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Permalink Reply by Langston on August 8, 2009 at 7:41am

I refer you to the caveat stated in the first post, that we will hypothetically consider, for this scenario, that a means of sustaining the human race has been found; however, women will not be able to create or "grow" more men. The males are out of the picture, but the race can be sustained. Take that as a consideration and then go from there. However, already you have provided some considerable points for discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Wario on December 15, 2009 at 8:48am

Your (A) sexual feminist rants are funny. The only way that could happen is if there were a merger of both sexes. To form a being that could impregnate itself (and that would take evolution not science to get right).

So like I was saying the simple fact of life is you're always going to need resources, and when they run low (unless you keep your numbers few) there will be problems. You can't talk your way out of a bad harvest, or water shortages. I think a woman's way of handling these seemingly insurmountable problems would just be in a more underhanded fashion. less sword clanking, and more poisoning food supplies, or just leaving the situation as not to commit to a war, thus dying out.

Women needed men throughout history to make the hard decisions for them and the family. Now that things are seemingly easier for you. It's time to get rid of men. Trust me those hard decisions will still need to be made when we're gone.

The fact is if you could have done it better you should have. Women are the first teachers of all children. There for if there's something you don't like about us Woman Up and make us different. Men don't really get custody of there children now day's so you have us at our most impressionable ages. Take advantage.

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Permalink Reply by Langston on August 8, 2009 at 7:47am

Suppose it's time for me to chime in with my take. First, not that it matters but let me provide a little background for context. This conversation originally began in a restaurant between me and a female friend. She thought that there would be no warfare if all men died out. I did. She thought that women would be able to work together, with compassion, in harmony, to compromise and find peaceful solutions to all their problems. What follows is my reasoning as to why we would still have warfare.

My approach is one that tries to tie in a few different perspectives. I don't think that you can answer this type of question without considering culture, politics, economics, biochemistry, cognitive science, sociology, etc. I think the best place to begin in answering this is, not look at the genders, which is what most people decide to do, but to look at WARFARE, and factor in the gender, as a contextual implant, after that.

There are only a limited number of reasons to begin with for fighting a war. And we are told that warfare is usually political, albeit with other, more secondary factors. So religion, or differences between their dogmas and doctrines, is in there; so is ethnic or cultural conflict, in the form of ingroup/outgroup conflict, alienation, and ethnocentrism, along with, simply put, fear of the unknown or different. Economics plays its part, with conflict over resources, the supply and demand bit. And also the sociology and psychology of things, namely security, peace of mind, superiority and/or national pride and identity, and that damned biological impulse to engage in aggressive action, which would include testosterone and biochemistry.

So we have only women left. Will they seek to minimize the efficacy of war as an option? I should think that politicians would spurn the horror of war, would be hard pressed to commission a war. Apparently that isn't the case; however, I also perceive that war, though a horrible tool, is a tool in the political toolkit, a viable option when others have exhausted. Imagine, if you can, what would happen to the one nation who was forbidden by the rest of the world’s nations to wage war. They, *emasculated* (pun intended), would be potentially victim to whoever decided they “wanted some”. And this whole globalization factor puts a certain "world stage" spin on things...and you can't appear weak on the world stage, man. Could the U.S. have refrained from the war in Afghanistan after 9/11? So you have to factor in this "posturing" that goes with global reputations, even with nothing but women. I do not see them easily dismissing this, not all nations, at least.

Chris Hedges, a man who obviously knows a little about warfare, also throws in the factor of national pride, collective identity, and societal humiliation. He says, and I paraphrase, that the embarrassment or rage that a people feels (such as the Germans after WWI, or Americans after Pearl Harbor) can be exploited; a promise is dangled in front of them, a vow to return them to their former, glorious selves, ensconced in a position of pride and greatness. And they can be led to create monsters and commit atrocities through the exploitation of this desire for a return, and through ignorance. Though, I think different nations' peoples vary on this whole matter of national identity and collective pride. Some care not much for it at all, I imagine. But just imagine it as another factor potentially feeding the war machine at some point in the post-male world.

