Discussion Sex-Selective IVF: A Tentative Idea About How Things Could Improve For Women...
Discussion Sex-Selective IVF: A Tentative Idea About How Things Could Improve For Women...
Apr 25 2025, 11:52 PM
This is something that I've only seen a couple of times in all the years I've been involved with feminism. I think it might be beyond the reaches of liberal feminist imagination, but... Given the progress of reproductive technology in recent decades, do you think that one day, it might be plausible for women to alter the sex ratio of the world in our favor? We could accomplish this with sex-selective IVF (which is illegal in some countries, but not the US), or sex-selective abortion (not my choice due to the hormonal changes that occur just within early pregnancy alone, plus some women's reservations about their own abortions). There is, of course, a lot of talk about artificial wombs, but unlike that, sex-selective IVF has less chance to backfire on women. I think we may be in a window of time to act, before technology increases to the point that men can try to control reproduction by themselves, or the current state of affairs impedes women's choices too much (in the most pessimistic scenario).
As I see it, there may be a variety of factors that could contribute to people choosing IVF for daughters. I think for any movement to work, there should be some sort of external pressure, plus wide appeal. So hopefully that comes with the following points... (It would be nice if we could use incentives like money to discourage having sons and encourage having daughters, but I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself, haha.)
- If people are already considering IVF, it may be easier to overcome one of the greatest hurdles towards this solution: cost. Only those who can afford IVF would choose this (and probably not those with male partners, if I had to guess?), so any moral or practical objections towards IVF itself would already be overridden. I believe IVF is also already increasing in frequency, since fertility rates are going down and the number of single mothers by choice (SMBC) are going up. That is, there is a general audience for IVF; the step towards using IVF to select for girls would be a smaller one than first trying to convince an audience to go for IVF, then sex-selecting.
- Women are growing increasingly aware of the extent of male violence with the emergence of the Internet. We're able to access statistics on male violence towards women and girls, and there are high-profile cases of male violence that likely would have been hushed up in the past (e.g. Gisele Pelicot's case, which was an example of how even wives are not protected from other men by their husbands. A cornerstone of patriarchal marriage).
- I specifically mention sex-selective IVF as opposed to sex-selective abortion because there are many women who would be against aborting their own fetus, even if they are legally pro-choice. If you bring up anything about sex selection to such women, they may picture strangling male infants in their own cribs, or just find the idea of "killing" boys off-putting. But with IVF, this consideration vanishes. Literally no boys are "killed". I may not agree with these women, but I believe that the idea of sex-selective IVF needs to appeal to women from all walks of life to work, as women don't seem to have the solidarity that men do. Some women may be against abortion. Some women may even prefer a daughter for reasons outside of altering the human sex ratio. But the important part is that it happens to begin with, and then we can deal with any major cultural changes downstream.
Here are some of the stipulations I've thought of:
- IVF is incredibly expensive as of right now. I think the situation may improve as technology and demand progress further, kind of like how computers got less expensive, etc. There are medical procedures which never really came down in price, but I believe that the demand has to do with it. Because of the aforementioned fertility rate drops and the fact that more people want IVF for other reasons, I think the problem of cost may be surmountable.
- There are obviously people who are against sex selection on principle. They may point to countries like China or India, where an overabundance of men exist and women are trafficked as brides. I think this would not be a problem with women... There is no longstanding tradition of men being trafficked for such purposes, for one. And the threat of crime from millions of restless, unpaired individuals is, I would think, diminished if those individuals are female versus male. I mean, I myself am agnostic to the causes of male violence. Genetic, environmental, both... Not really my concern, at this point. My main contention is that it exists, and we need to do something about it. We can observe that men are more violent than women in pretty much every arena of life (control for the number of men involved, of course), so why would that change all of a sudden with an increase in the proportion of women? People would have to provide a mechanism for this, or otherwise you could point out how they're engaging in wild speculation for who knows what reason...
Even if women became more violent as a result of becoming a significant majority, however, you can always ask why the other person has a problem with decreasing the incidence of crimes like PIV rape. Of course, there are women who do commit heinous crimes, and men who don't. But there's not much of a reason to purposefully bring a person with a natural weapon into the world, is there? Anything good a man has done (and of course men have created many useful things, can be wonderful people (up for debate, I suppose)), a woman can also do, and without incurring the risk of gang rape, war rape, and other crimes that are more easily committed with a penis. Someone arguing against the idea of selecting for a girl would have to defend leaving it up to chance, or actively choosing a child that just comes with more downsides than a child of the female sex, with the same upsides at best. There's no moral justification in letting "nature" or random chance decide when humans can make choices that will improve our situation as a species; that's just a coward's choice.
