Probably the most momentous event in the history of life was the coming of sexual reproduction. In asexual reproduction, the creature simply reproduces itself (e.g., a bacterium) making exact genetic copies. In sexual reproduction, two creatures have to exchange genetic material and a new creature is formed from the resulting mixture. (I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, obviously.) And yes to some extent "female" also makes sense only in the context of there being a male. We don't talk of a "female" bacterium. But the point is that in sexual reproduction, the "females" continue to reproduce out of their own bodies as their asexual ancestors did -- although they must receive genetic material from the male in order to do so. Meanwhile, the male deposits his genetic material into the body of another -- and that is the end, in a strictly biological sense, of his contribution to reproduction. (Obviously, in many species, our own included, the contribution can often go beyond the simple deposit of genetic material.) That's what I meant when I wrote that nature's default position is female. The feminist slogan "the future is female" could be rewritten to read "the past is female". And indeed the future may well be female -- that's certainly where we're headed. With enough sperm banks, you could get rid of human males entirely -- artificial insemination of women and then either abort all the male fetuses or force all little boys to lop off their cocks, load them full of estrogen and ritalin, and "transition" to girls, as they like to say. You can never get rid of human females without ending the species. (That's why I wrote in the abortion thread of a week ago that women have glimpses of eternity in their very bodies.) SR ![]() |