O Brave New World, That Has Such....No Men In It

Greetings, Ducks! As many of you may have guessed by now, this is a blog about gender. (Well, and privilege. Primarily privilege. In fact, when I renamed it, I should have just gone with "Privilege Privilege Privilege...blah blah blah, Privilege!"--but that would have been an even worse url.) As it turns out, however, soon I may need to stop writing here--because my work will have been done!

That's right, ducks--it seems that scientists have created synthetic sperm! And that can mean just one thing:

Synthetic sperm’ from stem cells raises hope for male infertility

Wait, no, that's not it! (Though wow, I'd never guess that the first take on this would be how it could benefit men.) No, what everyone is talking about is this:

Synthetic sperm brings mad feminist dream a step closer

The idiotic internet blather following the creation of artificial human sperm evokes the writings of mad feminists who dreamed of a world without men.

Now, let us leave for the moment that there are plenty of women and feminists (and even a lot of people who are both) who like men, just not how so many men behave. (Because of, you know, the oppression.) Actually, don't leave that, because that's the whole fucking point: it's not exactly a mainline feminist viewpoint to advocate for the genocide of one half the human species, except in the mind of Neil Lyndon. (Hint: Maureen Dowd--Maureen Dowd--isn't exactly an unimpeachable source for your "feminists hate men and want to get rid of them" argument.)

I mean, this is so Old School, so "bra-burning feminist hippies" stuff--I'd almost expect to see a Gloria Steinem reference.

...et voila:

Q: What do you think 21st-century feminism looks like?

It looks like you. It looks like each self-respecting women in the 21st century. It's not for me to define; the message of feminism is that each of us, as female human beings, define ourselves. There are some generalities that you can see. It's much more international, I'm happy to say. I think clearly most of the country now understands that women can do what men can do; the problem is that they don't understand that men can do what women can do, which as I was saying, is the reason why women still suffer from having two jobs

Now, I've been reading bell hooks a lot lately, so I'm not such a huge fan of Steinem and some of the other more prominent Second Wave leaders who focused their attention almost completely on the issues of white, middle-class women. Still, the comments section is painful:

Can we have dismissiveness?

A broad with a narrow mind...
Shouldn't they call themselves "masculinists"? Seems more appropriate.

Mrs. Steinem, please exit stage left...
Thanks.

If you really want to have an honest, cerebral look into a 'real feminist's' mind you should google...Melinda Jelliby
(warning: don't)

Howabout sexist fauxgressiveness?

You poor saps just can't take the thought of a woman being smarter than you. I would think you would be used to it, judging from your comments I would say just about everyone above the age of three is smarter than you. Its one thing to be stupid, its another to revel in your stupidity. This guy thinks Gloria is a complete dish and always has been.

Just plain sexism?

woof!

Gloria Stinem is some kind of gal }:>

Aaah, Gloria! You're still hot but you're no Sarah Palin. Now that's a "self-respecting" woman!

Bonus round: a Jane Fonda reference?

I won't take any gratuitous personal attacks on this woman even though she is nothing more than a mouthpiece for flowery quips and idioms from some 60's hippie manifesto (which started decades prior to the 60's actually).

I honestly look at Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and their contemporaries (sp?) today as ironically exploited and in no way empowered whatsoever.

BINGO! What'd I win?

You know, after all that, maybe I'm changing my mind, and we really should look into this world without men thing--I wonder what it would be like:

And why would any of us want a world with no men anyway? Who would carry our heavy luggage up the stairs after getting home from a vacation? After the jump, 15 things we’d miss about men if they ever became extinct.

1. Their 5 o’clock shadow.
2. Intercourse and outercourse.
3. How cute and vulnerable they look first thing in the morning.
4. The way they reassure us we’re nothing like our mothers.
5. Their ability to reach the high shelves at the grocery store.
6. Taking it like a man when we have a PMS outburst.
7. Their cute little nicknames for us.
8. Reassuring us we’re nothing like the bitches their friends date.
9. How well they lie about the size of our ass in our skinny jeans.
10. How they always know where all the wires go.
11. The way they look in a suit.
12. How good they are at killing the bugs.
13. And installing the AC window unit.
14. The sound of their voice in the dark wishing us “good night.”
15. The way they look holding a baby.

Ah, fuckit. Let's just skip to the whole life after men and women thing then; the planet will thank us.