recently, a disturbing thought spooked in my mind. in the actual debates about human genome project, genetic engineering and the like i always miss the question about the consequences for the long-time problematic relationship between human genders.
for aeons and still, the most important positions of society, science, politics, arts, philosphy and business are being occupied by men. the last female bastion is parturition to ensure propagation of mankind (as far as i can see it according to history, that's the only task men always granted women and doing so, they simultaneously could restrain them to a role as mothers at the margins of society). i consider this not as the constitutional arrangement of nature but as a status quo whose genesis i honestly do not feel able to analyze. i hardly can shape the present scenario very well.
regarding the current efforts in creating life the artificial way (guess what, yet another male-dominated field), wouldn't it be imaginable that the intention behind those efforts is purely to take over that last but probably most important disposition from the suspected female sibling?
in pretty oversimplyfied words (which might lack scientific proof but not good intuition), male behavior lacks a respect for creation in a sense that it tends to destroy for the sake of creativity. and men mostly tend to see women as sex objects, always willing to have intercourse, thereby inferior and in need for protection (a way of perception i do not wish to share, though).
the only exception of such disrespect for equally created individuals is that men indeed do respect maternity. their own mothers and the mothers of their children are sacred in a sense of being responsible for the most valuable personalities in a man's life: himself and his natural clone. which leads men still to feel jealous and insufficient regardless of all the power and influence they already gained.
but what if this respect decreases due to empowerment of procreation by the means of gene technology? do i have to fear that women will become modern slaves of lust or even an oppressed human underclass in a world ruled by male darwinism? is this another fatal development accompanying the already deeply discussed consequences of genetic selection, loss of human identity and drone production? or merely the other side of male paranoia?
and then i fell asleep drenched in cold sweat.