Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Men, Who Needs Them? (New York Times Editorial)
New York Times ^ | August 24, 2012 | GREG HAMPIKIAN

Posted on 08/29/2012 11:23:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway

MAMMALS are named after their defining characteristic, the glands capable of sustaining a life for years after birth — glands that are functional only in the female. And yet while the term “mammal” is based on an objective analysis of shared traits, the genus name for human beings, Homo, reflects an 18th-century masculine bias in science.

That bias, however, is becoming harder to sustain, as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting. Women aren’t just becoming men’s equals. It’s increasingly clear that “mankind” itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate and essential maternal connection defines our species.

The central behaviors of mammals revolve around how we bear and raise our young, and humans are the parenting champions of the class. In the United States, for nearly 20 percent of our life span we are considered the legal responsibility of our parents.

With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: genderwars; genetics; men; misandry; newyorktimes; radicalleft; science; selfhatred; waronmen; women
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-138 next last
To: AnAmericanAbroad
with mononuclear reproduction (cloning), sperm is technically not necessary.

Do they think a woman invented the machinery behind that?

Do they think a woman invented the science behind that?

Do they think that a virus won't just love a batch of identical people?

Wasn't Huxley's Brave New World something akin to that?

21 posted on 08/29/2012 11:41:54 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

I would hate a world without real men. Love my husband, love little boys. The world has gone mad!


22 posted on 08/29/2012 11:44:00 AM PDT by defconw (IT'S ON NOW! ROMNEY/RYAN 2012)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Hunton Peck

“Men, Who Needs Them?”

ummm..... I do....


23 posted on 08/29/2012 11:44:51 AM PDT by BelleAl (Proud to be a member of the party of NO! NO more deficit spending and government control!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
as men become less relevant to both reproduction and parenting.

Yes, and just look at the problems this has caused in our society.

24 posted on 08/29/2012 11:45:02 AM PDT by MEGoody (You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Hah. Without men to defend them, they would be getting raped by other men. Move to Islamic countries, and see how that works.


25 posted on 08/29/2012 11:45:38 AM PDT by Daveinyork
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gumdrop

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”


26 posted on 08/29/2012 11:47:29 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.”

The result, was called "George".


27 posted on 08/29/2012 11:47:43 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Communist Party = Democrats. Socialist Party = Republicans. WE NEED A CAPITALIST FREEDOM PARTY!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Daveinyork

Hmmm, that’s a backhanded defense of men, if I ever heard one.


28 posted on 08/29/2012 11:48:19 AM PDT by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: verum ago; nickcarraway

An amazing amount of self-hate, even by Liberal standards.


29 posted on 08/29/2012 11:50:04 AM PDT by darkangel82 (I don't have a superiority complex, I'm just better than you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: AnAmericanAbroad
Thus far, however, no one has yet figured how to bring a human to fruition outside of the womb. So, a woman would still be needed for that part of the whole scenario.

Science is getting real close to artificial wombs so much so that even men will be bale to carry babies.

read this article. Next 20-25 years is going to be interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/17/sex-reproduction-aarathi-prasad

30 posted on 08/29/2012 11:52:16 AM PDT by trailhkr1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway
I dunno - it isn't really a serious piece, but to take it just seriously enough for a moment - one reproductive mechanism requires a laboratory, the other requires a penis. There are more penises than laboratories, or at least I believe that to be the case, although I'll await for statistical verification from someone else. From the point of view of species survival, I'm afraid I'll have to vote for Mr. Happy.

There is, actually, quite a bit more to human survival than this if one insists on including culture, which is, at its core, simply another ploy in the natural selection game. Here the value of the male is what he brings to the game in his normal areas of specialization of defense, construction, and beer-drinking. It is not to say that females cannot fill that function; it is to say that incorporating specialists tends to stretch the corpus of cultural survival ploys. Moreover, can we say that a culture in which nobody lights farts with a Zippo or a .45 is a culture worth living in? I thought not.

31 posted on 08/29/2012 11:52:38 AM PDT by Billthedrill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Izzy Dunne

“Brave New World” was more a situation where people where genetically engineered to fit into certain ranks of society, thereby harmonizing said society.

Well, along with drugs like soma, and the occasional orgies.

Yeah, I would imagine a batch of literally genetically-identical people would indeed be quite the smorgasbord for a hungry virus.

I do imagine that one of these days, someone somewhere will get around to cloning to a human. Or building a Replicant.

Ten to one it’ll be the Japanese. They seem to be into that whole transhumanism thing.


32 posted on 08/29/2012 11:54:17 AM PDT by AnAmericanAbroad (It's all bread and circuses for the future prey of the Morlocks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: factoryrat; EGPWS
“Asexual reproduction is not in the cards for mammals, no matter how much you want it to be so.”

We are not asexual but it is definitely possible for two females to reproduce by using genetic engineering and the offspring will always be female (no Y chromosomes). Basically, the genes from one egg would be taken and either implanted into a sperm or directly used to fertilize the other egg. It has been accomplished in test animals so THEORETICALLY we could have an all-female world.

OTOH, we aren't too far from artificial wombs and surrogate mothers are fairly popular. With genetic engineering, two men can have offspring. However, half of those offspring would be female since all men carry one X chromosome. With screening, selective abortion, etc it is THEORETICALLY also possible to have a world of only men.

The world will definitely be a very different place within a few decades. I believe it will be a better place and the above will never happen, despite what doom & gloomers say.

33 posted on 08/29/2012 11:55:27 AM PDT by varyouga
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

LOL, what an absurd article this is coinsidering it is men who are responsible entirely for everything we see going on in the world today.......oh wait....


34 posted on 08/29/2012 11:56:10 AM PDT by beenaround
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum
But women have been a majority of college graduates since the 1980s, and their numbers are growing. Yeah, those degrees in Mesopotamian culture and LGBT studies are very lucrative.

Uuum no...women are starting to earn all the technical degrees also. 85% of the people in my sisters veterinarian class are women.

35 posted on 08/29/2012 11:56:31 AM PDT by trailhkr1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

The New York Times, Who Needs Them?


36 posted on 08/29/2012 11:56:46 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: trailhkr1
85% of the people in my sisters veterinarian class are women.

Affirmative action.

She should be so proud.

37 posted on 08/29/2012 11:59:24 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the sociopath.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: Billthedrill
Moreover, can we say that a culture in which nobody lights farts with a Zippo or a .45 is a culture worth living in? I thought not.

A woman I work with has been crying for 4 weeks straight-her bf broke up with her.. We males are not obsolete yet.

38 posted on 08/29/2012 12:00:54 PM PDT by trailhkr1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: defconw

Agree with all of what you said!


39 posted on 08/29/2012 12:01:08 PM PDT by beaversmom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: trailhkr1

Thanks for the link; I’m going to have to get myself a copy of that book.....sounds like some interesting reading.

What she describes is really the ultimate game-changer as far as humanity is concerned.


40 posted on 08/29/2012 12:01:30 PM PDT by AnAmericanAbroad (It's all bread and circuses for the future prey of the Morlocks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-138 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson