Its a (wo)Man's world!!

Exit the Male.....The battle of the sexes has moved to a petri-dish.

If one were to go with the much hyped claims of human cloning, I am starting to believe that men are becoming redundant in the reproductive scheme of things.

The algebra of genetic make up is such that while women can be replicated, men can't be similarly xeroxed. This is becaouse it is the ova which is at the crucible of creation. Women with their XX chromosome, can create more females. On the other hand, men with their XY chromosome can't simply do without the X chromosome in the female ova. So, men are disadavantaged at the cloning game.

Even after fertilization, the nascent embryo is implanted into a womb to await it's birth. Here too, it's the female who is indispensable to the process, not the male.

Could it be this impending threat of redundancy the real reason for the outcry against the breakthrough's in cloning?

The real problem in our male dominated society is not that such techniques would one day allow man to be god, but---ultimate blasphemy-- that they could enable woman to play god !
Such male fears are older than history, but currently reached crisis point. Many pagan and animistic traditions when subsumed under christianity, were robbed of their original meaning. )(Dan Brown rings a bell)

Paradoxically, Mary , mother of Jesus was herself an "immaculate conception" and gave birth to her son similarly without any human male intervention.

According to one theory, men are nothing more than " accidental" women created through random genetic mutation. So, far from being heaven born priviledged sons of a patriarichal god..men may be nothing more than a chance throw of the evolutionary dice.

Hinduism just corroborates this concept. The " Ardhanareshwor" or the Shiv-Shakti combine symbolised the seamless union of male female principle, the yin and yang of seeming opposites to make a larger whole, greater than the sum of it's individual parts.

There is no getting away from it. In the pre christian and pre brahminc traditions, the woman was very much on TOP. And contemporary science will soon ensure that she resumes that position.

Goodbye guys, It hasn't been particularlry nice knowing you!!

p.s. Life's joy lies in its diversity. To loose the male sex..why would women want to loose the joy of the ridiculous.