For my 2025 Reading Challenge, I recently read two science fiction graphic novels that imagine a world without men: Y: The Last Man and Woman World. I found myself wondering about the opposite scenario. What would happen if all the women were gone instead?
What Would a World Without Women Look Like?
1. The Event
The storylines of Y: The Last Man and Woman World are shaped by the nature of the catastrophe. In Y: The Last Man, men were lost in a sudden and chaotic fashion. In Woman World, it was gradual. This had practical and emotional impacts on how the stories played out.
The tales were also impacted by the era in which they occurred. Y: The Last Man took place in 2002. The language reflected the time and since organizations were nearly entirely male-run, their sudden loss was devastating to governmental and economic stability.
Woman World, on the other hand, takes place in the future and the loss of men took decades. This meant that women were able to adapt incrementally and had a better chance to respond overall.
If all the world’s women and girls were to disappear, the effects would likely be shaped by these factors as well.
2. Emotional Fallout
I can only imagine the emotional impact of losing all females. Men would likely go through a similar grieving process that the women did. After all, they just lost all their mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, female friends, female teachers, etc. That would be devastating.
However, mixed feelings and even happiness would likely occur for men who were being harmed by women. In Y: The Last Man, some of the women were happy that the men were gone.
I think if all the women suddenly disappeared, then perhaps we would recognize the individual effects they were having on the men and boys in their lives. Men might not feel collectively oppressed by women, but some might feel that way on a personal level.
Dealing With Grief
For those men who do grieve the loss of women, what would this look like? Perhaps it would be affected by factors such as age. Older men might grieve their partners and daughters while younger men would feel the loss of the future family they never got to create.
And would men be allowed to express this grief openly? Or would they still feel limited to “acceptable” male emotions, like anger or distraction? Perhaps the shared trauma would open space for greater emotional vulnerability and connection between them. Or maybe not…
Loneliness and Artificial Companions
A New Image of Women
If men could not process their grief, they might seek ways to numb it or recreate what they had lost- such as through a female AI companion or a virtual reality family. Even if women were gone, the idea of them would remain. I would cringe to know what female identity and sexuality would look like if women weren’t around to decide these for themselves. Especially if the men were lonely.
If this were the case, would these virtual companions bring men together or keep them lonely and separate? The absence of women might shift the landscape of male loneliness in unpredictable ways.
3. Cultural Ripples
One of the first things that came to mind as I imagined the loss of all women is how different this impact would be across time and cultures since women’s role in society varies considerably depending on these factors. However, one thing is consistent:
Women Are Already Sidelined By Society
It is disturbingly easy to imagine a world without women, because their contributions have long been disallowed, limited, and erased.
Their purpose was often limited to marriage and motherhood. So their cultural impact has already been diminished. No need for a sci-fi virus to wipe it out, humans have done that already.
Still, their absence would leave cultural holes on multiple levels: the micro and the macro, and the personal and parasocial.
4. Practical Consequences
In Y: The Last Man, the men died at the turn of the 21st century, plunging governments and organizations into chaos.
In many modern-day societies, however, losing all the men might not cause such a drastic upheaval, as women now play significant (but not yet equal) roles in both the public and private workforce.
Still, organizational stability would be better maintained, if all the women disappeared compared to men. Especially in the following:
- Patriarchal societies
- “Masculine” fields such as policing and construction
- Top levels of all organizations
This speaks to an unequal representation and distribution of power. And men would have to take on traditionally feminine roles like teacher or caregiver to fill in the gaps. But maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad thing… or maybe it would be terrible.
A Real World Example
Not long ago, I ran into an old classmate and we caught up on the paths our lives had taken. He told me that he originally wanted to become a kindergarten teacher, but our school’s guidance counselor told him parents wouldn’t want a man in that role- especially someone like him: tall, heavily muscled, and bearded. So he became a police officer instead.
He didn’t seem as happy with that choice, though. I think he would have made a great teacher, but society’s (valid and well earned) fear of men around vulnerable people cut that path short. It isn’t just women who pay the price for this. Men are hurt too by gender stereotypes.
Yet, if all the women disappeared from caregiving roles, the children would suddenly likely be less safe.
5. Male Self-Expression
How would masculinity change in a world without women?
On one hand, it could intensify- with the world turning into one giant boys’ locker room, full of competition and posturing. On the other, hyper-masculinity might lose its meaning without women as an audience.
How much of male identity is shaped by the desire to appeal to women? And without this goalpost, would men feel liberated- or lost? What new measures might they use to define their lives?
Freed from old pressures, men might lean toward cooperation over competition. Would this mean that they could now dress and act the way they want? Or would they still feel constrained by the judgment of other men?
6. Reproduction
One of the most urgent problems in a world without women would be reproduction. If this problem could not be solved in time, then the human race would only have one generation left. Cloning, artificial wombs, or genetic engineering would become highly critical fields of study.
In Y: The Last Man, one (known) man survived. Does he have a responsibility to repopulate the earth, even though he doesn’t want to? He keeps a low profile to avoid attention. I would cringe to know what would happen if there was one woman left in a world of men. Would consent and autonomy be respected?
A World Without Women is Closer to Our Current World
I started this post as a lighthearted mental exercise, but grew more solemn as I wrote. Imagining a world without women feels closer to our current reality than one without men. Women are simultaneously essential to life on earth, yet sidelined; overworked, yet overlooked.
To be fair, men aren’t fully actualized either, but male contributions to society have been given more space than female ones. The loss of men would feel like a sudden withdrawal from reality, whereas women’s contributions often linger in the realm of “what if?” or “if only”.
However, with the loss of women, I think we would notice how much unrecognized labour they do.
When all the men died in the books, women acknowledged they still needed truck drivers and firefighters. If all the women die, their work will still need to get done somehow.
Another Sidelined Group
Both Y: The Last Man and Woman World imagine the loss of a particular sex. But what about if other groups disappeared? Like a race or ethnicity?
It would, of course, depend on the context; however, we would likely see similar dynamics. Some groups already have so little cultural space that imagining their absence is disturbingly easy. For instance, you can walk into any art gallery with pre-modern art and see very few people of colour in the portraits. And when they are there, they’re often background characters.
They were denied the power to shape those societies, yet society relied on their efforts. The same goes for poor people. Perhaps, just like women, their sudden disappearance would also reveal how much they have contributed, even while being erased.
A Limited but Valuable Discussion
One limitation of this discussion has been its binary framing. The premise of these two books- and much of my own speculation- assumes a strict division between men and women.
For example, every creature with a Y-chromosome dies in Y: The Last Man. This created a stark and simple line for survival. In reality, these lines might not be so clearly defined. Or they would be deeply affected by the nature of the catastrophe- any small change to this would impact who gets affected.
The same ambiguity would arise if a particular race were to disappear. What would count as the defining line- skin colour, ancestry, cultural identity? None of these are clear-cut. Human categories are rarely distinct, but society often expects them to be.
However, I believe there is great value in exploring these ideas from multiple perspectives as long as limitations are acknowledged. Doing so can help us question our engrained assumptions and open the door to new ways of thinking about society and identity.
This reflection has made me think more deeply about the space each of us is allowed to contribute our uniqueness to society, and about the predefined roles that society is comfortable with.
What do you think a world without women would look like?
Messy Bun Book Lover
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