all 9 comments

[–]greenish 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

For the past few years I have been closely supporting a friend through fertility treatments, pregnancy, childbirth, and raising a baby.

I am absolutely awed by what the female body is capable of. The complexity an body-wisdom of it, all the adaptations of millions of years. Just how important things that our culture thinks of as unimportant are to the health and wellbeing of the child. I am shocked at how much of this is made unapparent to us, by our culture's male bias.

I genuinely do not think men will be able to technologically erase women's role in reproduction, or replicate it, though I do believe they'll have a good go. They don't even understand everything our bodies do, or the importance of it. Let alone the bonding and social aspects - would men be willing to sacrifice themselves to take up the roles that women currently play in children's lives? because that's what would be needed to raise children, and so far they have proven reluctant. How could they reproduce something that they're so ignorant of?

I don't think they can disappear us. I do think they may try to turn us into commercialized resources that can be purchased for our sexual function, or our reproductive function, as childcare, or cleaning/cooking. In the past they obtained a wife, who performed all these functions for one man and was not paid, but was "looked after" financially. I think they may try to split up the functions and many men will purchase separate ones from different women (prostitutes, surrogacy, nannies, maids, etc...), who could as a class be forced into these roles as waves of economic crises squeeze them out of other forms of employment.

[–]Anna_Nym 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I don't see this technology as viable because gestation is so complicated. I think it would likely cause a class-based stratification of womahood if it happened. Potential positive effects are that career-oriented women would have an easier time developing their careers, and it would make it easier to preserve gender equality in relationships. I think the physical realities of pregnancy and childbearing are under discussed as a cause of why relationships slide into stereotypical gender roles.

But if this technology happens in the real world, there is no way it will be cheap. So women who either can't afford it or have a religious/other type of motivation for physically gestating a child will still deal with the physical effects of pregnancy. I think they will be at a greater disadvantage because more elite women will have no need to advocate for policies to help them. I think they will likely feel some guilt that will sublimate into resentment or disgust.

But even though I think it would be dystopian, I also would have loved the option of artificial pregnancy. I would have liked to have more children, but pregnancy/breastfeeding had too great a negative impact on my life.

[–]grixit 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Reproduction without men would be easier to implement than reproduction without women.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But men have the power and money, so they will dictate how this process would operate.

[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Extermination. Extinction. Enslavement. I think I've already read incel and TW threads about this. They want us to disappear, because they hate us. They'll use us to a certain point, employ robots, and we'll slowly go extinct.

You'd have the TW claiming to be the "ideal/superior women", already in powerful positions in society/politics, bending over backwards to live up to men's pornographic expectations, already male from birth.

Men have all the money and power, and many men in the STEM fields are raging psychopathic narcissists--- this will NOT end well for women. Tech is invading more and more of our daily lives. Now I am legit afraid of social media platforms to the point where I'm considering nuking all of them, because none are safe for women who don't "submit and obey" to the trans pro-porn-culture party line.

They don't see us as people, but as commodities to sell/exploit to other men.

[–]Tikiri 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There’s a fascinating article about this that I just read: https://unherd.com/2020/07/the-disturbing-history-of-artificial-mothers/

[–]sisterinsomnia 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Wasn't there a dystopian science fiction novel about this? I think the idea was that once eggs could be frozen and an artificial womb worked and sex robots were skilled then there was no reason at all to keep women alive? Maybe I imagined this.

More seriously, I have no idea what would happen. Would women no longer be othered? In theory, those changes would eradicate much of the sex difference, but then, of course, the need for two sexes would be much reduced, especially of eggs could be frozen. I think the results severely depend on the ultimate reasons for widespread misogyny. Is it because there is this one thing men can't do without women and it is a thing they want the power over? Or is it something quite different?

The answer depends on that question, imo.