Men

April 5, 2002 11:11 AM

Men as an endangered species. A woman taking part in a controversial human cloning programme is eight weeks pregnant. Are we heading to an all-female society?
posted by semmi (28 comments total)

Not unless they also find a way to make all females lesbians.
posted by aaron at 11:14 AM on April 5, 2002

Yay, a lesbian paradise!

Oh, sorry, on topic. Well, I guess anything that brings us closer to the ideals of Valerie Solanas is alright with me, hideous birth defects, unstable pregnancy, and all.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 11:26 AM on April 5, 2002

Pipe down. I'm watching the game.

*kidding, kidding*

I can't tell from the article whether they used genetic material from the "mother" only, or if any materials from her husband/mate were used.
posted by adampsyche at 11:27 AM on April 5, 2002

...hmmm, and it is a good way for a woman to live endlessly, she can keep having herself and getting rid of the old one, if only we can figure out how to transfer memory...tough luck for the guys though...
posted by bittennails at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2002

she can keep having herself and getting rid of the old one, if only we can figure out how to transfer memory

That never works.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 11:38 AM on April 5, 2002

...tough luck for the guys though...

Not really.

Now, get me some pickles and ice cream. Or else. ;-)
posted by adampsyche at 11:40 AM on April 5, 2002

This is no good. Who's going to do the barbecuing?
posted by iconomy at 11:41 AM on April 5, 2002

heh, want a backrub too adamsweetie:)
...can't read the story now, shadow keeper, am at work, thanks for the link though.
posted by bittennails at 11:44 AM on April 5, 2002

Well, even with procreation off our plate, we'll still have lawn care and vehicle maintenance.

It's hardly a lesbian paradise, after all, if their SUVs are dead metal in the garage because someone ignored the oil light.
posted by UncleFes at 11:57 AM on April 5, 2002

Ignoring the qualms about cloning, this reminds me of a movie my wife and I watched the other week on Sci-Fi Channel.
Basic plot summary: 97% men killed by a virus in a war, women now reproduce by cloning, and men are 'illegal'. A scientist 'grows' a man, and hilarity ensues... What shocked me was talking to my wife, she said it wouldn't be the end of the world if men were gone.
posted by patrickje at 12:06 PM on April 5, 2002

You're wife is the type of person that doesn't realize the value of something until it's gone.
posted by Why at 12:31 PM on April 5, 2002

Alternatively, women as an endangered species ...
posted by Owen Boswarva at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2002

Men's Y chromosome is a nightmare of mutations anyway. It's defective.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2002

You're wife is the type of person that doesn't realize the value of something until it's gone.

Yes. Your wife thinks life without men would just be one giant party. But the first time all the women in the world went out to do karaoke and realized that "Islands in the Streams" was no longer an option, they would be very, very sad.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 12:49 PM on April 5, 2002

Yea, when my wife said that I cracked some awful sexist jokes, which really did not help the situation or her mood...
they were awful funny though
posted by patrickje at 1:04 PM on April 5, 2002

Uh, never mind the gender war crap, the big news here is that the world's first cloned human is on its way!
posted by Potsy at 1:19 PM on April 5, 2002

Well, even with procreation off our plate, we'll still have lawn care and vehicle maintenance.

Not to mention opening pickle jars
posted by jonmc at 1:21 PM on April 5, 2002

Spider killing!
posted by bunnyfire at 1:48 PM on April 5, 2002

And reading maps, because only the male mind could concieve of one inch equaling a hundred miles.
posted by jonmc at 2:00 PM on April 5, 2002

Despite your sexist jokes and bad habits and fear of commitment and hairy backs and addiction to porn, some of us women actually like having you men around. Though reading MeFi, sometimes I wonder why... :)
posted by gutenberg at 2:01 PM on April 5, 2002

Uh, never mind the gender war crap, the big news here is that the world's first cloned human is on its way!

