Again, I find myself agreeing with you generally, while just feeling I’m more cynical about everything. I think enough women would be greedy and covet power enough to cause occasional, if fewer, mass conflicts. But I admit that I base that in part on a Y-The Last Man scenario when all the pre-existing patriarchal baggage still existed, but men had just suddenly all died off.
Otherwise you have a point that it is a bit like talking about different species - it is frankly hard to imagine what a parthenogenetic ( or whatever ) human might actually be like culturally. Not like us for sure.
Okay, I thought you might have been saying that testosterone production was literally entirely dependent on the presense of the y-chromosome. My bad :).
No, but it does track some, particularly in areas relating to male territorialty and female maternal agression ( specifically in mice, let it be said ). I think binary views on how sex hormones act is slowly eroding, as increasingly they seem to operate in complementary fashion with each other.
Again this isn’t me disagreeing per se - higher testosterone levels is definitely correlated with certain types of higher aggression in males. I just find it interesting that both male and female-linked hormones seem to play sometimes contrasting roles in both sexes.
It’s kinda funny to me to see a thread full of men saying that of course women would end up acting just like them, because the current male-dominated society is the just the best way for things to work. For example, someone said corporations would always be profit-driven, but maybe an all female society would have a lot more non-profits, or a lot more government agencies. Profit might be play completely different role.
Of course women can be violent, but I think in most societies, women socialise other women to be less violent and more cooperative. I don’t think that would change if you took all the men away. I don’t think Kim Jong’s wife would carry on the way he does, for example, so that whole situation would collapse and defuse. There would be a lot less terrorism. Would levels of military funding stay the same? I think a lot of women currently would spend rather spend the money on health care, or education. Maybe that’s just my circle though.
Just out of curiosity, if Trump disappeared, does that mean Melania would be President or how far down the list of successors do you have to go to find a woman? Is it Betsy DeVos?
Yes. Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation would technically be ahead of her, but she is disqualified Arnold Schwarznegger-style due to a non-U.S. birthplace. Betsy DeVos is the next woman in line behind her at #16 in the line of succesion.
As much as we don’t want to admit it, force is the basic building block of power. if I am willing to exert force against you and you are not willing to exert force in return, all your base are belong to us.
If the world was all female with only a tiny minority of breeding males, we would still have wars
The hypothetical assumes reproduction continues, somehow. Assuming whatever causes half the human race to vanish does not in itself cause overall extinction, I have to figure the massive reduction in aggression following the loss of the Y chromosome will smooth off almost all (but certainly not all) violence and warfare. The more violent countries will likely be the ones that try to hang onto state religions.
And again the discussion veers towards blaming the y-chromosome for the existence of war.
It therefore bears repeating that wars do not start out of “male agression” but out of greed and powerplay by those in charge of the country.
To think that if women were in charge of a country there would be no greed and powerplay is utterly delusional.
Oh and let’s not forget fear and religion as prime motivators for wars.
I should also add, as a motivator for war, the all too common sense of feeling superior to other societies, accompanied by the idea that therefore your group is entitled to more than the others.
One could argue that men’s strong desire for sex has been the ultimate driving force for many features of civilization that we treat as the default, but might very well not be present in a world without men. Or more precisely, procreative sex.
Yes, but greed and power plays don’t spring out of a vacuum. If a social system selects for strong, wealth-seeking domineering men and favors such men in leadership positions, then such societies will more likely embrace greed and power plays, right?
If a social system selects leaders who are strong, “mothering” types who lean towards talking things out and rather than giving beatdowns, perhaps societies would act differently. These societies will likely not be as rich and ambitious as societies that are happy to wave their big sticks, but they would likely be more peaceful.
Do I know that this is how an all-woman society would be run? Hell no. But I have no reason to think it would operate just like a patriarchal one.
Which is one reason I brought up the investment habits of the genders, as a stand in for greed. Women tend to be more cautious in their wealth acquisition.
It is my impression that the “strong women” that float to the top are less forgiving, more harsh and more likely to play dirty than men. More of an abusive mother than what we understand by motherly.
Sure there is more “talking things out” but in the sense of “we need to talk!”
Even if we accept this as universally true (and I don’t because it contradicts my own experiences), these women exist within a macho framework that values these traits over softer ones. It could be female leaders feel the need to be extra abrasive just to work against gender bias. Much like how the Napolean complex supposedly affects short men. Clinton was accused of this often.
Well, I’m just using the term “Y chromosome” generically to cover all aspects of what we call masculinity. Of course there’d still be wars, I just predict they’d be less frequent and less intense, as would be societal violence overall. This isn’t assuming there’d be no violence or war, so stop assuming that’s what we’re assuming.
I’m going to go with you on this one. I’m not convinced that things would be significantly different; but IF there are fewer wars, it would be because armed conflict is seen as a last resort - meaning that any wars that do occur would be perceived as a struggle for survival with no holds barred. (The Republic of Mama Bear isn’t looking for a fight, but you better not get anywhere near her cubs.)
I’ve given this matter some additional thought since last I posted.
The unknown factor is what effect it has on individual women and their interactions (or men, but the hypothetical is about women) to exist in perpetuity as a single-sex society. It might make either sex less fired-up and competitive or it might take away enough of the sparkle and zest that folks become more adversarial due to less offsetting joy or whatever. I’m guessing more peaceful but it’s not an area of study I’m much familiar with. (Many single-sex environments are either temporary, chosen by the participants, or non-absolute, any of which would change the dynamics somewhat).