Random SF-ish Thought

[kerravonsen]

What would a society be like, if women, but not men, were immortal? (Presumably immortal in the mostly-immortal sense of "can't die of old age, but can be killed").

Comments

[jedibuttercup]

I imagine it would do strange things to family trees, if women could just keep reproducing. And probably result in younger rebellious women trying to off the matriarchs of their families because they'd otherwise have limited opportunities for power, and the matriarchs keeping tight reign on their female offspring to stop such things from happening, and women all up and down the age spectrum using men as pawns. And the men having lots of angst about this, of course, and figuring ways to maneuver the women around, which if the women's personalities tended to freeze along with their physical age, might not be all that difficult...

Probably really distort the idea of romance, as well, and pull it apart from procreation, since any female-male relationship would be temporary from the female's perspective and pretty darn unequal from the guy's side, too.

*musing* Of course, I may be getting some of that from an imperfect memory of reading The Shore of Women when I was in high school.

[kerravonsen]

I'd heard of this book, but never managed to read a copy.

[jedibuttercup]

Doesn't have the immortality angle, but it's very women-have-tech, men-are-savages, totally separate societies. The M/F romance in the book is very transgressive for the cultures, and I'm pretty sure I remember it ending on a depressing note. Very O.o to me when I was 16. =)

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

You're making me think of the social structures in bee hives. :-)