I also recall reading what he said about the civilization of man (excuse the traditional diction), “civilization” not referring to society or anything man had created, but what we tend to think of when we say someone is “civilized”, what comes about when man is born and raised in civilization. He said this was a thin veneer that would fall away in the event of man being placed into a wild state where no artificial constructs or socially constructed barriers were present, and that man would devolve into an animal of sorts (kinda like Lord of the Flies). Now, we have no reason to assume (far from it, we have reasons to assume its opposite, I would suppose) that societies composed only of and governed solely by women would devolve into this upon the advent of mass male extinction. However, I simply posit that there would be some social adjustment, realignment, and reconfiguration.

Someone here already stated that “some portion of the female population is going to try to replace those missing men, and there would be completely different social obligations as a woman.” I believe this is correct. And you have to account for that somehow; I would anticipate some anomalism. And it’s possibly that a “decivilizing effect” might occur. Let us also not forget that GENDER is a construct; it is abstract, psychological, not something we can touch. SEX is a biological trait. Therefore, it can be said that the Female GENDER is defined, to some degree, as it is juxtaposed to the Male GENDER (and vice versa). We cannot know what it means to be sad without knowing happiness. We cannot know cold without hot. So we have certain gender identities we’ve defined, just as we fit into certain roles that have been created and defined, which carry their own expectations. So it can be seen as important to consider social roles and the different expectations that are constructed, held, and conveyed. People tend to react powerfully to expectations. Also, your socialization is a factor, differential treatment we receive as children, which is itself variable according to culture and society.
Another point, mere but considerable, is that there are some female soldiers who are quite badass; and merely the fact that you have female soldiers in some of the world’s armed forces. They can and do fight in modern day battles. So this idea of the female not being a fighter or warrior or willing or able to fight seems, to me, to be out of the equation. I believe there are also still societies that are matriarchal and/or possessing “warrior women”, and also reversed gender roles.

Conflict over resources seems simple enough to me. However, it has been suggested that women would find a way to divide up what there was (supply) and distribute it in the most equitable and reasonable fashion (demand). However, does this imply that a female leadership could succeed in bringing the women of disparate nations (or even within nations) to a vast consensus on what “I” or “we” need? Would they think it possible to keep greed, ambition, desire, and avarice in check, essentially leveling need for resources, be it water and food, or intellectual material and electricity, or vehicles and entertainment? Who would decide these things, how would they ensure a fair distribution, would it be possible to compromise at all points of contention? They are fooling themselves if they think this a possible project. Hell, add in differences in culture if you want, that alone, I think, would be enough to fragment the notion that an equitable and reasonable consensus as to the distribution of goods and services could be reached. Even with men predominantly in power today, we suffer these problems, and it would be ridiculous to posit that MEN are the source of this problem as opposed to human nature and the “supply and demand” factor.

The post 9/11 period saw fear, uncertainty, paranoia, rage, and insecurity preying upon the peace of mind and stability of many Americans. It became a new weakness to exploit so as to gall the public into supporting just about anything that they were promised would make them safer (a la IRAQ; a la a political agenda). We saw that the majority of Americans (sans a vocal minority) were in favor of mobilizing combat forces (at the beginning, that is); this would include many women. However, it could be argued that though an individual may approve of a certain action, were they themselves to be required to expose their tender, fleshy epidermis to shrapnel, whizzing rifle rounds, and magnificent blasts from explosives, they might withhold their approval more readily. An understatement. Nevertheless, consider that the vast majority of women, in that scenario, approved of combat action…or they said they approved.

Who is to say that, with no men left, women would avoid:
(1.) The conflict that arises from different policies between nations; or, in a similar vein, to put it simply, the conflict that arises from disparate groups not being able to reach a consensus on how to “get along” and rung things.
(2.) A sting dealt to national identity and collective pride
(3.) The conflict that arises from inequitable or unreasonable distribution of resources
(4.) The desire or need to possess security and peace of mind against “the other”
(5.) The biological impulse of aggression
(6.) The conflict that arises from ethnocentrism, fear of and difference from “the other” (i.e. ingroup/outgroup conflicts)
(7.) The requirements of the “world stage”; that is, considering a reputation of strength as a factor to deter potential enemies.
(8.) The ramifications of religious strife and conflict
(9.) The divisive nature of greed, mistrust, jealousy, etc.

