The End Of The Male

[Ecurb Noselrub]

This is a thought that occurred to me today, and if it has already been discussed, I apologize.  I also don't know exactly where to put it, so I'll start here and the admins can move it as needed.

There was a time when marriage made sense for a man.  He ruled his home, and the marriage contract generally insured that his children would be his own and he could generally control his own family.  The laws and social mores were in his favor, and religious authority backed him up.  It was a man's world.

This state of affairs no longer exists in the West, and eventually, unless Islam truly dominates the world, it will no longer exist anywhere.  Now, marriage is becoming less of an attractive investment for a man, and certainly makes less sense as a survival strategy.  In the USA, for example, about 1/2 of all marriages end in divorce.  If a man marries and has children, and then someone files for divorce (it's usually the female), the man is at a distinct disadvantage.  The woman is likely to get custody of the children, and when she remarries another idiot male, that male will raise the first male's children.  The female will also come out ahead financially, as she will be more likely to get more of the property, as well as child support and alimony.  So a male making a purely rational decision (which we never do when sex is involved) would probably opt out of marriage.

If a male opts out of marriage, he will still probably make some female pregnant down the line (assuming he is hetero).  Since there is no marriage, the female has 100% control over the pregnancy and child-rearing decisions.  As technology advances, females will be capable of determining the gender of their child.  With females in 100% control of this decision, there will be more females born than males (most females would rather have a girl than a boy, IMHO).  Initially the difference will be slight, but eventually it will be significant.  Eventually, as technology advances, women will be able to have children without any male involvement at all, and males will be toast.  They won't even need to keep us around for breeding purposes, and they will all get used to strap-ons for sexual gratification. The world will be inhabited only by females.

Just a thought. Contrary opinions are welcome.  Obviously, I would prefer that males continued to exist.  Think of Super Bowl MCC with only female players. Ugh.      

[Stevil]

Governments are putting so much defacto protection laws in place that legally there seems to be no reason to actually tie the legal knot.
I would imagine that for gay people this may be a little disappointing since they are only just beginning to win the battle for equality and the right to a normal marriage under the law (rather than a civil union), but the meaning of marriage these days is almost degraded to a non event, so they are almost too late to the party.

My wife and myself, we don't wear our wedding rings anymore, when we were getting married we put much thought into whether we would buy them or not, we aren't much into jewelry nor symbolism. We did like the idea of proclaiming our love and commitment for each other in front of our friends and family though

However, I can see in the future that the concept of formal marriage becomes a thing of the past, especially given the government's stance on defacto relationships.

With regards to woman claiming the children when a relationship breaks up, I am confused as to why the woman gets precedence. But with your stated stance of the man being the ruler of the home, I would say that if this is your position then you don't love your wife as much as I love mine. I see my wife as my equal, my partner in crime, I would never want to rule her.

[xSilverPhinx]

I think that women will eventually greatly outnumber men, at least in the richest countries, but men disappearing? That seems unlikely at least for now (there are biological evidences to suggest that the Y chromosome is disappearing on its own, without technological intervention). There's even a species of lizard where this happened, and now only females exist...but anyways, not going into that now.

Just a thought. Contrary opinions are welcome.  Obviously, I would prefer that males continued to exist.  Think of Super Bowl MCC with only female players. Ugh.

Boring game regardless of if it's females or males playing, but if you prefer, you can think of big men bashing eachother up...



(which is perfectly alright IMO, that line just popped out at me in that way because I don't think it's what you meant to say)

Most divorces are filed by the females? ??? Really?

[Ildiko]

Most divorces are filed by the females? ??? Really?

I don't know about anywhere else, but in the UK, the last figures I saw were that something like 70% of divorces are now instigated by women, and a quite extraordinary proportion of them take the first steps on or around 7th January. It's as though Christmas is just too much! Or perhaps they are just holding it together until after the holiday is over?

Is the Super Bowl baseball or American football? I know it's not ice-hockey, because that's quite interesting.

[Asmodean]

Whie I despise most of them bleeding-heart feminists, I partly disagree with your statement. You see, I don't care at all about marriages and divorses and "family values", whatever the hell that means. What I do care about, however, are legal rights. And, although men and women are equals in the eyes of the law in most countries, you would be hard pressed to find ten large corporations where the majority of the board of directors is female. In healthcare, nursing is, in most countries for which I have the statistics, female-dominated while MDs are, sometimes marginally, more male.

In many areas of life, it's still pretty much a man's world. In a few, it now seems to be a woman's world. Me, I like those areas where the world belongs to the first opportunist to claim it, regardless of sex, skin color or whatever other separator you may want to find except perhaps intelligence. 

[Tank]

@ the OP

An interesting question. While it could be feasible for males to die out in a society where women had full reproductive control, which included selecting the gender of the offspring, why would women only choose to have female offspring? There would be no males for their daughters to have any children with?

If cloning technology were refined it would be available to both genders. And by definition the clone of a male will be a male.

It has always intrigued me why Bill Gates ever married in the conventional sense. He was rich enough to pay any suitable willing women $1,000,000 dollars to have a baby by him (through artificial insemination) and then pay another $2,000,000 to see the child well brought up and all the way through college. He really missed the reproductive boat IMO.

Rarity always has value. So if society became significantly lop sided gender wise I suspect that novelty alone would keep society from flipping completely one way or the other.

[Ildiko]

As technology advances, females will be capable of determining the gender of their child.  With females in 100% control of this decision, there will be more females born than males (most females would rather have a girl than a boy, IMHO).      