- If people are worried that the mere existence of this choice will destabilize a society, you can always point them to Iceland. Genetic screening hasn't turned that country into a fire and brimstone pit, and I doubt taking out a chunk of the male proportion would actually harm anything. So you would see more women than men on a daily basis. Maybe, depending on the optimal proportion, you would barely see any male people anymore. But frankly, so what? Is it really that important that 50% of the population has a penis? It goes back to what I said earlier about penises... They're neutral at best and a liability at worst. If you replaced many of the men in this world with a female version of themselves, I'm pretty sure the world would become safer, at the very least.
- Sex selection may pose a threat to the population size of humans. I think because of reproductive dynamics, it is not necessary to have as many men around as some people might think. (Also, see what happens after major wars.) Since sex selection would likely be an incremental process as more and more women get on board, the proportion of men could possibly be "titrated" to prevent pure logistical issues regarding reproduction and the partnering of heterosexual women. The existence of sperm banks already shows that only a small number of men are required for women to keep having children at a feasible level.
As for genetic diversity, sperm samples could be retrieved from a large number of men... I'm sure there would be many willing to donate if IVF became more popular and visible. Just because some men might be more immediately popular as donors doesn't mean that we couldn't go into gene libraries if, say, a new pathogen came about... Different women might prefer different traits, anyway, so I don't think the population would be that homogenous. Education can be provided on the perils of low genetic diversity.
I do want to acknowledge that this is, of course, a far-sighted idea. IVF is a fledgling industry, and many women actively support patriarchy and would not say no to gestating a male fetus. But even if this is implemented on a tiny scale, I think it's better than nothing. Even one girl who's born knowing that men aren't necessary for life is a step towards progress. The sex ratio need not swing enormously for this to help in some way, just like 4B (which this was inspired by) need not be adopted by every woman to have brought good into this world. In fact, I am banking on the idea that there will be women who choose to give birth to sons. That's how human reproduction works at this time, unfortunately... We do need a decent supply of sperm. Maybe if we get to a stage where an XY zygote can be induced into reproductive tissue differentiation immediately, an absolutist approach towards the male population might work. Or if we can fertilize an egg with another egg, which I believe has been done in mice; possibly in other animals as well.
Alternatively, we could just keep on our current path, and try to teach boys to respect women and girls. Perhaps our foremothers just did it the wrong way, and that's why boys and men have stagnated if not increased in their misogyny. (RIP to those women, but we're different?) We don't have to control our reproduction, either; we can just incubate whatever men put into us like we have for the past thousands, if not millions of years. (I, personally, like the idea of having control over what comes out of my uterus, even if people think it's morally wrong to be an active participant in your own pregnancy. Because in patriarchy, women are just vessels carrying what nature and men want them to carry...) Leave the possibility of giving birth to boys open, or else! (Or else what? Or else the world will collapse like Iceland has, obviously.)
And this is more of a side note, but I genuinely think this is one of the more peaceful options for ending patriarchy, kind of like 4B. It's not done with sadism towards men (because what men?), but an understanding that there are simply more upsides to having daughters than sons for everyone involved, that's all. A cost-benefit analysis, because people tend to do what's most beneficial to them in the end. Women who don't consider themselves "man-haters" might be swayed into just picking XX (or non-SRY in general), if they can't justify leaving it up to luck. And no men would suffer from this unless they make it their own problem. The proportion of men goes down each generation, but nobody needs to fight anyone about it. If someone tries to restrict women from sex-selection, then 4B is the way. I'd personally rather not have a son no matter what (whatever the circumstances), so that's a conviction I'll carry for myself that will ensure safety for women and girls of the future.
I think this sort of peaceful idea is quite compatible with feminism's history, and also shows the power of women to shape humanity, a power that many seem to forget. I think mothers are disrespected in this world; this might help remind people that motherhood is a favor to humanity. Make them not take women's sacrifices for granted, kind of like 4B. And it also works (for me, at least) as a failsafe, knowing that there's always a last resort should this whole male education thing that libfems are doubling on not work. There's still a chartable path towards the abolishment of patriarchy, no matter how unusual...
So anyways, what do you all think? I think a takeaway here is that just because we live in a world where male violence is normalized, doesn't mean it needs to be that way. All it would require is a little mindful family planning. Any caveats or questions are welcome!
.
Edited Apr 26 2025, 12:08 AM by Irinka8347.
Irinka8347
Apr 25 2025, 11:52 PM #1Sorry, please delete if this isn't allowed! I've noticed that the other posts in this forum had links, but this is a text post about an idea I've been nurturing after hearing about 4B.