Men and women are more alike psychologically than the degree to which they are different biologically. To say this a different way, we are more likeminded than you think. If you don’t happen to “buy this”, recall differences in humans are made via social conditioning, cultural environment, etc. Yes, we are naturally and unavoidably different in some ways due to differences in neuro- and bio-chemistry. But, in order to account for differences in how men and women handle differences of opinion, I’d start with people, not women and men. The results might surprise you. Besides, consider the cognitive aspect of things, too. It seems that we are more predisposed to think in ways we are taught, or our thinking is shaped by our prior experiences…not so much by a particular chemical predisposition or lack thereof, though this can provide a context (say a lack of serotonin leads to depression, which acts in a way which leads to us framing thoughts more often as negative…it skews our perspective).
I would hate to think that it was “testosterone” that has killed now more than 4,000 of my fellow soldiers and over 1 million Iraqis. And I do not agree with an argument that proposes one single micro-level, a localized one at that, event as the ultimate cause of a macro-level event, while largely ignoring other subtle influences. And, almost anyone who has been to a warzone and fought in it, fired shots and been shot at, will tell you that they’d rather avoid the experience. If testosterone was the key, then accordingly we would see even more warfare and a higher number of male participants from the world male population in general. But we do not see this? So does this testosterone have different effects on men, some of which it drives into the path of violence while others are neglected or immune from this same effect? No. That explanation defies certain sensitivities that exist. Most ordinary men (there are a very few outliers who crave combat, usually for the reason you’re speaking of, a chemical one) do not wish for fighting and combat and killing and death. Most soldiers perform that task reluctantly, which I think is counterintuitive to the common picture people hold.

If you begin with neurochemical predisposition, throw in socialization and social conditioning for the young, and then add self-reinforcing expectations of peer groups, and finish off with poverty, poor or lack of education, a sense of powerlessness or lack of identity, you’ll get something like a gang. Some would argue that our biology can be completely overtaken by social factors. In some individual cases, this may be true. However, military forces are not gangs, they merely share some of the descriptors of gangs. And it may be true that “female combat tends to be more one-on-one in nature. Men are far more likely to bond together in large groups and set forth to do battle with some other bonded group”, but this statement, I think, would have to be limited to something like gang activity, or, even better, athletics and sports; it could not be generalized to explain the phenomenon of warfare because it cannot capture the true characterization of war. Warfare doesn’t hinge upon familial or “warm fuzzy” bonds between combatants; in some senses, it takes organization, rationale, and calculated method to wage mass combat force warfare. It takes these things to get you there. True enough, however, to say that there is a “brotherhood” ethic amongst soldiers. You get very, very close to the people you fight next to. But that is a consequence, not a cause.

True enough, certain women do crave power and control, those two traditionally male attributes. You can find domineering ones, the ones who are, whether raised by men solely or not, outspoken, bold, uninhibited, the ones who will start a fight if they deem it is warranted. So perhaps in considering this, we can extrapolate that these women have traits that would lend themselves to a cause of open, armed conflict. The point has also been made that “women are less violent more for societally-generated reasons than anything innate.” I would grant this. Enculturation and socialization are powerful forces, shaping the expression of genetic and biological behavior as time goes on and experience is accumulated. The nature vs. nurture argument (or at least the consensus last time I checked) says that when we are younger, the genetic or biologically driven behavior is stronger, or the causality for our behaviors can most strongly be laid there. And as we go along, nurture takes a more dominant position. Of course, we are never entirely free from either of these influences, and a great deal of social behavior and behavior of non-children can still be explained from a nature framework (sex drive, food choices, depression due to chemical imbalance). Some behavior is a reaction carved between the two (such as crying at a sad movie).

Someone has said that, “I think of warfare as two groups getting out in a field and trying to murder each other would cease. Women don't settle their differences that way, typically.” Perhaps not typically, but to say that “women” don’t settle their differences that way “typically”, is a blanket generalization that lets slip through the cracks those women who do handle their differences that way, or the ones who would in a new no-males world. Besides, modern warfare has shifted (at least for U.S. combat in our two current theaters) so that is fought in a non-linear fashion. Often times you may have no good idea as to who is trying to kill you, or how many of them there are. Firefights are less frequent than ambushes with IEDs and other indirect, guerilla-style tactics. And if what we are told about some women being vengeful and vile and backbiting (and yada yada yada you know the other descriptors; which these descriptors themselves can only be applied to some) is true, then they should have no foreseeable problems in conducting such an indirect, skirmish land war. Also consider that bombing people from far away, be it by artillery or through air power, seems to be easier due to the depersonalization involved.

