What would the world really look like without men?

Given that bioscience has 51% women I doubt that is a very big issue compared with other industries.

Hm, did i miss a comment on bioscience? Anyway, my comments below assume we resolve the lack of babies in short order, otherwise you'd just have pointless chaos due to hopelessness.

So, generally, for intellectual fields, it's engineering that is void of women. Math, accounting and business are all full of women and would do fine.

For physical jobs, it seems that the more machines exist, the more it seems males dominate the field of work but it depends. Maybe it's about how dangerous it is? In any case, mining, lumber, oil extraction and so on, are almost completely void of women. It would take, in my opinion, a few months to restart the industry with fresh female workers who would have low productivity until maybe a few years down the road (lack of management skills in those environments take a long time to build). Most worker training programs only take a few months to turn completely unknowledgeable people into low-entry workers, and as these fields do have women in them, there will at least be some immediate trainers and the rest will have to learn from the manual.

Factory work will take a smaller but significant dip.

Most trade skills are actually not bad at this point. That will take a substantial hit in labour force and will take years for people to build up equal level skill but there's a lot of skilled female workers now.

For tech, finance, banking, administration and government... these are all full of women these days. The problem would be surplus of these workers and ironically all these jobs will drop in salary super fast for the first decade to three decades.

Global economy will crumble but it'll reset itself, so long as you can continue to have children. Countries with a stronger component of women in the military will reorganise the fastest. They will likely start up labour training camps, food programs and organise farming. For damage of this scale, I would say that recovery is on the order of 50-100 years to return to a situation where starvation in most places end and you start moving onto to talking about anti-poverty programs. I don't see why there would be this magical perma-loss, we've got places like Palestine that can run a diesel plant after having it hit by air strikes three times and no repair supplies at all going in. If humans can do that, they can work some perfectly fine combine harvester with no damage and all the information sitting on the Internet. Especially considering, tech industry is full of high-power women.

Low-tech countries have the advantage of being heavily agrarian with a large component of already trained female farm hands and craftsmen. So interestingly, they're likely to suffer the least short-term damage but then they have to get at the high-tech bioscience tools from the west (and from the power east countries like Russia/China) or else they die out.

edited 4th Oct '12 11:33:31 PM by breadloaf

All the female engineers, specifically mechanical mostly are in the Middle East. Saudi, Quatar, Jordan, and UAE have a lot with the education.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I find it baffling how many people seriously consider the possibility of the extinction of the male gender. There have been serious articles on this subject. Now, everybody knows how people would react if the genders were reversed...

In short, it would be catastrophic. The vast majority of areas where women are productive are only that way because of the technologies developed by men.

There are just too many issues with this line of thought.ManWomanMyth adresses most of these pretty well.

edited 2nd Nov '12 6:50:58 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Let me be sure I understand you. Are you seriously suggesting that there's something about innovation and invention that makes it an inherently male skill? That women can't develop technology simply because they're female?

Because that's what it sounds like...

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

No. I never suggested that. I stated the fact that men were responsible for the vast majority of technological innovations, with no statement in regards to anyone's capacity to develop technological innovations. I was mostly referring to the fact that the more manually inclined forms of labor (the dangerous ones mostly men do) would come to a crisis, since women mostly occupy jobs that don't require too much physical effort (like office jobs, using all these technological advances that makes things even easier).

And why did I have to mention the fact that men created the technlogies? Simply because I find it insulting that people consider the extinction of men, and question whether men are "necessary", when practically everything that makes their lives so much easier was done by men. What? You think I sounded misogynistic? Well, I'm not. How would you react if the subject of this thread applied to women instead?

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:16:09 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

"practically everything that makes their lives so much easier was done by men"

No, not misogynistic at all. You're just claiming that culture and technology was built almost solely by men....

Be not afraid...

There's a reason why I put that link there.

This is retarded, seriously. It bothers you that I mention the fact that most of technology was created by men, but I'm the only one bothered by the subject of the thread.

Most of technology was created by men. Most of technological and scientific discoveries were done by men. Is it seriously that hard to acknowledge a single good thing about men without complaining about misogyny, when nobody even cares about the blatant misandry everywhere?

Or are we living in a different planet? Do you want me to say that most of technological advances were done by women? Would you agree with that?

Also, please do not distort the things I say. I never said "solely by men". I said "practically everything", and I didn't mention culture. And it is true.

edited 2nd Nov '12 9:31:29 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Honestly? If all the men just up and died the world would probably fall back into a new dark ages for a bit then die out. And no, I don't believe men hold the fabric of the world together, but realistically there is no way the world would work with women workers woefully trying to keep together the modern world. I mean just think about all the infrastructure needed to mantain a modern first world country that will just collapse under it's own weight.

Stop caring and embrace nullness.

I think the point was addressed why this topic is more popular than its opposite.

Imagine a world in which men ruled and women did not.

