Do We Really Need Men?

I ask this knowing I’m a man, and I’m sure a lot of men are feeling the same as me. Have we outgrown our usefulness? Should we start planning the move to one gender? This is an important issue, and I’d like an answer before I start calling myself Dorothy.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, particularly after my publisher informed me I must direct my novels and articles towards women. They represent over 75 percent of the book-buying public — and 100 percent of the coloring book-buying public.

If women can corner the coloring book market, it stands to reason the next President of the United States should be a woman.

And isn’t it further proof that women don’t need men anymore?

In the very early stages of our existence, men did discover fire by rubbing sticks together. Since gas ranges have done away with rubbing sticks together, men should stop thinking they’re irreplaceable.

As one psychologist pointed out, “Men’s last vestige of usefulness is shoving meat into tubes.” That’s also been automated, which really leaves car detailing and cow tipping.

Women have made amazing strides in the last ten years. With little more than a keyboard and a smartphone, they now dominate social media.

According to a Pew Study, well over half of all Facebook users are women. Sixteen percent comment on posts several times a day (compared to only eight percent of men).

Women are just plain out-reading, out-chatting, and out-commenting their male counterparts, while still raising families and doing more errands than any other time in history.

In fact, driver’s license applications are declining for men while increasing for women. Men are giving up their cars, leaving women to take to the roads — like the boardrooms — with more aggression and authority than ever before.

Women also account for 80 percent of car-buying decisions. They showed this power recently by giving a thumb’s down to electric cars in Britain, fearing electrocution. As one women pointed out: “It rains a lot here.”

Which brings us back to men. What good are they today?

Fertilization has been solved with sperm banks. If every male made even a small contribution (which they do most days, anyway), an ample supply could be kept in cryogenic containers, each labeled by height, eye color and ability to shut up.

So what’s keeping the female population from putting us in space shuttles, and telling us to go find another planet?

It can’t be our company. Women prefer women’s company (60 percent said they’d rather talk to a woman).

It can’t be we’re any good in bed (40 percent said we’re not).

One professor, Richard Lynn, concluded from what he called “a lifetime of academic research” that women need men for one purpose: brains. Rather than calling men “brainy,” he preferred to call males “aggressive brains.”

It seems aggressive brains fulfill an interesting purpose, which goes back to us figuring out how to kill a big animal with a sharp stick.

That eventually translated into science where men used their “aggressive brains” to figure out how to get off this planet. Women didn’t think that was such a good idea. Only ten percent of science professors are women.

Professor Lynn also pointed out that women are scoring better in school on IQ tests simply because of the exams themselves. With its emphasis on course work, the education system rewards diligence over intelligence.

Companies are taking note of this, too. Diligence is now seen as far more valuable than “aggressive brains.” Teamwork is rewarded whereas singular thinking isn’t. Some organizations are even incentivizing teamwork, giving bigger bonuses to consensus builders and less to “aggressive brains.”

Since “aggressive brains” are all we’ve got, men might be the next species on the endangered list. We’re already losing out to women in positions of authority. Today, over 50 percent of managers are women, and two of the top social media companies have women CEOs.

This doesn’t necessarily mean men are on the way out, but our usefulness — particularly our “aggressive brains” — is becoming like coal. It’ll be used until alternatives prove far cleaner and more affordable. At which time — like men — women will be saying: “Why did we ever need them in the first place?”

In anticipation of that day — which isn’t far off — I think I’ll start calling myself Dorothy.

Robert Cormack is a freelance copywriter, novelist and blogger. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores. For more details, go to Yucca Publishing or Skyhorse Press.