This is something that I've only seen a couple of times in all the years I've been involved with feminism. I think it might be beyond the reaches of liberal feminist imagination, but... Given the progress of reproductive technology in recent decades, do you think that one day, it might be plausible for women to alter the sex ratio of the world in our favor? We could accomplish this with sex-selective IVF (which is illegal in some countries, but not the US), or sex-selective abortion (not my choice due to the hormonal changes that occur just within early pregnancy alone, plus some women's reservations about their own abortions). There is, of course, a lot of talk about artificial wombs, but unlike that, sex-selective IVF has less chance to backfire on women. I think we may be in a window of time to act, before technology increases to the point that men can try to control reproduction by themselves, or the current state of affairs impedes women's choices too much (in the most pessimistic scenario).
As I see it, there may be a variety of factors that could contribute to people choosing IVF for daughters. I think for any movement to work, there should be some sort of external pressure, plus wide appeal. So hopefully that comes with the following points... (It would be nice if we could use incentives like money to discourage having sons and encourage having daughters, but I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself, haha.)
- If people are already considering IVF, it may be easier to overcome one of the greatest hurdles towards this solution: cost. Only those who can afford IVF would choose this (and probably not those with male partners, if I had to guess?), so any moral or practical objections towards IVF itself would already be overridden. I believe IVF is also already increasing in frequency, since fertility rates are going down and the number of single mothers by choice (SMBC) are going up. That is, there is a general audience for IVF; the step towards using IVF to select for girls would be a smaller one than first trying to convince an audience to go for IVF, then sex-selecting.
- Women are growing increasingly aware of the extent of male violence with the emergence of the Internet. We're able to access statistics on male violence towards women and girls, and there are high-profile cases of male violence that likely would have been hushed up in the past (e.g. Gisele Pelicot's case, which was an example of how even wives are not protected from other men by their husbands. A cornerstone of patriarchal marriage).
- I specifically mention sex-selective IVF as opposed to sex-selective abortion because there are many women who would be against aborting their own fetus, even if they are legally pro-choice. If you bring up anything about sex selection to such women, they may picture strangling male infants in their own cribs, or just find the idea of "killing" boys off-putting. But with IVF, this consideration vanishes. Literally no boys are "killed". I may not agree with these women, but I believe that the idea of sex-selective IVF needs to appeal to women from all walks of life to work, as women don't seem to have the solidarity that men do. Some women may be against abortion. Some women may even prefer a daughter for reasons outside of altering the human sex ratio. But the important part is that it happens to begin with, and then we can deal with any major cultural changes downstream.
Here are some of the stipulations I've thought of:
- IVF is incredibly expensive as of right now. I think the situation may improve as technology and demand progress further, kind of like how computers got less expensive, etc. There are medical procedures which never really came down in price, but I believe that the demand has to do with it. Because of the aforementioned fertility rate drops and the fact that more people want IVF for other reasons, I think the problem of cost may be surmountable.
- There are obviously people who are against sex selection on principle. They may point to countries like China or India, where an overabundance of men exist and women are trafficked as brides. I think this would not be a problem with women... There is no longstanding tradition of men being trafficked for such purposes, for one. And the threat of crime from millions of restless, unpaired individuals is, I would think, diminished if those individuals are female versus male. I mean, I myself am agnostic to the causes of male violence. Genetic, environmental, both... Not really my concern, at this point. My main contention is that it exists, and we need to do something about it. We can observe that men are more violent than women in pretty much every arena of life (control for the number of men involved, of course), so why would that change all of a sudden with an increase in the proportion of women? People would have to provide a mechanism for this, or otherwise you could point out how they're engaging in wild speculation for who knows what reason...
Even if women became more violent as a result of becoming a significant majority, however, you can always ask why the other person has a problem with decreasing the incidence of crimes like PIV rape. Of course, there are women who do commit heinous crimes, and men who don't. But there's not much of a reason to purposefully bring a person with a natural weapon into the world, is there? Anything good a man has done (and of course men have created many useful things, can be wonderful people (up for debate, I suppose)), a woman can also do, and without incurring the risk of gang rape, war rape, and other crimes that are more easily committed with a penis. Someone arguing against the idea of selecting for a girl would have to defend leaving it up to chance, or actively choosing a child that just comes with more downsides than a child of the female sex, with the same upsides at best. There's no moral justification in letting "nature" or random chance decide when humans can make choices that will improve our situation as a species; that's just a coward's choice.