Oh wait...

edited 3rd Nov '12 12:32:09 AM by breadloaf

Most of the people throughout history who created technology were men. Most women throughout history, by overwhelming majority, were unable to access the education or opportunities to create technology. This has only changed recently and is still changing. Women will create more technology in the future as the technological fields become less male-dominated, and that's a slow process. There's nothing misandrist about pointing this out.

Likewise, that people were able to create this technology had nothing to do with them being men. They had the knowledge and the opportunity and they took it. Inventors are products of their environment and are driven by the demands and needs of the society in which they live. The key is to look at inventors not as men or women, but as people.

Returning to your original point, there's no reason to believe that women would have a harder time of things just because men invented most of the stuff in the past. There'd be a tough transition time as much of the knowledge base in formerly male-dominated fields was lost, but after that period (and assuming some form of artificial reproduction was still possible) women would take up those roles. Reproduction remains the challenge, not a lack of men to fix the cars.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

I'm not sure how this relates to the question. We're not discussing something that retroactively annihilates male accomplishments are we?

Even then, I'm of the view that the individuals responsible for technological development are not noteworthy exceptions, but simply the people who stumbled across the correct principles. So if Newton hadn't codified the laws of motion, somebody else would have. Considering most technological developments until recently were either done by professionals in a field or rich dudes screwing around, I'm inclined to say that if women were in those rolls, they would have made the discoveries. The same is true with any group of oppressed individuals.

Fight smart, not fair.

That was not my point... Forget about technology, then.

To answer the OP's question: it depends on how the extinction of men would take place. It wouldn't be pretty in any case, but society would adapt eventually. I merely expressed my repulsion for the idea, as there are many people who seriously consider that it would be a positive thing.

As a matter of fact, I don't believe in the patriarchy. I don't believe that women were any more "oppressed" than men were throughout history. Both genders had entitlements and obligations. Women have never been forced to serve in the military, for instance, and society has always put more value in women's lives than in men's.

This video better illustrates my point:

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Spare us the MRA stuff, it's not the topic of the thread.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

No, I won't spare you of anything. People didn't spare me of the comment that women were oppressed, and that's what I tried to refute. Maybe it's not relevant to the main question of the thread (which has already been answered several times), but, since people mention this "oppression" all the time (which is just as relevant), I had to say something. I'm not going to just pretend that they are right.

edited 3rd Nov '12 2:36:48 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

What if all the males got turned into women?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Ignoring the derail.

The Gender Bender plague scenario was brought up, but not many people responded. I think you'd see a LOT of suicides in response.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

That would likely be significantly less of a problem than wiping out half of the population, yes.

Fight smart, not fair.

Yes, ignore my arguments against the comments in regards to the oppression of women, and instead discuss a nearly impossible scenario. The comments themselves were completely relevant, but any attempt to refute them isn't, apparently.

I did not derail the thread, as a matter of fact. I was trying to start a discussion concerning the causes which make people believe the subject of the thread is a solution for something. But, whatever...

edited 3rd Nov '12 3:18:07 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Wait, men have had the lion's share of influence on the development of our culture and technology, and it's not because women are inherently inferior, but women aren't oppressed? You're going to have to run that one past me again.

What's precedent ever done for us?

Maybe I wouldn't have to repeat myself if people watched the damn video?

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

It's half an hour long. Some of us have limited time. Care to summarise?

What's precedent ever done for us?

I'll try. The video itself is an argument against feminism, but it also works well against this notion of oppression:

• People (mostly feminists) mention the many privileges men had throughout history, while ignoring the obligations men had that allowed them to have these entitlements in the first place.
• Many studies have shown that women were consistently happier with their lives than men were, and have always outlived them. That is not a normal thing for an "oppressed" group.
• Even though men were predominantly in power, they have often overlooked the problems of their own gender in order to make women lives' easier and to better protect and provide for them. Many inventions were made by men to make women's lives more comfortable.
• Feminists complained that women's unequal opportunities in regards to work were oppressive. Most of the work men have done throughout history was not a privilege, but an unpleasant obligation, and they have always been required to share the benefits of their work with women and children.
• Many laws regarding security in work only came to existence when women started occupying these jobs.
• Patriarchy theory underestimates women's agency and competence. If this theory is true, it implies that women, as a group, are grossly incompetent and inherently inferior to men, as they have only started to overcome their oppressed status in the last century.
• As I mentioned, society has always placed a greater value on female life. See Men Are the Expendable Gender.

There's more, but this covers a good part of it. I recommend the video, anyway.

edited 3rd Nov '12 3:41:28 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Urgh... I couldn't bear to watch all of that. I didn't know whether to giggle or steam. I'd refute most of that right now, but... I'm too het up to do so properly.

Some basic Sociology is sadly lacking in somebody's life. Not to mention History.

It's hard to take anything you've said seriously, as you didn't attempt to refute anything.

How much of it did you watch, then? And what, exactly, is innacurate about what I've said?

edited 3rd Nov '12 4:34:30 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."