Now I know that when I paint it this way, it seems as though warfare is an inevitable occurrence. But it would seem utopian to dream of a time in the future when human kind will have advanced, morally and all else, to the point where there will be no warfare. It seems logical to me to assert that so long as there are humans, we’ll be fighting. Concerning whether or not warfare would lessen in frequency or intensity if all men died, that I won’t even touch (I’m already speculating enough as it is). However, in a real-world situation, it would not surprise me if this were to be the case.

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Permalink Reply by Wario on December 15, 2009 at 9:53am

Wow that was a long wended speech. You must teach or something. My only point is if there is a problem in a society you most likely need to look at the starting point for any being in it. The point in time where they developed there base. The moral fiber on witch they stand.

Not all, but most children are; and have primarily been raised by women. If you were to walk into a ghetto ass house in the Bronx NYC, or LA California you would most likely witness a single family situation. Where the mothers raising the children Screaming and yelling at the top of her longs. Beating the boy's because she thinks that's what they need. If you want to change a people you need to start with the women first. They deliver the msg the child's take to the world. Saying the world would be better without men is a cop-out.

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Permalink Reply by Wario on December 15, 2009 at 10:17am

Also you kind of downplayed the hole resource argument. From what's being said now the major wars in our future will most likely be waged over energy and resources like food and water. Check out this documentary called blue gold if you get a chance. You can't share thing's with people if there just isn't enough. Would you just strategically keep your numbers low, or make the hard decisions?

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Permalink Reply by anagama on December 24, 2009 at 11:36am

Or Hillary Clinton for that matter.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Rogers on December 15, 2009 at 8:24am

The smart women will invest their money in vibrators...

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Permalink Reply by Wario on December 21, 2009 at 9:38am

I really got to agree with Verne on this one. A lot of women live out there violent fantasies through there male counterparts. Taking know responsibility for the strategic manipulation they command. We have seen this all throughout history. The queen in the kings ear type thing. who knows how many people have lost there lives because a woman spoke a few words.

If you want to talk about how women perpetuate male violence. We could be hear all day. It's true that most women choose the most violent out of the male stock to mate with (the bad boy). This tells males that in order to get women in the first place you need to fit a certain type. The nonviolent of us (Nerds, Freaks, and Weirdos) don't get to mate till later on in life. While the "Bad Boy" has had two & three kids before age 25.

You don't like the player type but that's what you choose to mate with. Then you turn around and complain when he treats you bad (like you knew he would). You don't like violent men but you mate with them and make more. You don't like war but you're more then willing to say a couple of things that could start one. You say you like smart men but won't date them.

I think most chicks are full of there own shit and we need to start calling you on it. This type of thing goes on generation to generation because we're so blinded by your beauty we can't correct you. You are the ones raising all the kids. If you got a dog that's mean and bites people you might want to look at the owner. If humans are having problems with there offspring you might want to look at the one who's raising them.

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Permalink Reply by Johnsky on December 21, 2009 at 12:15pm

Ann Coulter...


She wouldn't hesitate to start a war... lol.


Margaret Thatcher,
Historical queens... almost all of them.
You can't tell me Sarah Palin wouldn't beat the war drum like a drooling idiot.

Indira Ghandi
Catherine (the great)
(bloody) Queen Mary
Golda Meir
Elizabeth I
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Queen Isabella of Spain
Chandrika Kumaratunga
Queen Victoria
Cleopatra

I think it's pretty safe to say women will wage wars quite eagerly. Most of these women practically hungered for it like crack. The others just felt like being brutally cruel to others.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on December 21, 2009 at 5:59pm

"If we had women as leaders ... there'd be no more war. Just every 28 days some really intense negotiations.
- Elayne Boosler

That said, taking my tongue out of my cheek I'd have to agree with the above list of women leaders who have done a fine job of waging war.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on December 22, 2009 at 3:38pm

And my personal favorite, Queen Boudica. War-painted, naked, warrior women facing down the Roman Army! Yeah!!!

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Permalink Reply by Bio Ninja on December 27, 2009 at 12:43pm

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

Of course, Plato was a man, so maybe we should take his words with a grain of salt.

In all seriousness, I think there would still be war, maybe fewer of them, but it would definitely still be with us... Many women are just as aggressive and ambitious, if not more so, than men (I count myself among them, btw).

On the plus side though, shoes would be way more comfortable!

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