With expanding reproductive choices, we can expect to see more women choose to reproduce without men entirely. Fortunately, the data for children raised by only females is encouraging. As the Princeton sociologist Sara S. McLanahan has shown, poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

That’s good, since women are both necessary and sufficient for reproduction, and men are neither. From the production of the first cell (egg) to the development of the fetus and the birth and breast-feeding of the child, fathers can be absent. They can be at work, at home, in prison or at war, living or dead.

Poverty is what hurts children, not number or gender of parents. 

An idea so powerful it's worth repeating. 

Recently, the geneticist J. Craig Venter showed that the entire genetic material of an organism can be synthesized by a machine and then put into what he called an “artificial cell.” This was actually a bit of press-release hyperbole: Mr. Venter started with a fully functional cell, then swapped out its DNA. In doing so, he unwittingly demonstrated that the female component of sexual reproduction, the egg cell, cannot be manufactured, but the male can.

When I explained this to a female colleague and asked her if she thought that there was yet anything irreplaceable about men, she answered, “They’re entertaining.”

Gentlemen, let’s hope that’s enough.

It's not enough.

What if women don't need guys anymore?

Worse, what if men are known to be a liability?

Nature has examples of species that do fine without males.

do we then go back to being like cavemen? club a woman and bring her back to our houses?

No, I think we're going to have to do a lot better than that.

Oh come now. Where is your idea of gender-actual-warfare? Bring out some good Hobbesian dystopian nightmares of returning to darkish ages of equality with better technology. #menarepigs?

A fight between the genders would be impractical.

Men are just going to have to live with the thought that the better alternative to coupling might very well be... Nothing.

quitter =p

I know when I'm beat. :)

haha, adam!

I'm just thinking that men might behave less badly if we fully accept the fact that we are obsolete relics from a bygone era. 

:)  haha!  this made me laugh all weekend, adam.

i think evolution only makes us stronger.  all of us.  so let's hope men don't go!  plus, i'm raising two boys... they'd better not be just a big waste of my time!! :)

i, for one, am hoping men get very romantic and helpful.

and there's always room for men like this:

I am certain you are raising your boys to be kind and respectful and romantic and helpful.

The more boys who are raised that way, the more hopeful I am for the future of men. 

And I'm glad I made you laugh!

so far, so good: this morning, my 4-year-old said, "i only like shorts with big pockets so when i find beautiful treasures for my mommy i have somewhere to put them."

he puts these "beautiful treasures" in his treasure box, which is filling up with things like broken rubber bands, seed pods, paper clips, pieces of string, bottle caps, and anything that strikes his fancy when he's out and about.

i like to think his treasure box is proof of a budding romanticist who is kind, respectful, and helpful.

Yes! Plus he can see the value and beauty in everyday things. His world is full of wonder.

This line still resonates with me:

Poverty is what hurts children, not the number or gender of parents.

That should be a problem the world is able to solve...ahh humans

Ah, humans. :)