- If people are worried that the mere existence of this choice will destabilize a society, you can always point them to Iceland. Genetic screening hasn't turned that country into a fire and brimstone pit, and I doubt taking out a chunk of the male proportion would actually harm anything. So you would see more women than men on a daily basis. Maybe, depending on the optimal proportion, you would barely see any male people anymore. But frankly, so what? Is it really that important that 50% of the population has a penis? It goes back to what I said earlier about penises... They're neutral at best and a liability at worst. If you replaced many of the men in this world with a female version of themselves, I'm pretty sure the world would become safer, at the very least.
- Sex selection may pose a threat to the population size of humans. I think because of reproductive dynamics, it is not necessary to have as many men around as some people might think. (Also, see what happens after major wars.) Since sex selection would likely be an incremental process as more and more women get on board, the proportion of men could possibly be "titrated" to prevent pure logistical issues regarding reproduction and the partnering of heterosexual women. The existence of sperm banks already shows that only a small number of men are required for women to keep having children at a feasible level.
As for genetic diversity, sperm samples could be retrieved from a large number of men... I'm sure there would be many willing to donate if IVF became more popular and visible. Just because some men might be more immediately popular as donors doesn't mean that we couldn't go into gene libraries if, say, a new pathogen came about... Different women might prefer different traits, anyway, so I don't think the population would be that homogenous. Education can be provided on the perils of low genetic diversity.
I do want to acknowledge that this is, of course, a far-sighted idea. IVF is a fledgling industry, and many women actively support patriarchy and would not say no to gestating a male fetus. But even if this is implemented on a tiny scale, I think it's better than nothing. Even one girl who's born knowing that men aren't necessary for life is a step towards progress. The sex ratio need not swing enormously for this to help in some way, just like 4B (which this was inspired by) need not be adopted by every woman to have brought good into this world. In fact, I am banking on the idea that there will be women who choose to give birth to sons. That's how human reproduction works at this time, unfortunately... We do need a decent supply of sperm. Maybe if we get to a stage where an XY zygote can be induced into reproductive tissue differentiation immediately, an absolutist approach towards the male population might work. Or if we can fertilize an egg with another egg, which I believe has been done in mice; possibly in other animals as well.
Alternatively, we could just keep on our current path, and try to teach boys to respect women and girls. Perhaps our foremothers just did it the wrong way, and that's why boys and men have stagnated if not increased in their misogyny. (RIP to those women, but we're different?) We don't have to control our reproduction, either; we can just incubate whatever men put into us like we have for the past thousands, if not millions of years. (I, personally, like the idea of having control over what comes out of my uterus, even if people think it's morally wrong to be an active participant in your own pregnancy. Because in patriarchy, women are just vessels carrying what nature and men want them to carry...) Leave the possibility of giving birth to boys open, or else! (Or else what? Or else the world will collapse like Iceland has, obviously.)
And this is more of a side note, but I genuinely think this is one of the more peaceful options for ending patriarchy, kind of like 4B. It's not done with sadism towards men (because what men?), but an understanding that there are simply more upsides to having daughters than sons for everyone involved, that's all. A cost-benefit analysis, because people tend to do what's most beneficial to them in the end. Women who don't consider themselves "man-haters" might be swayed into just picking XX (or non-SRY in general), if they can't justify leaving it up to luck. And no men would suffer from this unless they make it their own problem. The proportion of men goes down each generation, but nobody needs to fight anyone about it. If someone tries to restrict women from sex-selection, then 4B is the way. I'd personally rather not have a son no matter what (whatever the circumstances), so that's a conviction I'll carry for myself that will ensure safety for women and girls of the future.
I think this sort of peaceful idea is quite compatible with feminism's history, and also shows the power of women to shape humanity, a power that many seem to forget. I think mothers are disrespected in this world; this might help remind people that motherhood is a favor to humanity. Make them not take women's sacrifices for granted, kind of like 4B. And it also works (for me, at least) as a failsafe, knowing that there's always a last resort should this whole male education thing that libfems are doubling on not work. There's still a chartable path towards the abolishment of patriarchy, no matter how unusual...
So anyways, what do you all think? I think a takeaway here is that just because we live in a world where male violence is normalized, doesn't mean it needs to be that way. All it would require is a little mindful family planning. Any caveats or questions are welcome!
.
. Honestly, I don't see this ever happening on a broad scale, at least not with the privatization of healthcare in countries like the US and the politics of countries that have public healthcare (like, Canada has already made sex-selective IVF illegal...). At this point in time, sex-selective IVF is definitely a patch solution, just a side idea next to the glaring problems we have with... everything else, including the huge number of kids that already exist, as you mentioned. But if people are going to do IVF anyway because they want their own biological offspring (and I suspect those who care about biology to this extent may (?) be more amenable to the idea than the general population, if only slightly), I figure this could be a whisper in their ear...