Bruce, IMHO this is simply a wrong assumption/opinion. Why do you think we would we rather have a girl than a boy?

[Asmodean]

Bruce, IMHO this is simply a wrong assumption/opinion. Why do you think we would we rather have a girl than a boy?

Cheap TV show thing..? Where the pregnant wife wants a daughter and her good for nothing husband wants a son..?

[Attila]

Hmm. Strange indeed. The US seems to have declared war on women. It's all about "personhood" you see. First corporation became persons and thus were given the Freedom of Speech (strains of God Bless Amurica sound in the background). They are thus free to spend our I mean their hard earned money to buy politicians with. Now personhood has resurfaced. This time foetuses have made the grade.

on Wednesday, Irin Carmon wrote about a controversial possible new Mississippi law that would redefine "personhood" as something that begins at conception. As she detailed in the piece, its passage could result in bans on commonly used forms of birth control, while also opening the door to criminal investigations on women who suffer miscarriages. 

And now Mitt Romney that "liberal socialist" has hopped on the bandwagon.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says that he would support the 'personhood' amendment to the US federal constitution

Here's more about how woman are taking over (this from the Guardian):

Mississippi is the latest state to support a "personhood" amendment – a law that defines life as beginning at conception and giving full legal rights to a fertilised egg. On a recent political talk show, Mitt Romney affirmed that he would "absolutely" support such an amendment to the federal constitution. Such a conservative law would have far-reaching consequences, rendering many forms of birth control, the morning-after pill and aspects of in-vitro fertilisation illegal, as well as eliminating abortion as an option even when deemed medically necessary.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/27/romney-anti-abortion-kill-me
And you worry about Islam taking over the world?

[DeterminedJuliet]

When it comes to divorce/child rearing, I agree that women still have most of the legal say in what happens (sometimes unfairly), but I would definitely disagree that divorced women tend to come out financially ahead.

There are still a lot of women who chose to stay home with their kids and if/when divorce happens, they are left with very little employable skills. I, personally, know at least a half dozen women that I went to highschool with who fit this description. The women may get the kids in a divorce in the majority of the cases, but they are very rarely "set for life".

It may not be as much of a "man's world", but it is a far cry from being a "woman's world" just yet.

[Attila]

It may not be as much of a "man's world", but it is a far cry from being a "woman's world" just yet.

What I posted above your post certainly supports what you're saying.

[xSilverPhinx]

Most divorces are filed by the females? ??? Really?

I don't know about anywhere else, but in the UK, the last figures I saw were that something like 70% of divorces are now instigated by women, and a quite extraordinary proportion of them take the first steps on or around 7th January. It's as though Christmas is just too much! Or perhaps they are just holding it together until after the holiday is over?

Is the Super Bowl baseball or American football? I know it's not ice-hockey, because that's quite interesting.

Wow, that's a high figure, and frankly I'm surprised. 

Me, I like those areas where the world belongs to the first opportunist to claim it, regardless of sex, skin color or whatever other separator you may want to find except perhaps intelligence. 

This^

Ideally, there should be no social barriers, though of course there are physical ones in some cases.

on Wednesday, Irin Carmon wrote about a controversial possible new Mississippi law that would redefine "personhood" as something that begins at conception. As she detailed in the piece, its passage could result in bans on commonly used forms of birth control, while also opening the door to criminal investigations on women who suffer miscarriages.

That is just so odd...talk about slippery slopes!

And who are they to question why their god would perfom a natural abortion anyways?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

As technology advances, females will be capable of determining the gender of their child.  With females in 100% control of this decision, there will be more females born than males (most females would rather have a girl than a boy, IMHO).      

Bruce, IMHO this is simply a wrong assumption/opinion. Why do you think we would we rather have a girl than a boy?

I read a recent article in which the choice of girls was on the rise because girls are generally doing better in the modern world than boys (more college degrees, less time in prison, etc.).  While I think the trend may render slight results at first, over time it would be significant. Of course, I hadn't thought about Tank's idea of the value of a rare commodity.  That might keep us around for a while - even if as a curiosity.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

Most divorces are filed by the females? ??? Really?

I don't know about anywhere else, but in the UK, the last figures I saw were that something like 70% of divorces are now instigated by women, and a quite extraordinary proportion of them take the first steps on or around 7th January. It's as though Christmas is just too much! Or perhaps they are just holding it together until after the holiday is over?

Family lawyers I know here in Texas will tell you a similar story - that divorce filings go up right after Christmas.  I think your latter explanation is the correct one.  The 70% figure doesn't surprise me.  For a man to file for divorce, he has to be prepared to lose primary custody of his children.  That's usually a pretty hard decision. The woman simply doesn't have as much to lose by dumping him.

[Attila]

As technology advances, females will be capable of determining the gender of their child.  With females in 100% control of this decision, there will be more females born than males (most females would rather have a girl than a boy, IMHO).      

Bruce, IMHO this is simply a wrong assumption/opinion. Why do you think we would we rather have a girl than a boy?

I read a recent article in which the choice of girls was on the rise because girls are generally doing better in the modern world than boys (more college degrees, less time in prison, etc.).  While I think the trend may render slight results at first, over time it would be significant. Of course, I hadn't thought about Tank's idea of the value of a rare commodity.  That might keep us around for a while - even if as a curiosity.

A perfect situation. The excess girls can be matched with the excess boys in China. The balance is restored.