[Forthcoming in the journal Political Theology.]
Short overview
Over a century ago, Charlotte Perkins Gilman published Herland, which portrays and explores the idea of a society populated only by women. Herland was a forerunner of women-only feminist utopias, including Joanna Russ’ The Female Man, Suzy McKee Charnas’ Holdfast Chronicles tetralogy, and, most recently, Lauren Beukes’ 2020 Afterland. Of course, this genre often recalls the Greek myth of the Amazons, notably in William Moulton Marston’s Wonder Woman series and Elizabeth Bear’s Carnival.
It seems that there is no shortage of interest in the idea of a world without men.
These novels audaciously suggest that men might just be superfluous. The indisputable fact remains that there is nothing that men do that women cannot also accomplish. Except for one thing, that is: produce male gametes. In the utopias, that difficulty is overcome in a variety of ways. Some depend on frozen sperm, others arrange fleeting encounters with subjugated men. Still others accomplish reproduction through parthenogenesis, a type of asexual reproduction which does not require fertilization.
As is often the case, speculative fiction begins to find resemblances in the non-fictional world. With the emergence of artificial insemination, a world without men may no longer be a matter of speculation. In fact, recent scientific developments have even advanced the possibility of human parthenogenesis.
This article explores the following question: if it were in fact possible to create a world without men, for what reasons might we want to pursue or forgo such a world?
The motivations for instituting a world without men may be readily apparent to those who have suffered patriarchy’s most oppressive effects. Many of the societies depicted in the feminist utopias seem to be ideal places to live.
Yet despite these merits, there is good reason to reject the utopian vision of a world without men. In this piece, I focus on a biblical warrant for maintaining a world inclusive of men found in 1 Corinthians 11. There, Paul writes that there is “no woman without man” (choris andros), and “no man without woman.” (We might add, in the same Pauline-Beauvoirian logic, that there are no cisgender persons without trans persons.) At the center of a text that emphasizes the interdependence of God’s creatures, Paul reminds us that interdependence also obtains across lines of gender difference.
We humans are not always eager to acknowledge our interdependence. The utopian longing for independent, self-sufficient reproduction can induce us to overlook the degree to which we need others, including especially those who are not like us.
While the piece defends the maintenance of gender diversity inclusive of men, its central aim is to sustain the ongoing effort to include women and non-men in church and scholarly leadership, and to correct historic exclusions of those voices. As Paul insists, humans are endowed with many gifts, and all gifts deserve integration and acknowledgment. To the degree that the theological disciplines—including especially political theology—have failed to integrate the voices of those who are not men, they are deficient and require revision.