a womb to become a disadvantage. Men are still needed for the specialized thought processes we have developed, the superior rugged physical build and for the complementary dynamic that females have with them for those features.
This is all moot however. In all probability mankind will make flesh redundant before the sexes begin to decouple, to the demise of the male gender. Mankind’s decline to machine is a more prominent possibility than mans decline to woman. Replacing organic life entirely is easier than getting rid of than a possible redundancy of half of it.
References:
No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women, Estelle Freedman, Ballantine Books, 2002
Vaughan, Brian K. Y: The Last Man vol 1-9 (January 2003 - May 2007).
New scientist Are male eggs and female sperm on the horizon? # Peter Aldhous Link
# Magazine issue 2641