Good point, Potsy. If this is true, it's big big big big news. Of course, it's probably not true. The details in the article are really sketchy.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:10 PM on April 5, 2002

All that this article proves is that you can get the press to believe any wild claim that deals with science since they know nothing about it and won't even bother to check their facts anymore. This is obviously just some jerk trying to get attention just like the Raelians.
posted by mark13 at 4:50 PM on April 5, 2002

Not unless they also find a way to make all females lesbians.

well, it could just evolve that way. If make a model of the world with 100 people, 50 men and 50 women, and go with the (possibly high but stated, and easy for math reasons) figure of 10% gay, then you have 5 lesbians who clone and 95 people who reproduce the old-fashioned way. For simplicity's sake let's have a non-expanding population: so of the 95 people, half are male and half are female; for the clones, all are female. The new population is 52 women, 48 men, and if we consider homosexuality genetic, we have 5 cloned lesbians, and then the 10% of the female population that naturally occurs (4.7). So the new world has 9 or 10 lesbians ready to clone, upping the population in the next generation to about 14 - etc etc. I guess there's a sort of xeno's paradox percentage of men always left, and of course the ratio of straight men to straight women starts to become as unfair for men as it is for women in theatre or art school.

Of course, this is massively presumptive and oversimplified and just for fun, but I'm just pointing out that it needn't be a separate enterprise to change sexuality.
posted by mdn at 8:58 PM on April 5, 2002

"Men's Y chromosome is a nightmare of mutations anyway. It's defective"

You neglect the next paragraph: "But don't condemn the gender that makes up nearly half the world quite yet -- all genetic mutations aren't bad. Lots of them account for human strengths such as resistance to disease, an affinity for playing the piano or keen eyesight.

The reason that men might proliferate more mutations is because they create billions of sperm in their lifetime, while women produce only a few hundred eggs. "
posted by semmi at 10:04 PM on April 5, 2002

I think this is just another attempt by the patriarchial society that we live in to create an unjustified fear that will lead to a gender backlash that will....ummm.....and stuff.

The high risk of serious birth defects and complications would be enough to scare me off, biological clock or no. I mean, what if they have a boy that doesn't know how to barbecue, and can never open pickle jars?

Just adopt, for pete's sake, I think many eastern european orphaned infants would be happy to have Italian parents.
posted by Salmonberry at 11:03 PM on April 5, 2002

I am of the opinion that a 50/50 male/female ratio is far too male-skewed for the good of society. The ratio should be about 30/70.

Far too many of societies' problems are caused by young, single men, particularly sexually frustrated and repressed single men. Other problems--like wars--happen because there are so many young men available to cause them, regardless of any desires on the part of the young men.

Ash.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 6:38 AM on April 6, 2002

> The ratio should be about 30/70.
and
> Far too many of societies' problems are caused by
> young, single men, particularly sexually frustrated...

Well, unless you're going ahead with the evolve-into-lesbians plan -- and if you do, I'm going to invest some serious money in the LPGA -- that's fine by us heterosexual men: even the most repressed war-starting testicle-bearers among us would get laid. But before you proclaim this throughout the land, perhaps you should consult the many heterosexual women who would suddenly find it much harder to find someone to skew their ratios of a Saturday night.
posted by pracowity at 7:12 AM on April 6, 2002

Women cause less trouble in general, even when sexually frustrated. (Of course there are exceptions. There always are exceptions.) :-) But the average woman is less sexually-driven than the average man. That's an established fact, which the literature supports. So I expect that less men than currently exist would be required to keep the women happy.

If this 'just happened', our current social system of 1-1 monogamy, jealousy, etc wouldn't survive, just as last generation's social system didn't survive the Pill. People would adapt to the new conditions.

As in any system about 80% of the sex is going to be done by about 20% of the people. That's a consequence of the law of uneven distributions. So this suggestion of mine is not a recipe for paradise. I merely suggest, from an entirely speculative point of view--I haven't, for instance, researched happiness in skewed-gender populations--that it would make things better than they are.

Ash.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 10:17 PM on April 7, 2002